Lyrics:

All my little life
I seem to have believed,
Inside I am broken
and riddled with disease.

I’m trying out a new song
that I don’t know how to sing,
hoping I can hear it
through the noise of everything.

It goes:
”I believe that I am worthy
I believe that I’m enough
I believe that I am made of
vibrant life and endless love.”

Your reflection

What comes up for you as you hear this?

If you “seem to have believed” a similar thing, can you name its origins?

What script is more deeply ingrained in you: your fundamental worthiness or unworthiness?

Is the attempted reframe at the end upsetting or liberating to you?

In what ways is “vibrant life and endless love” perhaps part of your actual core?

My reflections

This is a small song attempting a big thing. I had toyed with calling it “The Fundamentals” or even “Fundamentalism” as a bit of a play on the musical motif: the ending refrain is simply a walk up the G scale, like we’re doing piano practice. But thematically, it’s practicing something entirely new — a self-affirmation to rewrite an inner story.

Is your flawed-ness is deeper than your loved-ness?

Are you not already an exact expression of love and creativity, by the nature of your existence?

If a Creator plays a role in your thinking, is that entity one who makes broken things?

Stories of unworthiness are core to much of our culture, and many folks’ faith. It’s often viewed as a pre-requisite to accept health or help or salvation: first, accept your unworthiness, and then you can accept that you are worthy. First, swallow this poison, and then you can get the antidote. Believe you are awful, and then you can believe you are made good.

nakedpastor

A post shared by David Hayward | Artist (@nakedpastor)

I’m not entirely sure the body can healthily accept such an intense contradiction.

(After the line-break: behind the song writing process, a bonus video recording of this song from this week, a book recommendation, a poem)