I Just Want to Speak Life

I question my motives in everything I do. It’s practically an addiction for me. I wonder why I even bother writing these blog entries. I’ve managed to thoroughly surprise myself by keeping them coming fairly consistently for two and a half months now. I’d thought it might last for no more than two entries, but this one would be number ten. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, that’s not much, but it’s more than I might have expected.

But why am I doing it? Why have I persisted in this probably pointless effort? Do I do it because I just need an outlet for my thoughts? Am I hoping someone will read it and give me a nice pat on the back and tell me I’m a good writer? Am I trying to send a message to my future self, that someday I will be reminded of what God has done in me? Am I genuinely merely passing along what God is saying to and working in me so that someone else can read it and be blessed and encouraged? Am I trying to make myself think that anyone even cares what I have to say?

These questions careen through my skull like ping pong balls in a lottery machine. And it’s the same for so many relationships in my life. Do I befriend a certain person because I actually have interest in that person, or is it just because they are attractive to me and I like being near that? Do I hang out with someone because I value their friendship, or because they have skills or connections of which I wish to take advantage? Do I help out with church fundraisers because I genuinely want to offer whatever I can to the community I love, or because it’s fun or it involves traveling to new places or it might score me brownie points with God?

The truth is, it’s probably pretty much a combination of motives, both the good and the bad, the altruistic and the selfish.

I often wonder why it is that I want to make music, and do it full time someday. I attended a college full of aspiring musicians, and I live in Nashville, where music dreams come to die. This city is one big glitzy elephant graveyard. And with all the massively talented musicians that are in Nashville getting their hopes squished, how could I have the chutzpah to think I can dream any bigger? I’m not nearly so talented as they are. I think of a quote from a favorite movie of mine, called Camp. A character named Ellen states, “When I was eight years old I told my dad that I wanted to take an acting class. He said, ‘There are five billion people in this world. If one-tenth of 1% of them wanted to be actors, that would still be five million people. Do you really think you're prettier than five million people? You're not even the prettiest girl in your class.’” This is how I feel when I look around at all the talent in this city. Heck, I can attend a church service at the Anchor, and I wouldn’t even be the most talented musician in the row of chairs I sit in. Who am I to think I deserve a chance at my dreams?

All I know is, when I was a teenager I could just pull on my headphones and escape from the bullcrap around me. The voice in my ear would comfort me or commiserate with me. The guitars and drums and orchestras would latch hold of me and transport me to new places where all would be made well. And I realized that I wanted to do the same for others. I wanted to be the voice in the ear of a lonely teenager somewhere down the road who just needed someone to tell them that it would all be all right, and that they were not alone.

As I grew and matured, so did my tastes in music. So, too, did the focus of my songs, as they became more a means of expressing myself and the constant clashing of worlds that I experienced in college, as I bounced back and forth between the prison that was my home life and the relative happiness that was school in Illinois.

I graduated, and again my songs shifted focus. Life in Florida was now safely far behind me as I set up permanent residence in Nashville. But I found myself stuck in a hateful job, finding little motivation to work on music. So my songs were about doubt and disappointment and the occasional gasp of hope. Again, the motive for making music was for self-expression; I needed to air out my frustrations with God.

Over the last year-and-a-half, however, I’ve started to come to some peace with God, and I’ve become much more surrendered to Him. My songs have taken a more optimistic and hopeful turn, expressing the longing of a soul to find its place in God.

But self-expression is a purely selfish motive for making music. Sure, it can resonate with others who feel the same. But ultimately it wouldn’t matter if it ever got recorded or performed; if catharsis is the goal, then no one else really needs to become involved. So why is it that the only two times in my life that I’ve felt truly whole as a person were the two times I got to get on stage with a full band and just rock out for a crowd? Surely if self-expression were the only motive, this would not feel any different than sitting in my bedroom playing the same songs on my battered acoustic guitar.

I have an intense adoration for the band U2. Anyone who’s known me for more than an hour probably knows this. There’s something about their music that touches a place deep inside of me that otherwise only God can reach. I could spend all day watching their live DVDs with the volume cranked as loud as the speakers and neighbors will allow; somehow the electricity of the crowd and the performance carries through the TV screen to me personally. I have felt the same way at times during live concerts of other favorites, like Muse and the Killers at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, or Sigur Ros at the Ryman Auditorium, or even Mavis Staples at Bonnaroo 2007. When I am attending an incredible concert by an artist I love—one that connects with the crowd in an almost mystical way—I feel like I am a part of something greater than all this. Not only do I feel like I am not alone in this world, I also feel the presence of God in the unified crowd and the pounding music. I feel just for that short time like all is well with the world and God is ultimately in control and in love with me—regardless of the lyrical content of the artist on stage.

It was only extremely recently that I made the connection between this feeling and whatever it is that others seem to experience during worship in church. For someone who lives and breathes music, I’ve got this huge disconnect when it comes to worship music. Even at the Anchor Fellowship, where the music is always topnotch and honest and beautiful, I can never seem to experience that euphoria I see in all those around me. But I now have a frame of reference to understand it. I see U2 the same way others see worship music; similarly, I have viewed some worship leaders the same way others have viewed Bono—as a preening egomaniac waving his arms around for attention.

I understand now that my greatest motive for desiring to make music is that others might experience worship. But not in the traditional sense. I know full well that it would be fully hypocritical of me to attempt to write traditional worship songs and play them every week in church. Rather I want to bring that same feeling to a crowd of people that I feel whenever I’m at a great show; it’s the same feeling I imagine is felt by worshipers in church. It’s that feeling that I am just one little part in this great amazing world that God has created, and that He is here with us all.

We’re all called to be worshipers. That’s just a part of our identity as Christians. That’s what we humans were created to be. I feel like I’ve been given this particular talent, and that I need to use it for God’s glory. But not within the framework of a church service. When I watch Bono up on that stage, I feel like he’s leading worship with a crowd that is mostly non-Christian. Still, though, I sense the Spirit of God in that place, ministering joy and comfort and peace and hope to everyone there. That’s just the “magic” that is in music inherently. To me, music is one of God’s greatest creations, and it’s something He inhabits through its very existence. Heaven itself is notoriously overflowing with the most beautiful music any human ear will ever or never hear.

So why do I want to make music? Is it because I just want to be rich and famous and live in a spotlight? Hardly. Anyone who knows me can confirm that I don’t like being the center of attention. I also know that anything good that comes through my music is entirely of God, because I’m overly aware that I can do nothing of value by myself. And I don’t need things. Any money I’d make beyond what I need I’d rather give to someone who is struggling; why should I own multiple cars and a mansion when so many people are buried in debt, and so many ministries and charities are struggling to stay afloat? Millions of people around the world are dying of malnutrition! What right would I have to ignore that and instead purchase a yacht? And fame would just come with more headaches than it’s worth.

Do I make music to express myself? Of course. Anyone who makes honest music does this. Music has immensely cathartic properties. But it’s more than about self-expression.

It’s about God-expression. It’s about telling others what He’s done for me. It’s giving Him honor. It’s making use of the talents He’s given me. It’s about leading others into a place of experiencing God. And it doesn’t have to be lyrically blatant. Bono’s lyrics are veiled expressions of his “lifelong argument with [his] maker,” as he put it. Matthew Bellamy’s lyrics are sometimes directly anti-God. And Jonsi of Sigur Ros sings in Icelandic, and sometimes nonsense syllables; I have no idea what he’s trying to express in his lyrics. But all these bands take me to a place of experiencing God’s presence. And I want to do the same for others. I want to let them know that they are not alone. I want them to receive hope and encouragement. I want them to feel the breath of God’s Spirit. And maybe somehow through it all God can speak to them specifically and personally, even if I never use the words “God” or “Jesus” anywhere in the songs. I just want to speak life into the listener, whoever and wherever he or she might be.

An Overactive Imagination

Children aren’t surprised by miracles. Their capacity for imagination amazes me, and oddly puts my intellect to shame. As an adult, I’m fairly certain that next time I’m at the mall a unicorn will not materialize and saunter through the crowds. But if one does, you can bet every child in the place will approach it with matter-of-fact curiosity, while every adult in the mall will emit a collective “WTF?!” In the same way, a mother with cancer can suddenly be found to be tumor-free; the doctors will be entirely mystified, while the child is just happy that Mommy is back home and her hair is growing out again. It is as though children understand things that are far beyond the comprehension of adults.

It’s the complete opposite with things that we adults understand. We don’t have to be knowledgeable in the field of aerodynamics to grasp the fact that the wings of an airplane are structured and angled in such a way as to create lift with enough speed. We take for granted that an airplane takes off and lands because we as adults understand it. But a child can stay nose-glued to the terminal window, watching in awe as plane after plane takes off and lands, and it’s amazing to them. We as adults can walk through a garden without noticing one thing around us, yet the child is caught up with the brilliance of the flowers and the caterpillar on the sidewalk and the puddles just begging to be jumped in. Children find such joy in the things we adults take for granted.

What happened to us? Why do we discount the things we can’t comprehend, and find no amazement in those things we do understand?

In our world, the moment we stop believing in Santa Claus is a rite of passage. Setting aside tales of fairies and dragons and aliens is considered part of growing up. Dreams are reduced to being nothing more than the result of late-night pizza. Angels become naked babies with wings, and the monsters under the bed are the products of an overactive imagination.

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle theorizes that we’ve been taught the story of Peter walking on the water all wrong. We’re told that he just had so much faith for that moment that he was able to perform the miracle of walking on the tops of the waves. Her idea, though, is that Peter was remembering how to walk on water, that for that brief second he had returned to what he had originally been created to be.

L’Engle also emphasizes that Jesus was fully human as well as being fully divine. And Scripture makes it clear that his miracle power was not coming from within him, but rather from God the Father working through him. He was fully human, but because he was also fully divine and knew the Father so intimately, he was perfectly willing to go along with everything the Father commanded him to do. He knew the Father so well that he trusted Him without question. And God was able to use him to the greatest extent. He could perform miracles, and heal, and walk on water, because he trusted the Father implicitly and was the man he had always been created to be.

(I’ve heard the question put forth as to why the Western world doesn’t see miraculous healings like the Third world still sees on a regular basis. The answer posited was that God’s gotten so fed up with our self-reliance that He just gave up on the West almost entirely and left us with our health care. This was only partly a joke.)

We all know that story of Jesus with the little children, how the adults didn’t want them to bother Jesus, but he put the adults to shame by declaring that the kingdom of heaven was of such as those children. We’ve also all been taught that story incorrectly, or at least incompletely. I know I was. I was always told that that story was proof that children were important like adults were. It wouldn’t be overly flippant of me to say that it was meant to be a self-esteem boost for kids. But that’s not what Jesus meant.

What Jesus meant was that “childish” qualities such as creativity, imagination, wonder, trust, and acceptance were qualities that one needed to see the kingdom of heaven come to fruition. These kids ignored all the “important” adults who wanted to debate theology and real life with Jesus, and who wanted to observe the proper protocols of interaction with a teacher. They just walked right up to him and sat in his lap, and allowed him to love them without prerequisite or condition.

It is implied in this story that the kingdom of heaven is one of those things that children inherently grasp but adults have discredited at worst or taken for granted at best.

Holy crap, what if the “overactive imagination” of a child was a part of God’s original design for humanity?! What if creativity, imagination, wonder, trust, and acceptance are qualities God intended for each of us to have, and it’s just been the proper adults who have squashed those nascent gifts within us as a requirement for “growing up”? What means to knowledge can be found in the ninety percent of our brains that we do not use? What if we truly take hold of the idea that there are more ways of knowing than just logic and the scientific method? And what if we were to go beyond just recognizing that observable fact is truth to acknowledging that not all truth is observable fact—that observable fact is actually merely a subcategory of truth?

I wish I knew how to regain the wonder and the curiosity of a child. The innocent inquisitiveness. The easy trust. The vibrant creativity. (I can’t ignore that creativity is the very first aspect of God’s character that we see in action in Scripture. Not faithfulness. Not love. Not wisdom, or judgment, or power. Creativity. Should it be a surprise then that children take to it so naturally and so early in life?)

I just know that I used to be terrified of God, and now I dare to approach Him like a dear friend, and often tactlessly. I know that I used to tell people what to think, and now I’m made fully aware I know nothing and all I can do is encourage them to seek God more intimately. I know that I could never find any interest or joy in my physics classes, but now I long to know about black holes and string theory and general relativity and the Creator of this universe and all its mysteries. I know I used to feel like the stories in Scripture were tired and cobwebby, and now I’m insatiably curious to know what else happened—I want to know about the Nephilim and the Watchers, about Enoch and Jared, about the “hot springs” Anah discovered in the wilderness, about the further exploits of the sons of Jacob.

I want to remember who I was created to be. I want to walk on water. I want to see miracles, and healings. I want to create uninhibitedly. I want God to come down and walk with me in the cool of the day. I want to approach Jesus without reserve and just allow him to love me without cause. I want to be filled with all the wonderment of a child gazing out the window of the airport terminal, as the airplanes take off and land over and over again.