PRESS - The Old Firehouse and Living Room Performance of Andy Gulahorn

Nashville-based acoustic guitarist and vocalist, Andy Gulahorn, performed Sunday afternoon in a small East Texas town called Edom. This performance location was one of a kind, matching the unique personality and style of Gulahorn. His performance was held in the Old Firehouse Building that is comprised of a visual arts gallery/ exhibition space and a performance space, which is an old garage where the old fire engines were stationed. Monday night he performed in the home of a Dallas local musician. The atmosphere setting was the living room just the right size for an intimate coffee shop audience.

Real-life and non-fiction, serious and humorous, Gulahorn's stories and timeless truths are the meat of his songs. At last night's performance in Dallas (Richardson), he shared that much of the way he writes originates from the human soul desiring to be known. He attends an Anglican church where he serves in a ministry for men called The Samuel Society. It is made up of a community of men from all walks of life and all different ages. One unique thing about the Samuel Society is that every man agrees and admits that no matter where he is in life, no man is an island and that he wrestles with life's issues, that every man wants to be known, that it is in authetic community that each man is able to grow and know what its like to be known and accepted. This is very characteristic of Gulahorn's lyrics and writng and gives his audience a fresh perspective, engaging them to reflect on the daily moments and realities of their own journeys. As the evening ended, Gulahorn said, "Most concerts end with a song and the singer goes back stage before the audience leaves the room. But in this case, I play one more song and then I am still here and you are free to hang around or go. Its really different performing in a home."

Hope

I have often struggled with the past wondering if my future will be different than the things I witnessed growing up. Much like those who encounter the aftermath of war in their own country and are now in a new country rebuilding their life or a soldier back from war struggling to recover from what he saw through having to tolerate his surroundings and all that he experience is much of how I feel at times because of the devastation of my parents marriage relationship and watching them grow far a part from my childhood into my college years.

At times it feels easier to think that my friends who grew up in what seemed like non-dysfunctional spiritually happy homes could be blessed with good. But when it came to believing this for my own life, due to the devastation that lasted for such a long time and the wreckage and ruins left to recover now, has made it hard to believe and to actually hope that life could be different and will be different, than what I experienced then. This aftermath effect is called post-traumatic stress disorder.

I think of people who survived the the Holocaust, African-Americans in the U.S. who remembered the fight for their own democracy and the similar battle and trauma they experienced before true freedom was theirs. I think of small children as young as three years old who sometimes witness the separation of their parents and the trauma this causes in their life and the seed of insecurities it plants...fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of you name it.

Over time when something traumatic happens over and over and over, over a long period of time the enemy uses it to plant a lie that life is pretty much hopeless. The reality is as a child I was powerless, but because of what Christ has done, there is hope. The way God is using it for my good is that he is causing me to see that hope isn't found in human relationships, especially not in family as much as I look up to them and dearly love them.

How easy it is to idolize the very thing I love and want most, a family that genuinely loves each other. Yet I am reminded the only person worth my true affection and complete dependency is Christ, who is my only hope.