go vertical

Worship today turned a corner.  This is not to make a value judgement on any worship leaders or performers who have played previously this week.  Obviously, I've enjoyed them all.  But today the worship took on a new focus.  The entire conference attendance responded to it.  Chris Tomlin started it at 11:00 this morning.  His set was God focused, prayerful and sincere.  Also, he very enthusiastically introduced and presented a brand new song that is very familiar to me and will be on his new CD.  As a matter of fact, I played guitar on its CD release premier performance at the Shaun Groves concert.  Nana nana boo boo.  Yes, it was Laura Story's indescribable.  It was extremely well-done and extremely well received. 
This evening's concert opened with an hour of Paul Baloche.  He continued the vertical focus, leading us in an hour of musical prayer before Deliriou5? took over.  I've posted a pic for the benefit of my student, T. E. S. James, in Paris.  Surely he'll be jealous when he sees it.
Deliriou5?  What can I say?  I have always admired these guys' hearts, tonight was no different.  Intense worship time introduced to a lot of people the ability to get out-of-the-box and still have a very meaningful spiritual moment.  A certain someone who shall remain nameless actually "danced in the river" as a form of prayer.  You wouldn't believe it if I told you who, so I won't.
During the Paul Baloche portion, he asked us to reach out and grab the hand of a spouse or team member as we all prayed together. I reached out to the right and grabbed Larry's hand, and to the left and got an older lady's hand who was all alone. She seemed to start at the touch, and I wondered if I'd made her uncomfortable. After the concert, she said to me, "thank you for including me in your touch tonight. It is really hard to travel and spend the week alone. You are the first person who has touched me in 4 days." Wow. In the midst of a completely vertical day, a horizontal connection is made. Didn't I just blog something about that yesterday? Our human fellowship is deepened by our growing focus on God. It was quite an experience to feel such a strong sense of community among so large a corporate body with unified hearts singing upward songs of praise, thanksgiving, confession, begging, hope and distress. That is the paradox of the spiritual. God heard love and spoke back to us. And the noise from so large a crowd, some crying, some singing, some joy and tears, so that in the ears of the people, the cries of joy were mixed with the sound of weeping; for the cries of the people were loud and came to the ears of those who were a long way off.
I have deep emotions and thoughts about tonight's concert, but I have no idea how to verbalize them.  You'll have to wait until I've pondered and processed.
So I apologize for the journal entry style conference blogging. Each night I am just too tired to assimilate. It's in there though. Maybe when I get home I can revisit the whole thing with a bigger perspective. Be patient.