Continued from Confessions of a Worship Leader: Deep Sleep
No filter. These would be the words that described my dance with ‘Music.’ As we danced, she took me to worlds unknown. All I needed to do was press play, and away we went on a trip.’ Her tools were simple – my ever present headphones, and the pervasive music videos that surrounded my existence. For someone like me, visually driven and creatively oriented, this was an Achilles heel.
We went on adventures with gangsters and pimps. They bragged about their kills and their night crawls with women. My headphones put me right in their midst and I listened to them, my head bopping up and down! Nodding yes to their words. In one moment, ‘Music’ would take me to sun worshippers of the east; and in the next, to tribal spiritualists. In another, she would surround me with hard core rockers filled with alcohol and their drugs of choice. And in yet another, she put me in training under sensual women who sought to entice. Each had a lesson to teach, inspired by darkened voices intent on controlling my mind. And in those moments, I let them have it.
It didn’t help that I was surrounded by other youth who were all doing the same dance. We believed the lies that ‘Music’ told; and we bought into this machine that boldly declared our basest desires. These were our days and nights. Our parties were energetic raves, where we bounced our bodies, and nodded ‘Yes’ as ‘Music’ spat out her abrasive commands through the speakers. Then we would lift up our hands in worship of her words, and of the freedom we found in her. Or so we thought.
We didn’t know we were her zombies. Living, quite alright, but deadened to real, true, pure, LIFE. There we were, zoned out from the rest the world by our headphones as ‘Music’ preached to us. There we were, captivated by her videos as they bombarded us wherever we turned – the gas stations, the school hallways, the stores. Her words painted images that fueled lust. They were burned into our minds, and ultimately became prophecy as our lives acted out the words of her songs.
Ask the ones with stories of innocence lost – ‘Music,’ in some form, often had a role to play. She was either humming in the background as the deed was done; or she had been the one stirring up passion in moments
prior. She mixed with secrecy, privacy, and at times, alcohol. And when they heated up to the perfect brew, they set the stage for the mistakes of our lives. The sort of mistakes that turned future world changers into slaves, bound by strongholds of the past. Potentials, buried.
The more we gave ourselves to ‘Music,’ the tighter she wrapped her chains around us. A sad thing it was. We didn’t know how tender a thing the heart is. Tender, yet powerful. We didn’t know that our hearts would turn her words into our realities as we proclaimed them with our mouths.
And there I stood in the midst of it all. A partaker; a fellow follower – a fellow dancer. Oblivious, nonchalant, and by the looks of it, hopelessly wayward. My case spelled out the word, ‘Doomed.’
More to come…