New
Generation Truths
“Music
helps you find truths you must bring into the rest of your life…the truth of
who we are is innate goodness, and the whole journey is really about removing
any obstacles or false belief’s that keep us from knowing that.”
Alanis
Morissette
My son and
daughter-in-law went to an Alanis Morissette concert on Friday night. Since I
truly don’t know her music, I delved into it a bit. Alanis’ interviews and her
music show uncommon intelligence and spiritual maturity. Her song “Ironic”
is both honest and funny—perhaps because she thinks that the most effective
social activists are comedians—like John Stewart and Trevor Noah. Some of the
lyrics: “It’s like a traffic jam when you’re already late/ A ‘No Smoking’
sign on your cigarette break/ It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need
is a knife/ It’s meeting the man of my dreams/ and then meeting his beautiful
wife…” Can’t we all relate to those lyrics!
When I
hear people talk-down the younger generations (Morissette is now 48), I
bristle. There are some very thoughtful and intelligent people coming behind
us, and I look forward to seeing what they do differently. Lord! I hope and
pray they’re smarter than we are! Alanis Morissette seems to be one who lives
her life out of the spotlight when she’s not on tour and has a healthy grasp of
reality. She says, “I found that the more truthful and vulnerable I was, the
more empowering it was for me.” She lives to write and writes to live.
When I
was in North Carolina, my two men-cousins had a loud debate over which
generation of musicians wrote the best songs, with one naming people of our
generation like Dylan and Paul Simon, and the other, who works in the music
industry, saying there are some great young songwriters today. It doesn’t have
to be a competition. Music is a universal language that moves us to a deeper
level of understanding. Morissette says that her goal with her music is to help
people evolve. I think she’s doing that, and I’m grateful for her.
Art in all its forms has a
way of moving us to new understandings of the depth of life. Even silly songs
like “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett: “Wasting away again in
Margaritaville, searching for my lost shaker of salt, some people claim there’s
a woman to blame, but I know it’s my own damn fault.” It presents a tragic scenario of a wasted life with a funky little jingle beat. We get the
whole package, and everyone sings along, but it’s deadly serious. Sometimes we
are better able to receive truth when it comes to us in a palatable form.
I am grateful that Alanis
Morissette and others of her generation have a spotlight on them and know to
use it for the greater good. And since music, and other forms of art, come from
the archetypal muses and not from the human purveyor of the words, we know that
the source is ancient, and wise beyond our personal lifetimes. I encourage you
to listen to some of her music today and let the words sink in. She is on a spiritual
journey, and we can ride along.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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