Woodstock!  Do you remember Woodstock, the August 1969 three day outburst of counterculture bacchanalian song and bliss on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York?  Those of us who lived through Woodstock remember it as a signal moment, the pinnacle of a movement whose day had finally come:  the dawn of a tremendously new day.

    Of course that isn't what actually happened.  We all know that.  Nonetheless, as theologian Francis Schaeffer once observed, "The Sixties counterculture understood the problem [a pervasive lack of personal meaning]; they just had the wrong solution."  True enough.  Yet in the decade after Woodstock what is now called the "Jesus Freak" movement swept through the country, causing millions of political and culturally disaffected youths (including me) to place their trust in the God of Christianity.

    I mention Woodstock because last week one of its principal organizers, Michael Lang, passed away at the age of 77.  Only 24 at the time he brought the rock festival together, Lang certainly made his mark, and an indelible one at that, on the psyche of the nation.  Though we can argue almost ad infinitum about the relative virtue and worth of Woodstock, we cannot dispute the far flung ramifications of its effects.  While in many ways the Sixties counterculture left considerable darkness in its wake, it also laid the groundwork for a profound resurgence of belief in the value and worth of a personal and infinite God.

    Marvel at the purposes embedded in who and what we cannot see.