Wrestling the Goose: All You Need Is Love
I am a white male Baby Boomer, born and raised in the (Reformed) evangelical world. I am now retired after having ministered in that world for 49 years. My own “deconstruction” started more than 40 years ago. In September of 2026, my wife and I attended The Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina for the first time. The first Festival was held in 2011, and Wikipedia describes it as “an art, music, and story-driven festival grounded in faith-inspired social justice.” We had no idea what to expect and were, as far as is possible, open to whatever the Festival brought us. This series of articles contains my reflections on the Festival and my experience there. They are not in any particular order – think of it as a stream of consciousness thing.
One theme stood out to me at Wild Goose 2026.
Love.
We were explicitly and implicitly exhorted to love and accept everyone.
At Wild Goose, we put that into practice. Every attendee could be what he or she or they wanted to be. We were free to express ourselves in how we acted, what we said, the kind of clothes we wore, what we ate and drank, what we believed.
“Unbound” was actually the theme of the Festival.
Be free to be yourself, to love whom you want to love, to believe what you want to believe.
T-shirts, hoodies, banners, and tattoos preached it:
Love is love.
Love wins.
Love knows no boundaries.
Celebrate love – celebrate you!
Never apologize for whom you love.
I was and am a fan of John Lennon and the Beatles.
In 1967 the world seemed to be coming apart. Assassinations, race riots, and the Vietnam War were on the television screens in living rooms around the globe. Families could witness world events unfold in the comfort of their homes.
At the same time, the peace movement was gaining ground; the “Summer of Love” took over San Francisco, and rock ‘n’ roll bands were turning from “silly love songs” to songs of rebellion, protest and commentary on our social woes.
The BBC decided to take advantage of the new capability to broadcast simultaneously around the world to present a program that could unite the world in its common humanity. It was called Our World, broadcast on June 25, 1967. (It’s hard to believe I was actually a socially conscious human being when the world’s first live global television link happened. Either I’m quite old or global live television links are quite young. Or both. But I digress…..).
The Beatles, at the height of their popularity, were commissioned to close the program with a live song, written for the occasion. The song, “All You Need Is Love”, was a simple one with a catchy tune:
“All you need is love All you need is love All you need is love, love Love is all you need”[1]
I was a socially conscious human being in 1967 when this happened, and have been a socially conscious human being during the almost 60 years since then. In spite of my privileged position as a white middle-class male, I believe that I have been able to understand something of the ways in which marginalized and oppressed people of all kinds around the world cry out for freedom, dignity and love.
I have been in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; I have seen famine close up; I have lived for years in towns and villages of a developing-world country; I have spent time in a country experiencing a violent liberation struggle and lived through more than one military coup; I have served among the marginalized and poor of one of Europe’s greatest and richest cities; for the last nine years I have worked closely with American youth in the foster care system; I have protested and lobbied on the issues of climate change, immigration, Native American rights, voting rights, and gun control.[2]
From the depths of my being I believe that everyone should be free.
Free to live and to love.
Free to be themselves.
Unbound.
I left Wild Goose grateful for that message and a bit unsettled.
That combination of gratitude and unease was epitomized in a song that was sung on the main stage on Saturday evening. A singer-songwriter duo introduced a song called “Kissing Girls”. The person who had written the song explained that it came from their[3] experiences at Church Youth Group meetings. Church Youth Group meetings can be, and often are, places where youth can begin to learn about sexual experiences and even experiment (not during the meetings, of course, but afterwards, in the hidden places). The song was about the freedom this person experienced when they realized that they were just as free to kiss girls in the basement at the Youth Group meetings as they were to kiss boys. It was introduced, sung, and received with much enthusiasm, laughter, and recognition.
I remember the tensions and struggles of those teenage years, and looking back, I wish there had been more freedom in all kinds of ways. We all would have been better off for it. Sixty years later, I have been a parent of teenagers. I hope I did a little better than my adult world did in helping them navigate the complexities of the teenage world.
Regardless, I would not want any teenage child of mine (or any teenager, for that matter) indiscriminately kissing peers, regardless of gender. It does not seem wise to me to give a teenager whose brain is not fully formed yet the freedom to kiss indiscriminately just for the sake of kissing, or experiment sexually or in any other way (drugs, fast driving, whatever), just for the sake of experiencing freedom or whatever the reason might be.
I am fully aware that even the best parent might not be able to prevent a teenager from experimenting in unwise ways, but to openly encourage that experimentation and rejoice in it in song seems unwise.
To put it another way:
Love doesn’t encourage or praise stupid things.
Love understands that a person can and will do stupid things, love values the person doing the stupid things, but love doesn’t cheer stupid things on.
Looking back, John Lennon reflected on love and his famous song: “It’s like anything, you sing about it first or write about it first, and find out what you were talking about after.”[4]
Sing about love, write about love, experiment with love, do stupid things in the name of love.
Then learn later what you were talking about.
As we mature we learn that love doesn’t encourage stupid things.
Love does not applaud what is harmful.
Love is a commitment, a promise, a covenant.
The love shown and taught by the Jesus we follow is self-sacrificial.
And I did not notice any T-shirts with the slogan “Love Your Enemy”.
At my first Wild Goose I found myself wrestling with my understanding of and identification with the cry for freedom and love and my sense that it sounded a bit hollow. It left me wondering how we can assure someone of their intrinsic value as a human being created by God, while not celebrating stupid stuff.
Dare I say it?
When it comes to “all you need is love”, I kind of missed the voice of an adult in the room.
All together now…
[1] My favorite part is the addition of “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah…” at the end. There is debate over whether it is John or Paul who sings that, and I don’t know if it was planned or spontaneous. My guess is spontaneous.
[2] I am forever grateful that either a sovereign God and/or a fortuitous turn of events forced me out of my middle class, white American bubble and allowed me to have these experiences which changed me dramatically.
[3] I do not know what this person’s preferred pronouns are, so I am using “they/them”.
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