Comments on: He Wouldn’t Smile for the Camera

By: Mike Escutia

Mike Escutia — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 05:06:35 +0000

Pierce Pettis always opens his concerts with a cover of one of Heard's songs, and his albums have each started in the same way. I only have one of Heard's CDs. Time to dig it out and feed it to iTunes... and eventually buy some more.

By: ultracrepidarian

ultracrepidarian — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 19:55:22 +0000

Hi. Found your blog through a mark-heard mailing list.

Good for you, you now belong to the class of people, though vanishingly small, that I find incredibly relevant and important; those who see something good in evangelicalism, but have, in some way, moved beyond it.

For me, that process ended up with becoming Roman Catholic. Absolutely happy about it, and quite at home with it, though it troubled my parents a bit.

Anyways, Mark Heard was the most important musician (who happens to be a Christian) in terms of my formative years of listening to music, pondering life, etc. My closest and longest-term friend introduced me to Mark’s music when we were in University together. We still appreciate his music.

I just bought the biography of him, published by Cornerstone press. I’m about to read it. There’s a sample chapter on line, check it out. One of the things I learned about Mark from that, is that he didn’t attend Church most of his adult life. I understand, completely.

“We believe so well / Don’t we tell ourselves / Don’t we take exclusive pride that we abide so far from hell / We might laugh together / But don’t we cry alone / For the ashes and the dust we’ve swept beneath the holy throne”.

UltraCrepidarian

By: cobber

cobber — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 18:37:33 +0000

Mark Heard spoke to me like few Christian musicians have before or since. He was intelligent and serious, but he knew how to have fun. (He’s still the only songwriter I know who could get away with using the phrase ‘pious anhedonia’ in a song!) To this day, “These Plastic Halos” informs my approach to my church family, and songs like “Strong Hand of Love” and “House of Broken Dreams” speak to me about relating to my wife and children. Mark showed me that it all right for me to be who I was in Christ, bad days and flaws included. Thank you for pointing him out as a signpost on the road to being real.

By: ktmtfl

ktmtfl — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:55:28 +0000

This was a moving article. For one thing, I was majorly impacted by Mark Heard’s music growing up and I consider myself a somber Christian at times as well. Thank you so much for making me feel better about this. The world is still so seriously flawed and we seem to be such horrible stewards.

By: noseriously

noseriously — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:13:47 +0000

I appreciate the general point of your article. To a finer point I truly likes Mark Heard. Didnt know him well but did some live audio work for him and many others and there were few that measured up to his true kindness. I must say there were many that were darn near hard to please, Mark wasnt one of those. Hats off to a great tribute but more importantly a vivid point.

By: JJohnH

JJohnH — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:19:01 +0000

Michael,
As a family practice physician, I have people break down in my exam rooms almost daily, crushed by life and unable to be real with anyone else. And they almost always say as I hand the tissue box, “I’m sorry.” —-sorry for being real, sorry for admitting to another human being that they hurt. In the South especially I think this “God is good so I must keep smiling if I’m a good Christian” heresy permeates the church and the culture at large. I tell my patients “Life is hard. It’s ok to hurt, it’s ok to cry (Jesus did, didn’t he?), it’s ok to struggle (Moses, Elijah), and it’s ok to go to God as a hurting child & tell Him we need His comfort.