From the Mouth of Gabriel

From the Mouth of Gabriel-Sufjan Stevens

It's no fun to be tricked.

When I first got an iPod three years ago, I vowed to never download any Christian music on it. All of the Christian rock I'd ever listened to sounded hokey and out-of-place. It all just sounded like Nickleback singing lyrics written by a televangelist with people holding candles and swaying and singing along.

Flash forward one year. I was on iTunes looking at Genius reccommendations and came across a musician named Sufjan Stevens. "Hmm," I thought. "That's a peculiar name." But I bought a song by him-"Chicago"-and it grew on me after a few days. Then I bought the whole album, then another album, and so on. I did some research about Sufjan Stevens and was slightly shocked.

Turns out I'd missed some serious clues alluding to the fact that Stevens is a devout Chrisitan...who sings mainly Christian music. I was torn: religious music had always made me feel uncomfortable, yet here I had been listening to it for a year, enjoying it and feeling totally at ease.

So I decided to go with it. It's not shoving religion in my face, it's exploring it, questioning it, marvelling at it. Not all the songs are like that, either. There are many songs that seem like APUSH set to music: Adlai Stevenson, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Columbian Exposition, Andrew Jackson, and more all make appearances. It's less religious than spiritual, which I like. I could relate to what we read in class about Lincoln: I can't always accept religion, but I am mesmerized by it.

For the first time, I am saying, "My second-favorite music is Christian and I'm proud!" And I can say this because I set aside preconceived notions for just long enough to open my mind to something out-of-the-ordinary.