Seryn

It’s been a few years since I’ve listened to Seryn, or even thought about them except in passing. But last week I felt a nudge to revisit them and everything came rushing back into my bloodstream: Lead vocalist Trenton Wheeler singing ethereally into his ukulele, the music building and slowing and quieting and growing then bursting as he puts his whole soul into the work of leaving his body though music, his topknot shaking loose into a wild mess of joy.

The first concert I attended in 2015 was a sacred space, a cosmic experience, a glimpse of heaven. I felt God as tangibly in Seryn's presence as I did in the darkened rooms of college worship nights. Four years later I’m crying in my parked car, spirit snatched up again and trembling in the aftershock of God’s unmistakable presence. I thought it had been a passing obsession, misleading feelings relegated to the past, discolored by nostalgia. Instead, I’m reminded of how he spoke to me then, and sob in relief that he still speaks to me now. I didn’t realize I had given up on that feeling.

I made it to a second Seryn concert a year or so after the first but this time something felt off. The crowd was distracted, sounds harsher, Trenton as energetic as before but drawing from an unfamiliar place. I left disappointed, grieving the loss of the supernatural spark I had felt so powerfully before. Not long after, the news came that Seryn had disbanded. I’m not sure what happened at the end, and it’s not my right to know. My brother in Nashville has mentioned seeing the members around town and Trenton continues on under a new moniker, Topknot. They've each moved on to new and beautiful things, I’m sure, but I can't help but grieve what could have been.

When I think about Seryn, that brief flash of lighting, a lyric from Sleeping At Last’s song "Four" comes to mind: "Bodies fashioned out of dirt and dust / For a moment we get to be glorious." Because nothing lasts forever. Humans are far too fragile to withstand a clear view of heaven for more than a moment. But for a moment. For a moment, Seryn was glorious.