Andrew Peterson is a musician and author from Nashville, Tennessee who returns to Milligan after 23 years to hold a free concert for the community at Milligan on Wednesday, September 6. Audiences were required to print a free ticket to ensure that everyone had a seat in Seeger Chapel. Andrew Peterson sang on stage while also playing his guitar and piano; he told the audience briefly about the topics of his songs and exchanged words of comedy, passion, and his love for both community and God.
The first song Peterson opened with dealt with life and death and explained to the audience how there is more to our bodies than flesh and bone.
In between his songs, Andrew told the audience about his ideas and thoughts throughout writing his songs and gave a few words of comedy so that he could relate to those at the concert. He talked about his wife, Jaime, and about how they had an argument, so he wrote a song for her. In this song, he sings about how he was 18 and she was 21, getting engaged young, and purchasing their rings at a pawn shop. His song speaks to me about how people say that young love is just something childish that won’t ever last, yet he believes that a relationship is all about the commitment a couple is willing to take and getting through the worst with the person you love, living your lives loving each other every day – as he says “that’s what the promise is for.”
While going through an unexplainable depression, Andrew wrote about winter in Tennessee. He would be sitting in the living room, suddenly crying, when his children see and ask what’s wrong. Andrew describes how his wife grabs him by the face and holds him in her two warm palms saying, “Something good is coming.” His song “In the Night” contained some lyrics that touched my heart, making me think more about my thoughts and feelings that God might have wanted me to feel. When he sung in the end, “Will you look me in the eye and say that we will survive? Tell me about the love that never dies” – here I am pulling my shirt over my head because I felt so embarrassed to cry with the people around me. Yet, this feeling of vulnerability is something that I have always loved to explore and try to make sense of. Similar to what Andrew had described about his experience, I have also found myself suddenly crying and not being able to explain why I felt the way that I did. It reassured me knowing that someone else felt the same unexplained feeling that I kept experiencing throughout my life. The thought of “something good is coming” makes it easier for me to continue striving to see what will happen. Experiencing this deep connection, I could not help but to see children in the corner of my eye and wondering how they seemed so calm and unaware, so innocent because they haven’t seen how broken our world and every single person in it currently is. My desire to be as unaware as those children is bittersweet to me because there is also this drive of passion that inspires me to explore more about my thoughts and feelings and open myself to new experiences so that I can then share with those around me. By the end of the concert, Andrew left his audience – myself included – with a sense of hope and open arms receptive to the Lord’s love with words, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom. We will always be with the Lord.”
The next morning, Andrew Peterson spoke in the Music Colloquium class about his career as a musician and artist in an open forum. In this class, Andrew spoke about how he experienced using his gifts and becoming a musician. He told students to look at the gifts that they have been given and then look at the community around them and ask how they can show their love to the community. “Deciphering what gifts you have been given is the best way to seek God’s calling,” Peterson said. “My professor pulled me to the side and told me that I had a gift… My wife believes in me more than I believe in myself. Kick down the door if that is what your community is telling or inspiring you to do and hold back if they advise you to take your time. Your community will shape you. Art nourishes community, and community nourishes art.”
Follow Andrew Peterson on Social Media!
Website: Andrew-peterson.com
Twitter: @AndrewPeterson
Instagram: andrewpetersonmusic
Photo credit from Bragg Management.