What I Learned at the Warped Tour:

1. It's better to fight your flip-flops in the dirt whilst carrying merch that gains weight as you carry it across the North Florida Desert than to rough it barefoot and fight the prickly things.

2. Beat the rush to the Port A Potties, if you must go at all.

3. Sunscreen. Be it's friend.

4. It's okay if everyone is smelly and dirty, because we're all there for music. So what if half of it isn't very good?

5. Concession food is not that good.

6. It would suck to be responsible to clean up after people who don't seem to care about trash or recycling recepticles.

I was volunteering at the To Write Love On Her Arms booth at an unfortunately slow day, so there weren't many epic conversations but there was, among the throngs, one guy in a band in full support, who had lost his mother to suicide. I can't fathom that. I think of young unhappy teenagers killing themselves, and parents have to bury their children. As unnatural as that is, I would almost think it worse to bury a parent who didn't enjoy life. I would blame myself. Well I'd do that in either case and neither case is a good case.

A young girl who was probably early teens was with her crew, who came up to the tent and answered no to my asking if they were familiar with the story. I told them, and this girl was hanging in the background clearly trying to not seem interested, but investigating. As they left, she said, "I'll have to tell my friend. She cuts." What a line. When she walked away I saw a heart cut into her hand.

That heart has more capacity to hate than to love.

I don't know who you are, you'll probably never read this, but you are worth more than that. Tell your friend....yourself. Don't hide it from me, yourself, or anyone. Build this testimony.

Sadly though that's what we do...we hide our demons. We bury our skeletons under dust and garbage without ever actually mourning and burying it--we need that process. We need to confess to other people. It's how we're wired. Neglecting this all-important human design, this fodder for community deeper than societal excursions, beyond the internet and reality tv, forces us into further exile and bound by more chains.

You need to fess up.

I have been there. I have been haunted. I have been plagued and tormented and I can tell you now that it did not have a chance of stopping until I told someone. Until I let another human being in. I can fabricate God into anything I want into my head and invest my entire being into avoiding the pursuit [but we won't last for long], but the tangible human community, the eyes to look into, the hands to hold...those hands hold back the hands that cut and steal and kill and destroy.

Those are not your hands.

Your hands were meant to lift, to heal, to praise, to hold. Please do those things. Please do not let someone go, even if that means yourself. Please do not let pride keep you captive, telling yourself that you can do it on your own or that no one else cares to hear your pain [I care], or worse: both. Those chains are thick but they are not unbreakable. Please do not believe otherwise. Please do not believe the lies. You are loved beyond measure.

7. Gays, Wiccans, atheists, agnostics and Christians came and created a crowd today. Every human has a beating heart that tells a different story in the grand scheme of things, with a new, smaller story every day with every sun rise. All of these people came to the booth today. All of them had God whispering in their ear; some heard it better than others. All of them are loved beyond measure, equally pursued and equally made deserving by the God who determines everything. They deserve healing. They deserve love on their arms.

And so do you. So do I. Please don't wait.

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Please e-mail, IM, call, or go to lunch with me if you need to talk this out. I don't care if I know you or not. My e-mail's at the top of the page. Please don't wait another day. You know if it needs to be done. You know if there's something missing, replaced by something dangerous. Let the walls fall around you.