Examining The Lyrics

 

In my opinion there are two main types of music lovers.  You have your ‘beat’ people.  They are the ones who feel the music in their soul.  They sway, they bob, they move; the music flows through them.  They can listen to a song and get so carried away by the beat or rhythm of it that it can completely escape them as to what the song is about.  That leads to the second type of music lover I have noticed, The lyrics person.  The lyrics lover is all about the words.  They get lost on the meanings of phrases and choruses.  They see themselves, their stories, their loves behind lyrics.  They can spend days and hours tracking down the stories behind the song interviews.  Anything to help bring more life and story to the lyrics of songs that move them.  I am not implying that these lyric lovers don’t feel or care about the music nor do I think the beat lovers pay no attention to the lyrics; from what I have seen between the two types it is just where their focus lies and where the music touches them the most (words or beat). 

            I am a lyrics lover.  I have always had a deep love of words.  I have always loved to read and write stories.  I process hard feelings with words and story.  In college I majored in Mass Communication, one of the wordiest fields of study!  So, when I choose a song or artist to listen to, I am focused on what my soul or heart wants to hear.  I am listening for a story to make a connection.  I can go overboard and nerd out on a favorite band or musician.  I want to know everything about them and what led to the creation of some of my favorite songs.  Cue VH1’s Behind the Music!  Now I can get lost in a YouTube rabbit hole of interviews about songs and meanings. Finding meaning and story excites me and make me feel more connected to a piece of music or an artist creating the music.  That is why I connect with the music of Lori McKenna so well.  She writes about life as she has lived it and sees it.  Her music tells stories of love and family and heartbreak.  She is a mom, a wife, and someone who also processes the world through words. If you are not a fan of hers stop right now and go listen to any of her songs!  Her writing is so honest!  I literally have a song from her for every member of my family!

            When I began to view and see the world, my faith, and my politics differently then it should be no surprise it was words driven.  Meaning I really listened to what people said, really tried to dig in and see what the meaning was to what I was hearing, what outcome or motivation were they trying to inspire by what they were saying.  Back on 2014, when this really came to fruition for me, I was your typical homeschool mom.  Focused on giving my kids what I thought they needed, Christian (Bible) based curriculum for schooling; and outlets to socialize and make friends and discover who they were outside of school in theatre groups and church groups.  I took the messages I had heard over my entire lifetime to heart.  I built a little safe world for my kids to grow inside of with what I was told was the right education, the right friends, and the right mentors.  Right in my mind meant Christian and bible following.  I thought I understood the meanings behind these lessons and instructions given by religious leaders and churches.  The message I chose to believe was that if you had the means and genuinely cared about the souls of your kids you would surround them with those who would help them get a stronger faith, one that would not be challenged by a question or a doubt of a non-believer.  You would use your discernment to be able to determine where each child struggled and help them use that struggle as a path to draw closer to God, because I honestly believed everything happened for a reason and purpose planned out by God.  I was 100% in on the evangelical message and story.  I was not the type to rock the boat or challenge teachings.  I sought meaning and connections and this community spoon fed them to me.  It was easy to go along with the group.  It did not take much digging to find meaning of sermons, they were laid out with bullet points and next steps.  All presented neatly with the verses that supported them and no need to even bring a Bible to church if you were rushed on time because they would present you with a screen copy with the best interpretation for the desired lesson.  My love of uncovering meaning and finding story with words sort of lost practice.  I was not using these skills in my spiritual life per say, I was absorbing the messages given at face value and did not seek hidden agendas or to try to balance controlling and fear-based teachings with those of acceptance and love.  But not for long…

            I am not quite sure what shook loose or exactly when it started, but something awoke in me and I took a step back.  I like to think it was raising a wildly independent teenage girl or teaching science to a little boy who just loved learning about animals and rocks; I do not know if it was a combination of those two, but my questions started around this period of our family life.  When I was homeschooling a middle schooler and an 3^rd grader with a newborn at home.

  I remember when my daughters’ small group at church was on the purity train around her 6^th -8^th grade years that I started listening and trying to get to the meaning of why this was so important to the church to lead this discussion.  I was a small group leader myself and I remember being so uncomfortable with the teachings and lessons that focused on dressing modestly to not bring dishonor to your body.  I remember hearing the analogy of a girl being a coke can or a piece of gum.  You may have heard this one too, but it appalled me that we were comparing human beings to inanimate objects to show who would want that, a coke or gum that has been shared with so many others, who would want a used-up girl to marry?  Unless you can show that the used-up girl repented and came back to God and lived ‘right’ and was able to use her mistakes to glorify God and teach other girls from her life of sin. It brought back memories of guilt and shame and never feeling truly enough.  Memories of sitting in churches and honestly believing we were only as good as we were pure.   And who I am I to teach these girls this lesson:  I got pregnant before being married!  This whole time period shook me and really had me step back and ask some hard questions.  Who is this teaching benefitting?  I survived these types of purity teachings and how did it benefit or harm me?  Why are we not impowering the girls to learn about their bodies and voice instead of how to save themselves just to be someone’s worthy, pure wife one day?  Why are we adding more guilt and shame onto a topic that is already scary and unnerving for middle schoolers?  Is this what I want my own daughter’s view of herself and sex to be?  NO it is not…. now what?? 

Then from the teaching of my son came questions on science verses Bible teaching.  When science can pinpoint the existence of bones, rocks and minerals, why should we wave that away because the dates do not fit perfectly into our narrative of the “Bible Timeline”? In our zoology study there were detailed theories and timelines that asked him to just believe them to be accurate with little to no scientific proof.  Then when our homeschooling lesson in history was an in-depth coverage of the holocaust it led to the following encounter:

Son: “All those Jews died and went to hell”

Me: “Wait…run that by me again?”

Son: “If Jews don’t believe Jesus was the son of God and died without asking him into their heart they go to hell, not heaven.”

Me: Stunned into silence by a 10–11-year-old! “I am not sure about that buddy.  It does not seem right to me, does it to you? That would mean we would be closer aligned with the Nazi’s who considered themselves Christians and I do not want to be aligned with their beliefs at all.”

That interaction shook me to my core!  Hearing your child state an obvious connection between what he was taught to believe by his religious community to something as horrific as the Holocaust murders is alarming.  Especially when you sit with it and think he is right, that is exactly what we have taught him to believe.  How does the saying on the shirt go:  No Jesus, No Peace; Know Jesus, Know Peace.  Where is the peace in that?  I did ask some elder type people within the church and got stock answers such as, “Science is not above God.  His math is what matters.”  And statements that “The Jews are God’s chosen ones and will always have a place in heaven.”  None of these types of answers, especially the “Just have to have faith and believe” sat well with me.  The lyrics of Christianity that I had built my life around were beginning to raise some uncomfortable questions.  So, I had nowhere to go with these questions, except to the internet!