Woodstock: forty years ago today

August 15, 8:12 PMFaith & Culture ExaminerDr. Bob Beltz

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              Original poster from Woodstock

Where were you forty years ago today?  I guess you have to be over forty to answer the question, but for some of you who were in your late teens and early twenties back then, the answer to the question might be as vivid as when someone asks you where you were when you heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot.  If you can answer the first question, it could be because you were one of several hundred thousand young people who converged on a small farm outside the town of Bethel, New York.  You were at Woodstock!  This weekend marks the fortieth anniversary of the festival.  My how time flies!

I wasn’t there.  I had just finished my first year of college and was working.  I also lived in Kansas City and I’m not sure anyone let us know the world’s largest music festival was taking place a thousand miles away.  But for those who made the trip (for some the word “trip”, when used in conjunction with Woodstock, carries more than one meaning) Woodstock placed them at the vortex of the counter-culture revolution of the sixties.   

The festival was billed as “3 Days of Peace and Music.”  There really was a lot of peace.  During those three days, not one murder, mugging, armed robbery, or act of violence was reported at the campsite.  And there was music.  Lots of music!  Some of it became iconic.  Jimmy Hendrix playing The Star Spangled Banner, The Who performing the entire rock opera Tommy, Joe Cocker's cover of A Little Help from My Friends, Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s first public performance, Richie Havens, Santana, Country Joe McDonald, Arlo Guthrie, and the list goes on and on.

And of course there were drugs.  Lots of drugs!  We didn’t know any better back then.  The primary reasons for the two hundred plus arrests that took place in conjunction with the event were mostly drug related.  And there was mud.  Lots of mud!   And trash.  Lots of trash!

But what was it that the Woodstock generation was looking for?  My guess is that for most of those attending it was simply an opportunity to be at the biggest party in recent memory.  Others might say the motivation ran deeper.  I was thinking the other day about Joni Mitchell’s song inspired by and named after Woodstock.  The lyrics go: 

I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road,

I asked him where he was going, this he told me:

I’m going down to Yasgur’s farm, going to join a rock n’ roll band.

Going to camp out on the land and set my soul free. 

The chorus then observes: 

We are stardust,

We are golden.

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden.

Great biblical imagery!  The final chorus adds the lines: 

We are stardust,

Billion year old carbon

We are golden,

Caught in the Devil’s bargain.

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden.

It’s a great song.  Ironically, Joni Mitchell wasn’t at Woodstock.  She was supposed to ride up with James Taylor and he had a motorcycle accident before the event and couldn’t drive.   But the song is great. 

I’m not sure how many people really get the lyrics, or what Woodstock and the counter-culture were all about.  Love, peace, freedom.  Those were the words we used in those days.  I’ve always liked the Larry Norman lyric: Beatles said all we need is love…and then they broke up!  But the ideas were noble: Set my soul free.;  Got to get ourselves back to the Garden.;  Caught in the Devil’s bargain.  These are the deep issues that no amount of drugs, sex, music, or mud can solve.  They are issues of the heart that only God can meet.   

I’ve been told that the inspiration for the first line of Woodstock came from the Sermon on the Mount.  In one of the beatitudes Jesus taught, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  This is what Jesus is all about.  He is love.  He gives peace.  He sets us free.  In his own words, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So...Happy Birthday Woodstock.  And...thanks Jesus!