Guest Post: Built my life around you...

With Mick Fleetwood before the show

On June 24th, I indulged myself in one of my passions, Fleetwood Mac, who took Time Warner Arena by storm. They are still awesome 38 years after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band. All things Fleetwood Mac related are an ingrained part of my life and I’m actually lucky enough to have 2 degrees of separation (that may as well be 2 light-years at times) from Stevie. That connection is partly where the interest stems from. I call it interest but friends of mine call it obsession and suggest 12-step programs.

No one, aside from my “Sister of the Moon” Michelle, can truly understand my heart’s ability to connect with the band’s story and their music. Some of my younger college students, when they hear that the band and their solo efforts comprise well over half of my iPod, and a good portion of my spending money, ask “Fleetwood who?” After I pick myself off the floor, I shake my head and don’t even try to explain.

Up close and personal

At this particular show, we were flush up against the stage directly in front of Lindsey Buckingham’s microphone. In this picture, yes, those are my arms resting on the stage at his feet. In fact, just before introducing a song from the 1987 Tango In The Night Album, Lindsey leaned down and asked us, after hearing us cheering wildly for it, if we’d even been born when that album came out.  I’m sure I’ll be flattered...once I recover from my fainting spell.

Overall, I’m rather private with most of my experiences at their shows. I have my favorite songs and moments, most of them involving the personal interactions between Nicks and Buckingham. I'll hold them tightly inside until they, as a group, or Stevie or Lindsey solo, tour again. But one of my favorite places in the show comes during a song that admittedly, isn’t even one of my top five loves.

Imagine writing a song that is so popular you can’t even hear yourself sing it because the arena audience of close to 15,000 is singing it to you (complete with cell phone glow in place of lighters). Over the years, Stevie has given myriad explanations for the song Landslide, but in 2003 finally admitted that she wrote it about her (then, possibly now–only they know for sure) boyfriend, Lindsey. (No, people under 25–Landslide was not written by the Dixie Chicks). In it she sings, “I’ve been afraid of changing, ‘cause I built my life around you. But time makes you bolder, even children get older and I’m getting older too.”

Stevie is fiercely independent; Lindsey, the type to need dependency from others. The combination apparently made for some volatile times for them in the seventies. The two were united by a mutual love for music and each other, but at the time were both slowly smothering the other in different ways. Stevie’s words, that she had designed her life around Lindsey, are backed up by the stories they tell us. Ultimately, she had committed the number one no-no: living for someone else first.

We know how easy this is. We become immersed in living for everything else other than a whole-hearted devotion and life built around the Lord. He ends up taking backseat. When we examine a typical 24 hour period, we can’t explain where the time has gone, or why we weren’t able to fit a minute in for Him. I often wonder if we can’t find five minutes here on earth, what in the world will we do with Him for eternity? And unlike Stevie, who wanted to let go of someone and feared striking out on her own, we are afraid to change to reach out to someone. To Him.

The bright side is that time itself often takes care of this dilemma for us. We grow older. Age and time bring a realization that, whether we’re still afraid of it or not, change comes. With the painful lessons of life, He molds and shapes us…and through the experience and wisdom of time we begin to build our lives around Him.

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Heather Eddy, Assistant Director of Christian Education, is a guest post crowd favorite, and we look forward to hearing more from her this summer. It's rumored that she will be leading a Connect @Sardis series on Religion and Culture in 2014. If you've enjoyed her writing, you should definitely make plans to attend.