My sister, Hillary, and I were reared in the world of fundamentalism. It was the mid-80s, Christian television was at it’s zenith and Christian music was undergoing a revolution of sorts. While Jesus Music had emerged in the 70s, barging into the unwelcoming church community, completely disrupting the dominant culture of southern gospel and inspirational music, there was now a new breed of artists determined to take the message back outside of the church.

Hillary and I were 11 and 12 years old, respectively, but we already had questions. Things just didn’t make sense to us. We were forbidden to listen to secular music and even certain Christian artists were off limits. We breathed a sigh of relief when our parents bought us Amy Grant’s controversial Unguarded album. We watched a Christian music video show on the PTL Network called Sound Effectz every Friday night, praying the Spirit wouldn’t speak to our parents and cause them to turn it off in a fit of righteous indignation.

We were so young, but this music and the controversy surrounding it seemed to have a really personal effect on us, causing us to have conversations seemingly beyond our years. We empathized with these artists who were under such fire simply because we knew what we went through just to listen to them. We read CCM Magazine every month to keep up with what was going on with the artists we loved….it was like a Bible of sorts for us.

I remember the April afternoon when Hillary greeted me by holding up the May issue of CCM that had a mystical looking Leslie Phillips on the cover. She was shaking her head, her eyes were almost teary.

Everything about that day is so clear to me. It was the day everything changed.

We sat under the large oak in the front yard and she sat next to me as I read.

The first line I read said this:

This is my last album for the Christian music market. This is the last. At times I may have sounded bitter and there have been things that have made me very angry, but essentially, I just wish people would be real and not be afraid to be human. I think that’s all I ever needed to say in my illustrious career as a Christian artist.

The ‘last album’ she was referring to was her forthcoming release, The Turning, which we had not heard yet. As I continued to read the article, I felt myself resonating with the pressures that she was tired of feeling. I felt them as a preacher’s kid: this unrealistic expectation of perfection, of always having the answers…of being….everything other than myself.

The wind was blowing and I felt that feeling inside, the one that I know now as the “Everything is about to change” feeling. There’s something so liberating in having your ‘hidden thoughts’ validated…said out loud for the first time…hearing someone else say them….and you suddenly find the freedom to say them too.

The article alone changed my sister and I. I still have it in a page protector. Whenever I feel lost creatively, I pull it out and it helps me find my center again.

A month or so later, I saved every dime of my allowance and went to Uncle Al’s United In Spirit in Pinellas Park, Florida and forked over $7.98 for this vinyl album. I took it home and unwrapped it and was mesmerized by this album that somehow felt more like a new book than new music.

I dropped the needle and the album began to play…the beautiful acoustic picking on “River of Love” set the tone…and for the next 37 minutes, I was taken to a land of mystery, questioning, introspection, angst and sweet resolution.

How long have I got before common days become legend/How long have I got till this dream of life becomes heaven/Life passed too fast/It’s hard to know it won’t last forever (from “Beating Heart”)

I know there is a place/free from no borders/before I turn this grace into disorder/I’ve got to find a way out of this chaos/Cuz I don’t know all the truth from the lying/but I know that I need you/I am dying from being held by hell in a cell of blinding fear (from “Libera Me”)

Down comes my religion like leaves on winter trees/Down you come to me with your love on hands and knees/Cut to the heart I am opened up like a wound/Shattered convictions I thought were reflecting you (from “Down”)

I never saw anything relating to my faith, art or life the same way after hearing this album. It changed everything. It stripped away pretension and forced me to live in my true reality. I entered the world of Christian mysticism via Leslie’s music. Her work brought me to the music of Mark Heard and the wonderful writings of Thomas Merton.

When I began my own life as a solo artist, I sought to make music as “honest and beautiful” as Phillips said she attempted to create with this album. But I found myself dealing with the same constraints and expectations that she did, even though I worked outside of the label system as an independent artist.

I had expectations from management and business partners, as well as unspoken constraints from my audience. “Wait until you make it and then do what you want to do”, my manager said to me countless times. That felt completely dishonest to me. I response always was “So…I make it and then I completely change….and then I’m without an audience anyways. I’d rather build a true audience that’s going to stick with me and build something slowly.” She winced and said “You’re in for a hard journey.”

I did it my way. All of love songs were completely ungendered. Which raised questions. Who is he singing about? That’s what I was told people asked when I was briefed by a publicist after my first major showcase. Why does it matter? was my reply. Can they relate to the feeling in the songs? They didn’t know if I was singing about God or a lover, I was told. My reply? I’m singing about both.

My associates asked me why I couldn’t just sing my songs and be quiet. Why did I have to make so much trouble, they asked. I didn’t think I was making trouble…I was just answering their questions.

After an intense first year, I felt drained and felt like I couldn’t sing anymore (something I would come to experience throughout my career). It was my first inking that being a commercial artist was not for me. I sat out for some months, recharged and start writing what would become my second album, The Muse.

To me, the influence of The Turning is evident in this album. My “I Wish” is my own take on “Expectations”, “Tell Me That I Can” is my “When Answers Don’t Come Easy” and “That’s The Kind of Love” is my “Love Is Not Lost”. I was in a serious internal process and all of my feelings and questions are in those lines. I made something that, in the end, I felt was reflective. I said many times that if The Muse was my last album that I would never need to make another statement, because my heart was all there.

Since that release in 2006, my life and art have taken more serious ‘turns’, but The Turning has been with me through every one of them. When my cats woke me up at 5:00 this morning, I knew I needed to play it. I’m charging up for another big change.

I’m learning more about my own rhythm. Consciously. Reclusion is my dominant preference. I can gear up and do a run of work (which is what I’m preparing to do now), but I reach a point where I need to go away and be hidden–for God knows how long. It’s just the poet’s way.

I reflected on my experiences regarding my coming out experience on this morning’s NPR Weekend Edition (Click here to read/listen). There was a time that my public life centered around this discussion. Perhaps I alienated people in that conversation. What I discovered was that my desire was to have a broader conversation–the exact conversation that Leslie was trying to have in 1987. The one that raises the questions of faith beyond ‘the particulars’: beyond musical genres, beyond sexuality, even beyond theology. The one that is about the foundation of our faith: why we believe what we believe and having the personal freedom to ask those questions…and the willingness to let our truth evolve with us as we do.

I maintain that God lives in the questions: in all of the things that I do not know. I never want to know it all….I love the mystery too much.