Monica Rozenfeld moves to Brooklyn with two roommates — a Catholic and an observant Jew — and they each seek understanding of what it means to be religious.
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Music As Religion?
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve turned to music when questioning life and making major decisions. While some find solace in prayer, going to church or synagogue, I simply go to my iTunes playlist.
Blasphemy?
To some.
For me, not so much. My criteria is simple.
Major life questioning: Switchfoot
Simply unwinding: John Mayer
Nostalgic for my childhood: Backstreet Boys
And my most recent addition:
Sheer disbelief and being thankful: Pat Benatar
The last category is currently my favorite. You see, last month I interviewed the infamous Pat Benatar. The original “Heartbreaker” and the singer who will forever be known with her declaration, “Love Is a Battlefield.”
I’m still in disbelief myself.
A few days after my interview I got word that a friend of a friend had a pair of tickets to her New York show. Naturally I went.
While my avid church-going grandmother will surely roll over in her grave as I type this, I had more of a religious experience standing a few feet from the stage at Nokia Theatre than I have ever witnessed in a church. As Pat Benatar sang her second song, “Shadows of the Night” an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness enveloped me.
I’m living the life I’ve always dreamed of — interviewing bands and covering concerts — and I couldn’t be happier.
Words can’t even begin to describe how thankful I was at that moment.
As Benatar’s husband Neil Geraldo provided climatic guitar riffs to accompany her soaring vocals, I couldn’t help but smile at the chorus of the song.
We’re running with the Shadows of the Night
So baby take my hand, you’ll be all right
Surrender all you dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
So far, so many of my dreams have already come true. Some that I never even realized were possible a few years ago.
“Doing what you love takes a lot of faith,” Monica told me once.
I couldn’t agree more.
Where do you find your faith?
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Great post, Annie. I find that some of the most spiritual/religious and G-dly moments happen in our daily life, and if we can tap into that it’s simply beautiful. Keep living your dream and I hope you’ll have many more of these moments.
One of my strong spiritual moments happened during our first time seeing Switchfoot live…was amazing. Will never forget it either.
great work … love your style.
Lots of good insight here… I’m a big live music fan and I know what you mean. I’d say that at church or when doing service work I have different kinds of spiritual experiences that I haven’t had at concerts. That being said, there’s nothing on Earth like a Springsteen show at the Meadowlands.
And I just totally downloaded “Shadows of the Night.” That IS an awesome song…
Switchfoot: “Ooh your love is a symphony…”
This is a great post. I read it twice. I hope you write more on your love for music.
So true. I believe that music is indeed an outlet for prayer and encountering the Divine. I wrote about a similar experience recently: http://www.datinggod.org/2010/09/14/music-is-what-god-wants-us-to-do/ Keep rocking!
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