Cornerstone Festival 2010, Day 168

This was my 10th year attending Cornerstone festival in Illinois. This fact alone makes me feel very old. I recently spent a little time pondering why I’ve driven 6 hours to spend almost week in a hot dusty (at times muddy) field with blaring loud music playing nonstop from noon to 2am for 10 years. It isn’t because I love nonstop sweating for days in a row. It isn’t because I so enjoy eating every meal out of a cooler (while watching my food supply slowly transform into a messy seemingly inedible sight). It isn’t because I love sleeping in a tent and waking up at 6 AM like a half cooked turkey with a slimy film all over my skin. Yes folks cornerstone festival is that glorious.

There’s a lot of great music at the festival. There are tremendously entertaining shows and sometimes one may find herself discovering a band she’ll love forever. I have fallen in love with Cornerstone farm and returning each year is a bit like coming home. However I think the thing that’s driven me to return for 10 years is the unifying feeling I’ve found nowhere but there. There are people of every age from infancy to elderly. There are people of every race and every color. There are popular trendy, punks, rockers, nomads, goths, nerds, dorks, yeah you name it. And obviously everyone is at a different place in their walk with the Lord but they’ve almost all come to cornerstone because they love the Lord and because they love music and they want to spend their 4th of July holiday celebrating there. The sweat and the dust, the mud and the discomfort, the camping inconveniences, oh and the port o potties are all an additional unifying factor no matter how annoying or uncomfortable. I would have Cornerstone no other way. I’m proud to be a part of the Cornerstone family. I glad to have had the opportunity for 10 years to share in the experience with SOOOOO many others. I do love music and usually the louder the better but I keep going back because in a strange sort of comparison I have tens of thousands of family members while I’m there… a bit like heaven will be.