Rich Mullins
It was ten years ago today that Rich Mullins was killed in a car accident about 30 miles from my home in a tragic car accident. Rich was kind of hard to describe. He probably best known as the guy who wrote and sang Awesome God but if that is all you know then you are missing the point of his life. Rich was a modern day mystic. He often called St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) his hero and modeled his life after him by showing great compassion towards the poor and adhering to a vow of poverty. In 1997, he composed a musical about the life of St Francis (set in the Old West) called Canticle of the Plains.
Rich was seen as an enigma to the Christian music industry. Often barefoot, unshaven, in a white t-shirt and torn jeans, and badly in need of a haircut, Mullins did not look like the average Christian music singer. Unlike most CCM people, Mullins did not consider his music his primary ministry, but rather a means to pay his bills. Instead, his ministry was the way he treated his neighbors, family and enemies. Taking a vow of poverty, he only accepted a small church salary. You see, he had made a deal with his home church when he started doing music that he would never make more than the pastor and money that he made beyond that because of his music would be given to the church. Awesome God alone would have made him millions. Rich spent the last years of his life on a Navajo reservation teaching music to children.
Personally, I remember a couple of things about Rich. In 1995 I bought “A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band” and it had a major impact on my life. Later that year I saw Rich perform at Agape Music Festival at Greenville College. I remember being excited to see Rich play. I knew nothing about the man, I just knew I liked his music. He followed the Newsboys crazy flashy show. He could not have been in greater contrast. Rich walked up by himself looking like a homeless guy. He walked up and it was just him. He just started playing his guitar (which was really out of tune) and singing. It wasn’t so much his voice but his words and passion that impacted me. He was probably the most real person I had ever seen. He was almost to real for our little world. I remember he started to sing “Calling Out Your Name” and it goes something like this:
Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
Just as Rich was singing these lines a huge thunder cloud rolled over and began to rumble. The smell of a storm came over the crowd and it began to rain. It was as though God approved of Rich and his simple song of praise.
A second experience I had with Rich happened a few months before his death. It was at Cornerstone Music Festival in 1997. It was late one night and I was watching a little known band called “This Train.” Unknown to me, Rich was a friend of Mark Robertson the bassist of the group. Robertson was a part of the Ragamuffin Band. So I’m standing there in this tent with the small crowd and enjoying the odd rockabilly band, and suddenly standing beside me is Rich. Our eyes catch, he sorta gives me this strange look maybe in response to my surprise at standing next to him. A quick mutual smirk and we go back to enjoying the show. Sometime during the show he takes off and as I’m leaving I see him and Robertson sneaking a smoke together. I didn’t know Christians could smoke until that moment.
I remember the day Rich was hit by the semi. It was such a sad day but somehow I knew that Rich never really fit in here on earth. It seems that those who knew him best knew him to be a restless soul never really at home here. He was one who always had one foot on earth and one in heaven. On that day I knew that he was home with his closest Friend.
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007