Wild Sea

I've been dreading and looking forward to the explanation of this song since I wrote it. Last Sunday Service on Facebook Live, we played "Wild Sea" from our record Hymns For My Atheist Sister & Her Friends to Sing Along To. We've been subsequently accompanying each song with a blog that unpacks it a bit more.

It's been a strange week.

Let's start in recent history. Last Saturday, we released a rewrite of "O Holy Night" to accommodate the celebration of Solstice-- the darkest night of the year wherein every day following becomes a little bit lighter. It's a night to remember that darkness isn't forever-- that light will come. Not unlike Christmas. Overall, it was a positive response. Some folks took it as an opportunity to explore a lesser appreciated holiday while still maintaining their Christmas cheer. Others took it as a chance to sing an old hymn that religious baggage or past hurts had inhibited them from enjoying in a lot of years. But then... some people got angry. Name calling, accusations of blasphemy-- the whole bit. It wasn't our intention to ruffle feathers, but it did. When we did the rewrite, it came from a place of genuine love for an old song, genuine hope for a new day, and genuine spirit of comfort and joy. Not unlike... the intent of the original song. But the words were different. And because it was a familiar frame without the exact words-- words, mind you, that for some people are completely unrelatable or unattainable-- it created chaos within them. It made them feel... angry.

Why? Some might say to defend their religion or god. But the reality of it is that there is no god in description that needs defending. According to the modern Christian God, he's doing just fine without humans mucking up the details.

The real defensiveness, I'm suspicious, might be the feeling of safety. Opening the door to more people, more ideas, more faith is downright scary. Like living in a traditional nuclear family when suddenly your parents decide to adopt a new kid. The new kid isn't acting like you. They aren't talking like you-- in some cases they might not even look anything like you. Your reaction is to train them. To force them into your family traditions. In some cases, this is effective. But with enough force, with enough demands on this person, it's no longer a welcoming environment-- and it's no longer a sustainable one, either. But, imagine what happens when a family listens to their adopted and learns from them. Here, a new family exists. But... not the one from before. The result is more lush, more freeing for everyone. But not the same.

It's easy to imagine the frustration of being the family unit with a stranger. But then, imagine being the stranger. Imagine never being able to get it quite right. Imagine always feeling like there is something wrong with you, that you're messing up the peace, that you're chronically trying to push down the piece of you that makes this family unit feel frustrated just by the fact of who you are.

And this is the "Wild Sea."

I was born into a family who were Christians, evolving in an era of Christian Nationalism and fundamentalist evangelicalism. I've spoke before about my upbringing, and won't get into the details here-- but it is a common story. I learned the words of hymns early, understood the importance of sitting still in church, and worked very hard to be good. But. I can also remember as early as 5 years old a distinct knowing of something. It wasn't Jesus, it wasn't a Father God. I felt it as I wandered in the woods near our cabin. I knew it as I stood stock still in front of a white tailed deer in the meadow and felt a radiating connection. I wasn't allowed to watch any television that had a bent of New Age themes, drinking, or swearing. I wasn't fed ideas outside of the Bible. I didn't know any other religions actually existed that early. And yet, I also knew something bigger than the Old & New Testament and I could feel it every time my bare feet hit the mud.

And in it, I felt whole. Like a complete, loved, of-myself person who was cared for and full, tied with a thread that wove me to every living thing-- from the bright red teaberries in late winter to the green taste of birch bark in the spring. I began to know this as a waving force-- a Wild Sea.

When I tried to explain this to my parents, the feeling I would get in the woods or at sunsets or in the quiet of my room, they would remind me that it was the Holy Spirit. That it was God. They'd give me verses to help me understand it, but I didn't find comfort there. When I started to see eyes looking back at me in my ceiling fan, or felt faint from a glowing light above the underpass by our house that knocked me down with its radiating silence, I was told it was the devil. Here, my parents tried to comfort me with Scriptures again.

I don't fault them. It was the family they knew-- the explanation that made the most sense to them. I see their comfort as a kindness, not a conditioning. As I grew up, I pushed down my visions. When I felt the overwhelm of the Wild Sea within me in the woods, I would force my mind to thank God, instead. I have journals stacked on journals of my time spent at the old bear cave at the top of the hill in a meadow where I would sit and beg God again and again to help me feel that it was really him and not something else. I studied. Hard. I could go up against pastors at any church in a "sword" fight of Bible knowledge and scripture. I desperately read and consumed any Christian media I could, digging into textbooks and apologetics and commentaries far beyond my age level. Soon, I became very good at transferring what I knew to what I should know. I successfully replaced the Wild Sea with Jesus. It made me feel disconnected from myself. Shattered. Broken. But it made me fit in to my community, and it made my parents love me.

The consequence was that I could not hear myself. As a woman in the Christian church, I am taught that I cannot trust myself. That I am best used, not heard. That it is for men to decide what God is and is not. So if I am not listening to myself and instead am replacing my own knowing with Jesus-- and then Jesus is contorted and reinterpreted according to a pastor's whim, then I find myself vulnerable and unprotected against the faulty conscience of men. I pushed down my hesitations and my questions after chronic reprimands. And then, I was taken advantage of-- sexually, mentally, and emotionally. I was good enough to lead children's groups and to be abused sexually, but not good enough to contribute to theological discussions or to ask questions.

I don't say this as a woe-unto-me-- another casualty of bad religion. Because of these events, I began to break down what the Bible was actually saying against what was actually happening to people who claimed to follow the Bible. The disparity was too great. In college, I had the space and freedom to investigate further, and found that knowing myself was becoming much more important than being a Christian. But the return was too painful to the Wild Sea. So I began drinking.

A thousand tiny waves and events between my 21st birthday and now. All of them contributing. But we are talking about a song and where it came from. In 2021, we were staying with our friends in Asheville, NC waiting out the end of the lockdown. I'd quit drinking a couple months earlier, and something heavy was pressing against my back as I sobered up. I tried to keep it in, writing it off as pandemic anxiety, but it persisted. One morning, looking out over the Blue Ridge foothills, this song came forth. It was like greeting an old friend and a tornado at once. In a flash, I saw my life laid out as I've laid it out for you-- childhood to now. I saw myself trying on religion, drowning myself in alcohol, force feeding myself self-help books, all in avoidance of the Wild Sea.

But now, here she was. And it was freely mine, free to offer, free to receive. And just like that, I was whole again.

I haven't looked back. I have since been radically in recovery to find the mysticism, the joy, and the absolute knowing that I've had since birth. It's an unbelievably fulfilling and terrifying and wonderful voyage.

This is not to say that the Wild Sea trumps Christianity or Buddhism or whatever it is you love and know. For me, it was constricting-- "a poorman's wild sea." The religion I was fed was malnourishing, and demanded I cut off access to my own hunger and knowledge of what is good for me. It demanded a cost too high, too unattainable, too unhealthy. It doesn't have to be like that. I frankly care so little what someone else's Wild Sea is, or the way in which they are able to access it. The Wild Sea is big enough to contain it all, and I welcome you there with me. The Sacraments may very well bring you to your Knowing-- and I'm glad for you. May it bring you comfort and an ability each day to wake up and love your neighbor as yourself. Because whether Wild Sea or Allah or Jesus Christ-- we're all adopted into the same family. And it's awfully important that we know no strangers as we sit down to family dinner.

I was born on the shores of the Wild Sea

I was golden, feet in the water, head in the trees.

It was me, and the sea, and the Wild Sea.

They had answers and no chance for a psalm from me.

“Here’s an illusion to cover your confusion of the Wild Sea.”

And I was good, spoke as I should

Let the promises repeat.

Bowed my head, said “Jesus” instead,

But I prayed to the Wild–

– Sea have mercy, have mercy on the Lord

He offered what you gave me in exchange for my soul.

Though it shines and it shimmers, not all that glitters

Is the Wild (Sea)

I was sold on poor man’s Wild Sea

Got to the bottom of the shallows with a thirst in me

I tore from the hallowed & the hollowed when they called for me

Whole I came, whole I go to the Wild Sea

It was me and the sea and the Wild–

It was me and the sea and the Wild Sea