By Alex Sosler

Like most of life, I didn’t have the sense to know what decision I was making. I watched May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers a few years prior. It portrayed thoughtful, beautiful, compelling relationships. It displayed redemptive hopes and real fears, leaving and returning home. I thought because the Avett Brothers were popular, they were shallow. But the movie made me reconsider. As Seth says in the movie, “at that time I thought volume and power were synonymous… And I realized that… power comes from character.” I saw the depth in their character, too. May It Last turned me into a fan. But I didn’t realize that I didn’t know what a real fan was.

The documentary sat dormant for several years until I saw a call for book proposals from this fine blog. I thought, “Heck, I’ll throw this out there.” It was a particular interest project, I thought, where I wouldn’t mind listening to more of their music for a year or so. And, astoundingly, it got picked up.

But here’s my confession: I had never seen a live Avett Brothers show. How could I edit a book without having seen them? I don’t know. And I didn’t realize how disqualifying that lack was. But I recently righted my wrongs in Norfolk, Virginia.

I walked down the stairs to my seat in a mostly empty upper bowl. Some people are congregating and greeting one another, but it is a fairly sparse evening in Norfolk. As I wait for the event to begin, draped behind the stage is memento mori art: a juxtaposition of flowering roses with a skull. Remember your death. Death lingers over the stage—a favorite theme of theirs (which I take up in the Theology and the Avett Brothers).

The band comes out to an instrumental jam-band song called the D Bag Rag climaxing with a grand finale of Kazoo’s. In front of death, a playful end. A note of joyful defiance in the face of death rings throughout—playfulness amid pain, songs of hope in front of sorrow. This is what drew me to them and captured me at first. Now, I was and am hooked again.

During the first few songs, I’m trying to keep myself together. I am overwhelmed by gratefulness. I didn’t deserve this. I stumbled upon this project. I had no clue what I was getting into.

In some weird way, these feelings made me consider the life of faith. When we are baptized—either as an infant or a believer—we may have some idea of what we are signing up for, but in a more serious way, we have no idea. We don’t know what the life of faith will entail—with all trails and toils included. We don’t know what it will cost, nor do we know the joys that will accompany such a life. I didn’t know what I was getting into in editing this book.

When Wendell Berry was young in his marriage, his dad said to him, “Well, you’ve got a good girl. Proudly, he responded, “I know it” to which his father quipped, “Well, you don’t deserve a damn bit of credit for it.” These words came to my mind as I listened this summer evening. I edited a book on the Avett Brothers, and I don’t deserve a damn bit of credit for it. There are fans who have gone to 30, 40, 50 shows. This was my first. It’s like hearing about a friend of a friend, and then finally meeting them. There’s a greater realization of who they really are, what they are about, and the false expectations you may have had. I was scared that I would be underwhelmed, but the band delivered.  

There’s a new appreciation I’ve found in the Avett Brothers and not just with the band but with the fan base. I didn’t know how supportive they would be and how kind they’ve been. I could have never imagined such a reception. I could go on about all the kindness I’ve received, but this is not about me. It’s about my gratefulness for the givenness of this opportunity. I’m glad I didn’t know where this experience would lead. As the Avett’s sing in “Once and Future Carpenter,” “If I live the life I’m given/ I won’t be scared to die.” There’s something to life to being led, to the givenness of things. I was overwhelmed that I was led, and it’s never been about what I deserve in the first place.

On that Virginian night, the Avett Brothers closed, as they usually do, with “No Hard Feelings,”—the song that first attracted me to them in a deeper way that’s featured in the May It Last documentary.  I left with that feeling. After considering the frustrations in my life with God, allowing different tragedies to strike, confusing me with what this cosmic being is doing…. no hard feelings. “For life and it’s loveliness and all of it’s ugliness.” The loveliness does not remove the ugliness, nor the ugliness the loveliness. They’re both there, unmovable. But so is God. With all my faults and failings, perhaps “no hard feelings” is something like what he says to us as we’re found in Christ, too. Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe those no hard feelings turn into good feelings. Like God actually loves us and is for us, so we can trust where the divine leads us. Through grief and delights, joys and sorrows, “life’s been good to me/I have no enemies.”

Alex Sosler is assistant professor of bible and ministry at Montreat College and assisting priest at Redeemer Anglican Church in Asheville, NC.