For me, music and spirituality have always seemed bonded together. Even as a young person, I was drawn to songs that were “religious”, though I didn’t “believe in” the words. I thoroughly enjoyed learning the soprano arias from Handel’s Messiah when I was in my late teens. The one musical experience I had that was over my edge, though, was to participate in a choir that sang Faure’s Requiem at Christmas in a church. I presume that the church was Catholic, because there was a time during the experience that we were all expected to kneel. I did so with everyone else, and felt my Jewish ancestors rolling in their graves.
I was raised by an atheistic Freudian psychoanalyst in New York City. (Take note, Woody Allen!) For me, fanaticism can go in the direction of jingoistic politics, aggressive religious conviction that demands agreement, insistence that one’s own way is the only right way to do things. Many people are religiously wounded by fanaticism. My particular wounding was in the direction of being taught that any spiritual leanings demonstrated emotional illness, immaturity, delusions, and/or primitive thinking. I remember proudly spouting that point of view when I was a college freshman. The door to any kind of spirituality and any language relating to that had been slammed shut by how I was raised.
It has been a long journey out of that particular tunnel. Being part of an unprogrammed Quaker meeting at age 30 was helpful, in that there was no particular religiosity that was endorsed, and anyone could be inspired to speak from “spirit.” The vagueness and inclusiveness of the allowed me to sit with people who didn’t have all the answers, and who weren’t generally emotionally ill, immature, delusional or primitive. In fact, they were mostly intact individuals who had more internal freedom than I did to consider the gifts of spirit, light, God, or whatever word suited them. At first, I cringed at the word “God.” It was forbidden. Funny: I could use four letter words with the best of them, but saying “God” was either impossible or embarrassing. Later, I joined a Congregational Church due to a complicated series of circumstances and inspirations. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
After much emotional work, I have largely recovered from my particular kind of anti-spiritual wounding. In fact, some of the songs in the past few years that have been the easiest to write have been spiritual. As I do so, I feel surprised that these words are coming from me. Sometimes the words point to a spiritual destination I don’t yet fully inhabit. However, the words of the songs don’t feel fake. They may be premature. But perhaps not.
One night, in the grips of insomnia, I wrote a song about how I wished I could feel when restlessness, discontent or fear arise, when I couldn’t relax into sleep. It’s called, “Wrapped In the Spirit”. You can find it on my album, “Truckload of Songs”.
Susan Rose: Singing Grandma 