There exists a place in me, maybe in all of us, where the sacred and the profane cohabit the soul like perfect lovers, dining and speaking, travelers of thoughts and dreams, of reality and true unreality. For me, the sacredness that shaped me – the angels and demons I’ve seen and known – weaves with the profane beauty of the natural world, like changing trees and a tiny breeze, but also humankind’s talent for making beauty. This talent is never more evident than in two things: the holy places we create for worship and the art we make.

On a warm October night with only a touch of chill in the air, Josh Ritter at the Sixth & I Synagogue embodied the intermingling of the sacred and the profane. The synagogue itself, with its pews, stained glass windows, and long memory of songs sung unto the unknowable, became the perfect setting for Josh’s songs.

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Here’s a question: How does a miracle happen? The whys and the whats and the whethers are less important than the hows. Miracles happen, and we don’t know how.

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In a moment of full disclosure, I need to admit that I’ve seen Josh nearly 30 times now. Rock clubs, middle-of -nowhere opera theaters, large theaters, tiny clubs, and even a garden filled with fireflies. With the band, solo, a trio, and maybe even once a duo.

I am not impartial.

During quarantine, Josh treated his listeners to Silo Sessions, inviting us into his life, and we sang the loneliness from our lungs. The play of politics – interpersonal and societal – suffuses his songs, but so too do mysticism and mystery. Throughout, Josh reminded anyone who listened that communities matter, and though we might be alone, we don’t have to be lonely all the time.

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That sense of community emerged again on Sunday night. It felt a little different than the before-times; then – especially with the band around him – the songs chugged into wild singalongs, shared smiles, with communion an easy and euphoric thing. Josh’s voice always fringed against rapture. By himself – especially in this context, with our smiles hidden behind masks – much of the music becomes a thing apart from the band. Josh still edged into ecstasy, but it’s gentler.

I’ve spent a lot of words without talking about the songs.

Josh came onstage smiling for all of us, slipping quickly into “Monster Ballads” off Animal Years, the very song that taught me how closely the sacred dances with the profane. He followed with the pin-drop quietude of “Wings” before raising the audience with “Where the Night Goes”.

This became something of a sonic theme. He built the setlist to burn slowly into epiphanies, and then start over again. The biggest revelation came in the middle of the set, when he played “Wolves—> Dreams —> Temptation of Adam—> Kathleen” a moment after he announced he would diverge from the planned setlist. In the middle of “Kathleen”, he slowed down shortly before the payoff, telling the audience about his Toyota “made of foam” getting stuck in snow and the girl he drove getting out and lifting it back to the road. A little miracle. Then we all sang along under our masks.

Josh also played four new songs throughout the set, including the fiery “Our Father’s War” (linked below), the heartbreaking “Theophony”, a cowboy song in “Deputy Blues”, and the pace-changing and subtly joyous “Make Someone Happy” (which, to my ear, triggered a memory of a James Bond song from my childhood). My wife sat beside me on the pew, and during both “Our Father’s War” and “Theophony”, she turned to mutter Wow through her mask at me. Each of them burns with something bright and angry.

Other features from the night included a downtempo “Miles Away”, the beautiful loves of “Strangers”, “The Curse”, and the set-ending “Thunderbolt’s Goodnight” (when he stepped away from the mic and everyone heard him just the same).

He also played “Some Somewhere”, the song that percolates through his new novel The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All.” He joked that he could only write it in quarantine because he had time to explore his house, to find the rooms where no one goes, sharing that “one of the rooms was filled with lumberjacks,” and that he felt compelled to write about them. “Some Somewhere” feels timeless, like a song plucked from the aether that everyone knows. That is, of course, exactly its magic.

For the encore, Josh sang Ella Fitzgerald’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye”, and followed it with “Getting Ready to Get Down”, his sunbright smile damn near blinding the room with joy.

He ended the night with the truly apt “Homecoming”, as the air outside had gotten crisper, cleaner, more autumnal, and a little more open to magic and miracles.

Please, if you can, go see him the next time he comes through.