Leonard Cohen

Doing errands yesterday, Fresh Air was on, and I was just riveted by a poem being read. It turned out to be Leonard Cohen reading A Thousand Kisses Deep. I vaguely remembered that he was going to be in concert in Dallas, so I checked online, and lo! It was that night. Calling Will, I found out that he had heard on NPR that morning about the concert, and had thought he wanted to go. After some frenzied phone calls, we had a babysitter and tickets.

This is the first time in my married life that I've really wanted to go to a concert. Will and I have never been to one together. I don't know why, I think there just hasn't been anyone we've wanted to see that bad. So you can see how amazing it is that we both wanted to go, and without talking about it. We call that a God Thing.

Leonard Cohen is 75. He looks old, but definitely spry, and his voice has gotten deeper with time. I think his age added a lot of poignancy to his performance. I was amazed by the prophetic significance and weight of a number of his songs--so powerful. And of course his poetry is amazing. I really don't have words to give any kind of justice to the experience, except to say that the first song had me crying, the second was like a thunderbolt, and I just sat there amazed most the time. I think that because I haven't listened to a lot of his music, I had the best possible experience; hearing old songs for the first time ever-live.

I really didn't know what to expect, but one of my curiosities was who the audience would be. I'd say the average age was 50, with a smattering of younger people like us, and some older. It was a very spiritually awake crowd, if that makes sense, but not the ones you'd find in a church. I've been thinking a lot about how God is in the business of Reality. What I mean by that is that hiding from truth because it's painful creates distance from God. God can handle the truth of who we are, in all it's good and bad. I think that there is a weakness in Christian culture where there is a need to look good, because we are "righteous." This audience felt to me like it was on the verge of embracing The Kingdom--and I'm making a big distinction here between The Kingdom and mainstream Christianity.

Leonard Cohen speaks from a very honest place, and that resonates with reality. It's a voice that cuts straight to the heart of the matter. His song "Hallelujah" is like this, but so often when I hear other people covering it, it lacks the "anointing" that Leonard Cohen has when he sings it. The same is true with "Everybody Knows" which I heard for the first time by Concrete Blond years ago, although that one is good.

I came away feeling like we couldn't have done anything better with our time or money last night. It was a once in a lifetime experience.