[Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of guest posts by Devin Murphy, a theologically conservative Christian who attended the recent Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina. Read the first post, The Emergent Church and Me: A Disclaimer, here.]
First Impressions of the Wild Goose Festival
After driving… and driving… and driving… we finally landed at Shakori Hills. I was expecting to run over some cows on the way in but as I went up a little hill I saw a flood of parked cars. As we crept in some more we found the nice volunteers who had the job of hanging out at the entrance away from all of the festivities, that had to get boring. So kudos to them for sacrificing some of the fun in order to direct tired travelers to parking spots and camp sites.
We began driving and realized there were no immediate parking spots, so we just kept following the dirt road until we drove past a large tree-line and parked there while we went to get our volunteer gear. Wes had just decided to jump onto the trip on Tuesday, so he hadn’t registered or anything. I told him that rumors were floating around that nobody would be turned away, but Tom and I had urged him to volunteer so we aren’t just mooching off of their kindness. So he filled out a volunteer form and got assigned some shifts in the merchandise barn. He was psyched and we were too. It was very cool to be given a bag full of Wild Goose Festival swag including a really awesome Blood Water Mission water canteen and an official festival t-shirt. I would encourage anybody planning to go next year to take advantage of the opportunity to volunteer. I was on the stage production crew and many of those who were signed up to volunteer for it ended up not coming! The help is needed to put on such a big event and we felt the weight of being under-staffed for our tasks. It’s also an entirely different view of the festival when you have responsibilities that have to be met in order for it to happen. There are also some other cool perks that will go untold so you will go ahead and sign up now, then find out when you’re there and ready to work next year!
We then roamed to the nearest place to set up our tents and began that (lame) process. We were surrounded by probably 40 other tents on the little patch of land. People had large gazebo-like canopies with their respective tents nicely laced around it. There were groups of college kids, families with their infants and grandparents, you name it. Every people group you could imagine was there and set up. Once we finished setting up our tents and attempting to settle up our sleeping arrangements we had the night to roam some more and catch the scene.
It was beginning to get dark and we heard the familiar sound of the pirate/gypsy/nomad band called Psalters raging on the stage. They had come to various events in our hometown of Asheville, NC so it was good to hear them. Immediate familiarity does the soul good in a land of strangers. As we were walking we noticed their gigantic school bus turned pirate ship parked right across from our campsite. This assured me that throughout the night we would hear great music as we were going to bed, we were not let down. Every night I would hear some Psalters rendition of Pink Floyd permeating the land, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Something fun about a brand spanking new festival is that you learn certain things along the way. The questions for us in the 21st century are ones like the following:
Is there cell phone service?
Is there wifi?
Can I charge my phone somewhere?
Does this place have showers?
You catch my drift. Most everyone I met had the same questions on that first night. It was fun hearing rumors of charging stations and warm showers. When we realized we couldn’t begin to figure that out in the midst of people and events happening all around us, we picked out one essential that we were going to focus on finding. Can you guess what that was?
The Patheos RV!
Rumor had it that some folks would be gathering there for some adult refreshments. We began just following the dirt road past the main stage and the various activist vendors to realize that we had wandered off of the festival property. Of course that would happen to the conservatives there huh? We turned back and saw a stream of people walking towards some Christmas lights through the woods to which we found a small bridge leading us to the other side of the festival grounds where at least 800 people were buzzing about. There was a geodesic dome set up that was packed with people listening to Eliacin Rosario-Cruz. If I knew what he was talking about during that time I’d tell you! The crowd was so thick around his talk that I wasn’t going to try and press in to hear him.
Then lo and behold I see a tall man with a button up shirt and a stylish fedora laughing about something with a small group of people around him. It was Doug Pagitt! All the sudden what came to mind was hearing his debate with Chris Roseborough (of Pirate Christian Radio) on the topic of Hell, the whole Yoga discussion with John MacArthur that was blown out of proportion and his attempt to talk with Todd Friel on Way Of The Master radio. I had listened to his radio show and a few other podcasts he was on so I was pretty familiar with him. I then proceeded to walk up to him and tell him that the conservatives had arrived and we were wondering where the Patheos RV was. He grinned and gave me a big hug saying something like “welcome, Heaven help you” with a big smile. He is a pretty social guy so people were grabbing at his attention, then another stylish fellow with mud on his face comes up to us. He asked Doug if he wanted a sip of his drink, which was one of the very delectable adult beverages we were seeking. Then Doug puts his arm around this fellow and turns to us and says “guess what, this guy right here has a book out right now through IVP (InterVarsity Press)! The man with him then introduced himself and it was none other than Mark Scandrette! So my eyes are popping out even more because the day before the event I listened to the guys on the Homebrewed Christianity Podcast talking about Mark and how he is the best dressed Emergent of the decade or something like that. So I had heard a lot about him but hadn’t heard him or gotten to read his stuff. Based on the looks of his photo on the Wild Goose Festival website, he didn’t seem like a guy that would be all that approachable. He kind of looked like a rock star (which he is). I did know that his ministry was in San Francisco, so I thought he would probably be familiar with the ministry I used to work with in San Francisco. Then as Doug got pulled into another crowd Mark stayed with us and we got to talk for a long time. The content of that talk (that I can remember) will be in the next blog post of this series.
In conclusion the first night was a blast. Throughout the event we did find the mysterious charging station. You have never seen so many iPhones and Blackberrys charging in one place at the same time. As far as I know, in all 4 days of the event, nothing was stolen! How cool is that? I mean there was thousands of dollars worth of phones charging in one spot, and they were left alone. That’s not something you would see happen at a typical music festival. This is another assurance to me that the people at the Wild Goose Festival were not the average festival-goer. This would shine even more as the festival continued. I have many more stories to tell, I hope you can keep up!
Thanks again,
Devin Murphy @21centkid
http://www.21centkid.tumblr.com
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