Can We Talk? - Mary Beth Bonacci

You Are What You Sing
What's in your heart can depend on what's in your head.

I was never a big "Christian music" fan. Sure, I liked "sacred" music. I even liked On Eagle's Wings the first 975,000 times I heard it. But "Christian rock," as it was called, wasn't my thing. It sounded trite to me, a cheap knock-off of real rock music. So I listened to the "real" thing — the "Top 40" stations, the "Modern Rock" stations, the "Classic Rock" stations, and the "All '70s All The Time" stations.

And those lyrics burned into my brain. Sometimes I'd get a song "stuck in my head." Once, on a retreat, it was Carly Simon's "All I Want Is You." The prayerful context put the phrase "all I want is you" into my head. Unfortunately, the subsequent lyric "and the sexy hurricane . . ." doesn't fit into any prayer form I'm familiar with.

Recently, at a meeting, the "stuck" song was Jimmy Buffett's "Why Don't We Get Drunk And . . ." If you know the rest of the title, you understand the problem. All in all, not a great situation.

Then I met Rich Mullins.

For those of you unfamiliar with Rich, he was probably the greatest "Christian" songwriter of our time. Over his career, he released nine albums selling a combined total of more than a million records.

When I first met Rich in November of 1996, I was completely unfamiliar with his songs. (They weren't on the "Classic Rock" station.) Getting to know him, I was completely bowled over by the kind of person he was. He was brilliant, funny, humble and amazingly holy. He was a great man and a great friend. And yet, aside from the Rich Mullins songs we sang at Mass, I was still unfamiliar with his music.

Then, in September of 1997, Rich was killed in a car accident. After I got the news, I put his greatest hits CD, Songs, on the stereo. I think I just wanted to hear his voice again. I was absolutely blown away at what I heard. His music could not be more different from the insipid drivel I had remembered Christian music to be. It was deep, powerful, profound. He sang about temptation, about loneliness, about the awesomeness of God. He sang about death — not as the end, but as the beginning, of our real lives.

On one hand, I was devastated to lose Rich, and to lose our growing friendship. On the other hand, how sad could I be to see him go to the God he loved so completely?

Since Rich's death, his CDs have been the background music for my life. I like hearing his voice. I like "sharing" him with the people I love. But most of all, I like what his songs say about life, about God and about the human condition. And an interesting thing has been happening. I'm seeing a very subtle change in my attitudes. I'm more "God-focused." I'm more at peace with the unknowns of the future. I'm more intent on spending my life doing God's will, whatever that may be.

And I have Rich, and his music, to thank for that.

So yes, I still get lyrics "stuck in my head." But now, when those words are going through my mind, I'm praying. Just this morning, I woke up singing:

Nothing is beyond You, You stand beyond the
     reach
Of our vain imaginations, our misguided pieties.
The heavens stretch to hold You, and deep cries
     out to deep,
Saying that nothing is beyond You, nothing is
     beyond You.

A pretty good way to wake up, don't you think?



Mary Beth Bonacci can be reached at Real Love, Inc., 1520 West Warner Road, Suite 106-138, Gilbert, AZ 85233, 602-812-1194.