I was reminded of it this morning on a post on this site. Hard to believe. I remember hearing the news over the answering machine about a week after it happened. I was getting back from a weekend retreat and our youth pastor's voice cackled over the speaker, telling us Rich had been killed in a car accident. So much for going out like Elijah I recall thinking.
Some 10 years later, Rich Mullins music still influences me. I spent many nights in my youth sitting, looking out the window, listening to songs about praise rising over prairies. Many nights up at Grammie and Grandpa's camp trying not to sing along as "Creed" bellowed over the headphones. And it was "Hold Me Jesus" that was playing through my headphones as I sat praying outside of the gymnasium in 1998 at Asbury College on a cool February evening, making the decision to attend the school. These days, it's most often Songs that I listen to. Especially, lately, "Boy Like Me/Man Like You" -- for obvious reasons.
I've always liked his music. It's something I always come back to. For all my forays into Ray LaMontagne, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Damien Rice, Wilco, it's Rich Mullins that I can't ever seem to turn off. Whether it's the underlying dulcimer, the haunting, poetic, transporting lyrics, or the simple voice echoing a simple faith of a simple man living a simple life who was transfixed by a simple fact: Jesus loved him -- Rich's music is new and fresh and ancient with each listen. Some new experience I attach to a lyric, song, melody, phrase, beat.
That's Rich. That's his music. As best as I can remember it.
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And I saw him in concert and that was what brought me back to the soul of Christian music: It is about Jesus, Sovereign Lord and Creator.
To live is Christ to die is gain and one dsy, with him and all the saints, we will sing, 'Everywhere I go I see you.'
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