(This message is for David Byrne. If you’re not David Byrne, feel free to scroll away.) Dear David Byrne, (I hope it’s OK that I call you David.) You don’t know me, but I was row G, seat 112 at your performance in Durham on Monday night. (By the way, this is not a concert review, but more of a thank-you note, and a bit of a confession.) As you’re well aware, things here on the planet have been less than optimum lately for compassionate human beings. The cruelty has been unrelenting, the hatred never far away, the grief ever-present. Like most people, for a while now I’ve been getting up every day, doing my little bit, making my contribution, trying to bring a little light to the dark places where I can, but honestly, I haven’t felt like it’s amounted to much lately. The losses have piled up, the suffering has accumulated, and it’s left me feeling listless and lost. Fortunately, Me From A Few Months Ago had the foresight to know that Last Monday Me would need to find himself in that theater, on that night, in that seat, with my wife and daughter next to me, surrounded by a few thousand other similarly worn down souls. The house lights faded to black, the curtain opened, and there you were, bathed in white light, flanked by three of the unthinkably talented cohorts you’ve been traveling with over the past year, whose faces are so familiar now they felt like old friends. And in a millisecond, what struck me was the absolute silence in that space, as if an exhausted multitude had collectively leaned in to try and hear the whisper of hope beneath the ugly, hissing din of these days, and it came in the form of your voice, singing: Everyone is trying to get to the bar. The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven. Tears welled up in my eyes and I heard myself exhale loudly. It’s been a while since I’ve done that. As the song ended, you turned and faced an image of the earth, saying, “There she is: our Heaven; the only one we have,” and I remembered what this is all for, the gravity of these days, the urgency of living in such perilous moments. Seconds later, you launched into “Everybody Laughs” and the full band assembled from the wings, we all rose to our feet, not in obligation but in the involuntary pull of hearts that have been starved for jubilation, and we danced ourselves alive again. I often talk to people about art as activism, as a catalyst for social change, as inspiration and release, but there, for those two hours, I was reminded of art as medicine for the soul; the way words and melodies and voices and similarly-intentioned people can do the miraculous inside a human heart. A dozen times throughout the night, I’d catch myself thinking, “I wish she could see this,” or, “I wish he were there." But then I would quickly reply, “But you’re here, now. Be here, now.” You and your glorious ensemble didn’t give us an escape from the world outside, but the chance to hold all of it together: the grief and the fear, the celebrations and the sorrows. We appealed to our better angels while not turning away from the demons inside or around us. Yes, the night was (as I had been promised by many online), a joyful, life-affirming collective artistic experience like few in my life, but it was more than that for me. It was a reminder of what humanity is here for, it was the road back to a version of me I’d lost, a lifeline in a season that has often rendered me lifeless. I so wish the 8 billion other war-weary human beings on the planet could have found themselves in that theater, as I think it would have altered the trajectory of our shared journey. Yet, looking around at the radiant faces of the thousands surrounding me as the curtain closed and the houselights came up, it was clear that none of us were leaving as we arrived. I know i wasn’t. I share this with you because even with all the success you’ve had and the places your gifts have taken you, I imagine, like the rest of us, you also have moments when it doesn’t seem like the work you do makes a difference, like the effort isn’t changing anything, but I wanted to let you know that this isn’t true. In fact, David, that’s what I left the theater with on Monday: the assurance that doing my little bit matters, too, that it isn’t for nothing, that the efforts and offerings of every single weary but defiantly joyful person dancing around me haven’t been wasted. I realized that we were a beaming, dancing microcosm of the billions of people on this planet who still wake every morning, courageously making the case for kindness in the small and close of their lives, people who are excavating goodness out of the broken rubble left in hatred’s wake. One of the many lines I carry with me from the night is, “We're only tourists in this life, only tourists, but the view is nice.”Sometimes the view is nice. Sometimes, it is breathtaking. The path of my 56-year life led me to row G, seat 112 on that Monday night, and it was exactly the place I needed to be. I know you didn’t plan this entire tour for me, but it sure felt like it, which is the true gift of the artist. So, thank you, David, for reminding me why my being here matters, why each of us matters, why the world, as ugly as it can be, has too much beauty to give up on. I’ll keep getting up every day, doing my little bit, making my contribution, and trying to bring a little light to the dark places where I can. I hope our paths cross again, maybe on a future tour stop or another theater, but if not, then hopefully at the bar called Heaven.I hope you’ll let me buy you a round. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe
