Bus Driver

 

I first heard Caedmon's Call at Mt. Gilead, a Christian camp I went to when I was growing up.  I honestly don't remember how old I was but considering they came out in the early 90's, it was either late elementary school or middle school.  I had listened to Christian music for years, but there was something different about them.  They wrote worship music and sang about Jesus but the music was very genuine and sometimes came from a place of struggle and question.  I remember Bus Driver from their first album and thought at the time it was kind of funny and different, but that's about as deep as my thoughts went.  Who knew that almost 30 years later, I would finally get it and resonate with it so personally.

Last night I had the privilege of seeing Derek Webb (one of the founding members of Caedmon's Call) on his It All Matters After All tour.  He sang many of the songs they wrote over the years and told a few stories behind them.  One of the stories he told was about Bus Driver.  He talked about how the band would go touring and then come back home to Texas and their friends would essentially say that while they were out touring and playing music, they were back home working their "normal" jobs and they would say it in a very self deprecating way, as if the jobs they had didn't matter.  So Derek wrote Bus Driver for those friends and part of that song goes like this...

I am a bus driver and it's four in the morning                                                                                              
I'm pressing out my clothes beside my bed     

Fourteen years been on the job

And with many miles behind

Still I'm up at 3:30 to make sure I'm there on time

My car gets me along just fine

To and from the station

But my castle is this Houston metro bus

My first stop is Ashbury

And the sign's been gone for years

All the same the people wait

Cause they know that I'll be there

What would you say

If I told you that I won't be by today

Would you say that

I'm just a bus driver

And what do I know

Just a bus driver

And what do I know

Just a bus driver

And what do I know

Derek was trying to convey a message to his friends that the jobs they were doing mattered, that if one day they weren't there to do that job it would have a ripple effect and impact so many more people than they could imagine.  When I was growing up I got a very specific message on repeat: Be a missionary!  Work in youth ministry!  You're going to do great things for God!  All of that is fine and good but what I learned at my core was that if I ended up not doing those things specifically, I must not be doing God's will.  If I grew up and had a "normal" job, I must have failed and settled.  I realize I've talked about this before but what I'm learning that this isn't a one time lesson I will learn in my life but one that I will never stop learning and re-learning.

There is another facet to this story and the title of It All Matters After All for the tour...the fact that if I had not grown up the way that I did, I would not be who I am today.  That's something that Derek Webb mentioned about himself last night, that if he had not had all those experiences, he would not be who he is now.  Of course he has changed and grown and evolved, but all of it helped make him who he is.  I often cringe when I look back on my time growing up in the evangelical church.  I have definitely learned some hard lessons and I too have grown and evolved.  I tell my kids that when I was their age I wasn't seeing bands like Foo Fighters and Twenty One Pilots...I was seeing Newsboys, DC Talk, Jars of Clay, Michael W. Smith and everything else was "secular" and to be avoided.  I'm not proud of that way of thinking but all of those experiences are a part of me.  Good or bad, it all mattered after all.

There are things we say about ourselves that are so harmful...

"I'm just a stay at home mom"

"I just work at a grocery store"

"I just work at Starbucks"

First of all, those things don't make you who you are...they are things that you do, things that are a part of you but they are not YOU.  Second, they MATTER and YOU matter.

Caedmon's Call recently came together to re-record and release their first album, in the words of Derek Webb they "Taylor Swifted" it and he wrote a sequel to Bus Driver called Bus Driver 2 (It All Matters After All).  It's about the bus driver and how he's retiring and a small part of it really touched me...

But you never know the lives you touch

by nothing more than showing up

even on the days you feel so small

oh, it turns out it all matters after all

You matter.  The things you do and put out into the world, matter.  You cannot know how many lives you are touching just by being who you are.  Almost 30 years ago, a folk band that loved Jesus made a lasting impact on me and are still inspiring me today.

IT ALL MATTERS AFTER ALL