I Used to Make Worship Music and Now I'm Triggered by My Guitar

Have you noticed that sometimes a book comes along at just the perfect time? It happens to me, a lot.

Such is the case with Faith, Hope, and Carnage which is an extended interview of the musician Nick Cave. To be honest, I haven’t listened to his music much, but he’s crept into my radar to the point where I felt I needed to understand where he’s coming from. I ordered the book, devoured it, and took notes.

A Quote From The Book

This is the quote that inspired this blog. It's from Nick Cave and Séan O’Hagan's Faith, Hope, and Carnage.

“The Love Song is perhaps the truest and most distinctive human gift for recognizing God and a gift that God himself needs. God gave us this gift in order that we speak and sing Him alive because God jives within communication. If the world were to suddenly fall silent God would deconstruct and die. Jesus Christ himself said, in one of His most beautiful quotes, ‘Where ever two or more are gathered together, I am in your midst.’ He said this because wherever two or more are gathered together there is language”

My Journey From Worship Musician to Fearing My Guitar

I’ve struggled with the fact that I used to make music all the time in the church. I wrote songs and led worship and even made a pretty good worship CD. When I left the church in 2010, I put my guitar away and never took it out again. I’ve been trying to, but nothing seems to work.

I’ve concluded I either am too triggered by it, or that I was traumatized by it all and can’t do it again, or that I have nothing to sing about that can fill me with as much passion as worship music did. I wish I had known then how important creativity is to the deconstruction process.

I got to the point where I was even going to consider therapy. A few psychologist friends suggested hypnosis or EMDR or tapping or other methods to unblock my musical creativity. I was going to look into that. Then this book came along.

Finally Uncovering the Problem

While I was reading Cave's interview, it suddenly dawned on me, or actually… not “dawned”… which is gradual… but exploded inside me… what I think my problem is… or was.

I grew up in a religious culture that drew sharp lines of demarcation between sacred and secular. The music I wrote and sang was sacred. All other music was secular.​ Including love songs.

Rationally, in my mind, my deconstruction has eliminated that line between sacred and secular because I now believe we are all one, all is one, and that absolutely everything is imbued with this all-in-all oneness.

I’ve applied this to religion, spirituality, people, sexuality and gender, money, our bodies and sex, everything.

Everything except music!

Music Doesn't Have to be 'Sarced' to Be Special

I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t think I could make music because worship was the pinnacle of musical value and anything less than that, like a love song, was inferior somehow. Like I said, I really don’t believe this. But I do think this fallacy was deeply embedded in my unconscious, in my cells. So I couldn’t just sit down and write and sing a love song, because I assumed it was somehow inferior and would not drum up my passions as much as worship music did.

Cave made me realize that I really do believe that the Ultimate Mystery and Oneness can be manifested in a love song. I really do believe it. But that belief had not yet filtered down into the depths of my being.

The belief had not yet transformed me to the depths of my being. But… once I saw the fallacy… it disappeared! Do you know what I mean?

I really do believe I’m going to make music again. And I'm going to keep trying to find myself after deconstruction. And that's all thanks to Nick Cave.

Timber: I Won't Stop Singing

I painted this a while ago but now it feels even more meaningful for me. Right now, Timber is guiding me and inspiring me to keep making music and to pick my guitar back up.

We lose so many passions and hobbies when we deconstruct. But, surely after all this time, we can start to rebuild what we lost. But this time, we'll do it the healthy way.