If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
______
My dear friend David, has spent a decade introducing me to good music. He's responsible for my love of many bands and artists, Brand New being at the top of that list. A few years ago, he bought me The Devil and God Raging Inside of Me. The minute I popped it into my sad little CD player in my old car, I was in love.
Sowing Seeds leads off this album and is my favorite of all Brand New songs. For years, I thought it was really strange that I so thoroughly resonated with this song. There are certainly many others that could have been obvious choices. This is, after all, an album that sings and screams about the fallen Christian and the battle between good and evil and the loss and breaking of all the "yokes" church and Christianity places on people. (at least that's what I make of it but more creative and knowing minds may hear things differently.)
Last Thursday, I went to see Brand New at Stage AE here in Pittsburgh. Mid-way through, they played Sowing Seeds. And as the lyrics, taken from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, melodically washed over me, I finally did it. I bore to hear the truth that I've spoken. I watched the things I've given my life to, break.
And even more, I realized something frightening. Something freeing.
I not only surrendered to the necessity of that breaking, I decided that for some things, for some people, I may not stoop and build anymore. Not with worn-out tools. Not with false pretenses. Not with fake smiles and empty promises. I'm too tired to pretend to care about what everyone else wants me to give myself to and to sow seeds I'd rather not see come to fruition in the first place. I spent years working at a church for Christ's sake - this girl knows how to smile, fake it and tolerate the suckling from the power-tit by those I was supposed to respect.
A person can fake for so long, they stop realizing what is false and what is true - like being knocked over by a wave and becoming disoriented between what is up and what is down. I think that's been me in a lot of ways. And coming out of disorientation is tricky and blinding and amazing and beathless.
It's a really odd thing, to have been known as a truth-teller, but realizing all along - it wasn't all true. Since I was a tiny child, I really couldn't lie. And for most of my life, I barely even tried to. Later I became someone unafraid to confront and speak words that cut between honesty and deception. But standing at that show last Thursday, I realized that the truth that matters the most, is the very truth I've chosen to ignore. And since I'm still a recovering evangelical, I'll throw this out there too. The heart really can be, more deceitful than all else and beyond cure. (Jeremiah 17:9)
_____
I have a pretty amazing therapist who confronts my black and white mind every time we meet, as well as my self-depricting humor and my boundary-lessness. When we first started talking about boundaries, I'm not to going to lie (ha!). I literally could not comprehend what the hell she was talking about, mostly because her questions always began with:
Her: "....Yes. That makes sense. But what do YOU want?"
Me: "UMMMM???!!!!?!??!.... (long pause) Oh, that's not rhetorical? Shit, well. UMM." (insert blank stares and hard blinking while my 8 differing and conflicting personalities via for the "right" answer.)
I AM learning to listen though, slowly. Because as my therapist explains (over and over), boundaries are mostly created by hearing your own self. And I'm finally listening and trying not to apologize for my truth. The truth that was there all along. The truth that isn't black and white. The truth that gives me the freedom to cry at a concert and see the light and promise to listen and to hear ME - to just, cultivate this garden with salvageable tools and brand new ones I'll acquire along the way. I want to sow desirable seeds that I'll water with joy and not dread and I want to watch those seeds blossom into something, simple maybe, but honest.
Because I think that, that is what it means to be pure of heart.
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