some short musings on making, queer joy, and the modern prophet
and why I just can't let some modern worship music go
I’m in a class this semester on the inklings (affectionately known as “nerd class”). we’re particularly working with some Lewis and Tolkien fiction, as well as several Dorothy Sayers essays. this week we landed on the theme of creation or making in these authors’ works. I am so fascinated by creation stories and worldbuilding and how we as humans set up rules for our ways of being based on what world (real or fictional) we’re currently in. I’m also interested in the meaning of art and how Sayers connects it to the concept of imago dei. the paradigm of trinity/art as experience, expression, and recognition is a beautiful way of putting into words the mystery of our connection to the creator.
if you’ve been around for a bit, you might remember this post, which was originally a series of tweets on Genesis 1 and being nonbinary. I believe my queerness is reflected beautifully in one of our world’s creation stories (yes, there are more creation stories and poems than just the one in the first chapter of the Bible; more on that another day). I don’t think that the worldbuilding being done in Genesis 1 excludes me, a queer nonbinary human, from the possibility of existing in the created order. really, I am an example of the exquisite, skillful variety in God’s creative mind.
I am not an aberration from God’s original plan, rather, I am a Holy-Spirit infused being made by the dirt and pure mercy, and baked as clay in a fire of queer joy. I was made for love, for love, for love.
I believe that this, my imago dei as a queer person is connected to my imago dei as a maker, as Sayers says. I get to, through my unique way of being in this world, breathe a sort of life into a piece of art that I make. Then that art takes on its own life in the world. I published my first poetry book last fall and it is always lovely to hear how people receive it and comprehend it, most often in different ways than I originally conceived it. and yet, that living nature of the work now makes it more beautiful.
I think this way about modern prophecy too. there is something so rich and powerful about the living nature of post-Jesus-on-earth prophecy: the people of God exhorting, challenging, and in-spiring (breathing into) the people of God to a deeper, fuller life. but these words are not stagnant. they continue changing and taking on new meaning with new recipients. these words might even take on a transgressive meaning in certain contexts.
the Holy Spirit is constantly breathing and making, queering and breaking, can you feel her in the wind?
there has been a deeply sorrowful loss in my life in the past many years: as I came out as queer and nonbinary, I began moving away from the circles of people who wished me and my community less than vibrant life. this meant I started losing not only past community, but also the ways of being in that community that gave me life. for me, this included things like journaling, prophecy in community, and modern worship music. journaling was a deeply personal prayer practice that has felt too painful to try in recent seasons. prophesying in community was lost as the place I previously felt free to do it dissolved.
but this wasn’t exactly the case with the worship music. the best way to say it is that the modern worship music was stubborn. after maybe six months or a year trying to avoid it, I couldn’t stay away. there’s a common debate in ex-evangelical circles about whether or not we can use worship music that’s made by those who wish to force queer people into cisheterosexual conformity. I struggled with this argument internally for a long time. I tried avoiding the music to avoid complicity with harming people, then I tried “redeeming” it by changing words.
I am learning to recognize the prophetic nature of this music, calling things to life that even its makers couldn’t imagine: me, a queer poet, being in-spired in such a way that I enrich the church. there is something transgressive about embracing the art that has taken on a new life of its own, separate from its creators.
Christ’s life, death, and resurrection on this earth shows me his better way: yes, death is inevitable. but so is a second life. the grave isn’t the end.
and so I end the school day dancing in my kitchen and prophesying over myself with songs that many of my peers consider dead to them. I use the words of flawed imago dei makers to breathe new life and queer joy into the parts of myself that have felt so dead and dry in recent seasons, that I might breathe back a deeper life into others.
perhaps I’ll go back to journaling someday. perhaps I’ll be able to prophesy directly over others again someday. that’s a value in my rule of life that I hope to live up to again in time: “through poem, speech and song, I will bear witness to the beauty and belovedness of my community.” but for now, I rest in the fact that I am beloved beyond measure, and I am beginning to wake up once again to the movement of the Spirit in my life, my community, and the world beyond.