I've been playing the piano off and on since I was about 5 or 6 years
old. I received my most concentrated formal piano instruction in college while I was minoring in music. I wasn't an expert at
reading music, but just one semester of music theory/musicianship helped me
learn how to play by ear. Having this skill is extremely helpful whenever I
lead worship, because thankfully most worship songs nowadays only contain 3 or
4 chords. However, towards the end of college when I started to lead worship
for the first time, I quickly discovered how much more feasible it was for me
to learn how to play the guitar and lead worship with a strummable, portable
instrument while standing up (guitar) rather than with a furniture-like
instrument while sitting down and facing the wall (piano). But that is my
history. As an adult, I still love playing the piano, even though I'm not an
expert at it, but I hadn't been able to play because I hadn't owned my own
piano.
My story took a new turn recently. If you're my Facebook friend,
perhaps you saw my public status-update processing several days ago about me
deciding to purchase a piano keyboard. I set it up in my apartment and, as
usual, I got lost in the music, the potential, the myriad of buttons on this new
toy. And I don't think it's an accident that there happened to be a place in my apartment where a Matrix poster happened to be hanging... and a keyboard happened to fit there. "There is no spoon."
A couple of months ago, I blogged about how a spiritually abusive
environment is like its own brand of civilization. I grew up in a spiritually abusive environment, and I spent a
great deal of my adult life in spiritually abusive environments. So, reader, I
hope you're not getting sick of me blogging about spiritual abuse, because
that's a major part of my story.
"Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His
holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his
soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the
Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation." (Psalm 24:3-5)
Speaking of civilization, I didn't realize until fairly recently that
music was a majorly, tremendously huge part of my life. I thought it was just a
hobby. But I grew up in a house where 3 of us, including myself, knew how to
play the piano. Music was extremely important in the house, at least as a background
filler. I remember one day, an extremely important member of the family brought
a couple of parakeets to live in our house. We set the cage in a central
location, and we stared at the birds and waited for them to do something
exciting. But they just sat there. They looked hesitant and afraid. They didn't
really do anything. They didn't seem very birdlike at all. But the next
morning, one of the extremely important members of the family began to practice
the piano, which happened to be near the parakeet cage. Suddenly, it was as if
something had clicked inside the parakeets, and they began to function
properly. They were chirping, preening their feathers, eating, pooping, etc. They
suddenly became very birdlike. And they continued to remain quite birdlike for
the rest of their lives. Perhaps the music changed the environment and caused
something to unleash inside of them and gush out.
Unfortunately, not every member of the household was allowed to express
themselves as gushily as they would have liked. I grew up in an extremely
competitive environment. So much of what we did and said seemed to revolve
around this unspoken thing of "I'm better than you, you will never be
better than me, and we will always be better than everybody else." So, when my naturally musical self was drawn to the piano and would voluntarily try to play, havoc would eventually break loose in the competitive household. (When I was forced to practice, I would hope that no one would see me crying.) Either I would play a wrong note and the
perfect-pitch perfectionist would sing the correct note from the other end of
the house until I would get it right, or the other perfect-pitch person would
invite themselves to sit on the piano bench with me and mockingly mess with
whatever piece I'd be trying to play. (No, I don't have perfect pitch, and I
was constantly reminded of this imperfection.) Then after I would
practice/play, someone who was a better musician than I was would play a piece perfectly.
Or I wouldn't be able to play at all because someone who I think should have
valued my musical gifting/interest would insist on having the TV on louder than
my piano playing. So, yes, playing the piano brings up quite a few issues
inside me that I would like for God to clean out and heal.
About 12 years ago when I was in the psych hospital and I hadn't yet
brushed the activated charcoal out of my teeth, a counselor asked me
while she was interviewing me, "What are the 3 most important things in
life?" Without blinking or thinking, I replied, "Security, closeness,
and artistic expression." Later, I realized that those are my 3 biggest
needs. As a woman, my biggest need is for security. As a clingy worshiper Levite,
my second biggest need is for closeness. And as a person who was designed to
create things, my third biggest need is to express myself artistically. One
cool thing about art is that it comes in about a million different forms. One
of those forms is music, and the way that I made music for most of my life was
on the piano. All 3 of my biggest needs -- security, closeness, and artistic
expression -- can be met in God. I can be secure in Him. I can be close to Him.
I can artistically express myself to Him. If I don't, I could shrivel up and
die.
And I almost did. I recently remembered my months of intense depression
that led up to my 2000 suicide attempt. I was obsessed with finding my purpose
in life, and everyone around me was living out their dreams while I wasn't, so
I was very insecure. The people who I had bonded with the most had moved on elsewhere,
and I was expected to bond with other people, but the closeness didn't feel the
same. I was playing the guitar and, occasionally, a djembe-like drum, but I
didn't own a piano or make time to borrow somebody else's, so I wasn't
artistically expressing myself in unabashed ways that my soul had been used to doing
previously. I was living in a dangerously spiritually abusive environment where
the message of "I'm better than you, you will never be better than me, and
we will always be better than everybody else," was constantly reinforced.
So, a few days ago when I was basically like, "Screw it, I'm just
going to buy my very own keyboard," I think my chafing soul breathed a
sigh of relief. I had forgotten how running my fingers along the (plastic)
ivories and figuring out melodies and chords was like hitting a giant
"reset" button in my fried, introverted mind. This time, in my own
home, I don't have other people interrupting my practice times or mocking my
trial-and-error mistakes or disrespecting my musically private times that are
necessary for artistic experimentation and expression. I can do things like
stare at sheet music and figure out how Keith Green organized his melodies or
play with an electronic steel drum or unravel the mysteries of how Elton John
wove together his ingenious chord progressions. It's as if I've been putting
together a giant jigsaw puzzle, and some extremely important pieces have been
missing. I think maybe I found one of the most important pieces. I can make
mistakes while I'm learning how to be me.
I really think spiritual abuse is the same way. All your life, you've
been putting a puzzle together, but you haven't been able to find all the
pieces. You're putting them together, and it looks right, but then someone
comes alongside you and declares, "You're doing it wrong." You become
confused, and you wonder what the heck is wrong with you, or maybe you give up altogether
on trying to put the puzzle together.
Trying to live your life in a spiritually abusive environment is
stressful, traumatic, and tragic because you finally found Somebody who can fix
you. Something inside you has finally clicked: God is the answer, and He is
everything I need, and I want to connect with Him. You've finally begun to
clean your hands and purify your heart, and you've been ascending into God's
hill, up into His lap, kneeling onto His bosom so that you can look Him square
in the face. But then maybe someone comes alongside you and tells you that your
way of relating to God is wrong. Perhaps they tell you that they're more of an
expert at it than you are. When it comes to praying or reading their Bible,
they have perfect pitch and you don't. They're called to the mission field and
lead 10 people to Christ every year, and you don't. They're getting missionary
support checks, and all you do is lead measly little worship songs at a measly
little small group. You look up to them and come to them for advice, but all
you really ever hear from them is, "I'm better than you, you will never be
better than me, and we will always be better than everybody else." Then maybe you begin to believe that you're not good enough for God, that He's actually a monster who promises peace but just gives you more anxiety, and that you are just one huge loser, one big sucker, one giant mistake. Then
you implode, and next thing you know, you're in a psych hospital with a coating
of activated charcoal on your teeth.
But I think the good news is that God's environment is much different
than that. God's environment -- His kingdom -- is one of love, kindness, and
acceptance. He doesn't accept sin, but because of Jesus, He accepts ME. He
disciplines me, but He doesn't yell at me in public or shame me in private
because I made a mistake. He doesn't spoil me, but He doesn't want me to be
uncomfortable. Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, but while He
was on earth, He experienced what it was like to be a human being. God
understands that as a human being, I need room for trial and error. I need
space to experiment with artistic expression. I need to be able to sit down and
figure things out (with His help, of course), and He won't make me feel
inferior with His superiority (even though He is the most Superior Person in
the universe), and I don't think His environment is competitive in an unhealthy
way. I think His heartbeat sounds something like, "I'll always be above
you, but learn from Me because I always want to serve everyone, and keep your
eyes open to the people around you because I'm longing to accept them and make
them Mine... because I've done it for you." Birds are designed to sing,
and perhaps they're most comfortable doing so in a musical environment. I was
designed to express myself, and perhaps I'm most comfortable doing so in an
environment where my Father will always love me, want me, accept me, and
empower me.
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