Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast) Episode 460 - Spencer LaJoye - Plowshare Prayer

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that all of you who are could be here today. Each week when I have a guest, I take the time to read an introduction about them to let the audience get familiar with them before our conversation begins. Well, this week I do have a bio written out in the podcast show notes, so you can find it there, but I wanted to try something different and talk about a song by this week's guest, Spencer LeJoy. It's a rare thing for me as a middle-aged, jaded singer-songwriter who feels like I've heard it all over the years to be taken in by a song in the way that Spencer's latest single, Plowshare Prayer, has done. It's not just that it's a well-written song, it's that it grabbed me by the heart and felt like it was giving me a safe place to weep, to mourn, to be encouraged, to think deeply, and most importantly, even to pray. The single opens with an acoustic guitar and strings before Spencer's soulful vocals begin to drift in. One reviewer has said that the lyrics hit you instantly, a roll call of those who have been marginalized and what Spencer hopes for them. To those who have ears to hear, this stunning tune produces empathy in the hearts of its listeners. I'm grateful to have a chance to spend some time with the writer of this amazing song, share their story, Talk about how the song came about and what's next for this amazing, promising young artist. Spencer LeJoy, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Wow, thank you, Rick. That was really sweet.

Thank you. It's my pleasure. Your song has been, I don't know, salve for my weary soul, I guess, in these days. And I so appreciate— you can just sense your heart coming through it. And, uh, it just, it just feels like, it just feels like a rare song. And, and by the way, we're, we're going to play it at the end of the show today as we close out. So I wanted everybody to know that if they're wondering what are you talking about, um, or you could even just pause the show for a minute and go listen, listeners, that's fine too. We will have notes, links in the show notes where you can go and stream all the music and find that, so it'll be readily available. But I would love to begin today, if we could, to do sort of a VH1 Behind the Music with you for a minute, for listeners old enough to remember that reference. You may not even be old enough to remember that show. I'm old enough. Okay, very good. But, you know, let's start here with just kind of your background, whatever you'd like to share. I know that at one point the church had an influence in your life and it's part of your story, but it's a different story now. You've taken you down different roles. So I'm gonna let you kind of guide this part of the conversation and just share with us some of your backstory that's brought you to where you are today.

Yeah. The church is actually a very big part of my story. And I would say it still is, it just plays a different role now. Gotcha. Yeah, I was raised— I fondly call it Presbatholic because my dad was Catholic and my mom was Presbyterian, and I was actually baptized in the Catholic Church, but our Presbyterian minister came over and did the baptism with the priest with me. So I actually am a baptized Presbatholic.

I love it.

Went to Catholic school growing up. Was also playing violin from the age of 5. And yeah, I never really knew much about faith besides the fact that we all sit at one table and eat dinner together. Because I went to Catholic school, but every other Sunday I would be going to the Presbyterian church, and the Sundays in between we'd be going to the Catholic Church, but I'd be going to Presbyterian youth group, and it all just sort of mixed together. So I really have a very ecumenical background.

Wow.

And I think that's quite healthy, actually.

Sure.

And then in, you know, middle school and high school, in my preteen adolescent years, I became very evangelical, um, which had nothing to do with my parents and everything to do with the fact that I was an adolescent looking for a place to belong and because the evangelicals, if they are good at nothing else, they are really good at giving you a place to belong, right? Especially when you're like young and just looking for something. And so I ended up very, very, very invested in the church and faith, which at the time meant to me believing. I was really investing in believing. Invested in believing the right things, um, and being the right kind of person. And, uh, that served me really well, uh, up through about halfway through college, and then I, um, started my first coming out process to myself and to my friends and my family, and I came out as bisexual. And in order to love myself as that person, my definition of faith had to fundamentally change.

Hmm.

I had to move away from believing the right things and being the right kind of person and figuring out a way to still belong, a place to still belong, a theology that was big enough and wide enough and spacious enough that it could hold all of me. I had to figure out a way to be faithful not only to this idea of God that I had, but to be faithful to myself as a loved and created human being, exactly how I was. And so my faith went through a massive deconstruction toward the end of college and led me to seminary. So I now have a Master of Divinity, and it wasn't till a few months ago that I really put a boundary between myself and and church work because, um, not because I was working in any sort of spaces that were hurtful to me. I was working in 3 churches at once and each of them was so good to me. And they were— they exactly embodied that kind of faith that I'd found, that sort of wide, spacious, um, reach into every corner, center the margins kind of of, you know, churches, and I loved them, and I still love them, and I love the work they're doing. But I realized that I still had a lot of internalized shame and trauma that I hadn't dealt with. My brain had dealt with it. I'd theologized my way through and around and out of it, but my body was still remembering a lot of these hard, hard feelings. And so So I needed to step away for a while, and all of those churches understood, and they wished me well on my way, and they wished me healing and good vibes. So now I am just taking time away from the church to heal outside of it. And I don't know what belief is to me. I don't know what— I don't know what faith is to me, but I think I have it. Faith in faith in goodness and love and peace and joy and grace and faith in something bigger than all of us and faith in a place to belong. But what that looks like for me right now is a little less institutionalized than it had been. So that was a very long answer to your question, but that's sort of— that's—

yeah, it's a great answer. And I, and I'll tell you, I, I, first of all, I want to tell you thank you for just sharing and being that open with our audience here today, because I know that's a— it's always a sacred place for anyone to share their story, and especially when you're a musician and you're in the public eye, to open that part of yourself up, it does take some courage sometimes, even, even in, you know, stories where you're not sorting out what you believe in your faith and things. So yeah, a lot of people can be very protective of that. So I just want to acknowledge, first of all, that that's a big deal. So thank you for like sharing that with us today.

Okay.

And I also want to say, it sounds like you had some amazing experiences in that community too, who wished you well and wanted to even be a part of hopefully helping in that process. I've heard so many horror stories of people over the years. Matter of fact, when I was youth pastoring years ago, Every church I've been in, always, I've had teens that came out at some point, and usually with a lot of fear and trembling, and they would come to my office and I would sit with them. And I remember one young lady telling me that her last church— and she was trembling— her last church had told her that when she came out to them and told them she was having these feelings and that they told her not to come back until she didn't have those feelings anymore. And this person felt like, "I've lost my home, you know, I don't know where I can go." And I remember her trembling in my office with fear, wondering if this was going to be one of those same things. And thankfully we had a loving family that I hope, you know, she really felt like took her in and said, we, we love you, you know, and we want you to be here. So I'm grateful to hear that that part of your story hopefully wasn't traumatic for you, you know, and, and that was, it was a part hopefully that the church came alongside in some ways.

So yeah, yeah, it was, it was to some, to some extent. But yeah, that story from that, that young person is not rare.

No, no, it's not.

I was, I was lucky that I wasn't that young right? I was, I was like 21 and a theology major, so I was— I kind of took the reins into my own hands there.

Sure, sure.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing about that and, and just your story. And I, I find it fascinating that you're— so you, you have a Master's of Divinity in theology, so, um, that's, that's a pretty big deal, and that's a hard thing. I know because I'm getting my master's right now and and working to, you know, I'm being a dad and a husband and doing all the stuff that goes with my job at my church and everything, and classes are difficult. So first of all, I applaud you for your hard work on that end because I know that's a big deal when you're getting those kind of degrees, and just, you must have an amazing mind to get through all that. But then I want to ask you specifically about the music part of your life too, because I, I want to know about like, when did the bug bite you, so to speak, as, as like, man, I've got to do music and I really want to. Because I, I think it's pretty obvious just in the few videos I've, I've watched from you, um, that like, you're— that's where you find joy. It's life and it's fulfillment and happiness. So I'd love to hear kind of like, when did you first kind of get bit by that Yeah, my whole family, they're all professional musicians.

I'm like one of 6 kids and my 2 parents were music teachers and we just are all musicians. Um, but the passion, I think, didn't hit me till middle school. I was studying violin from a very young age and in middle school I transferred over to this very good, you know, professional teacher, this guy who was gonna, you know um, teach me the real literature. And my music learning, it's so interesting, it was so parallel to my faith journey in that I was so good at doing it right, so good at like playing the right notes, um, at the right time, perfectly in tune with the right inflection. And I brought him a piece and I played it through for him at our lesson. His name is Dr. Barry Ross. He's in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He's a wonderful, wonderful man. And he looked at me and he said, he said, that's just about perfect. The only thing that's missing is you.

Wow.

And he said, um, what do you feel when you play this? And it was the first time I'd ever had to think about that.

Yeah.

Um, And I was able to bring my own imagination into my music. I was able to sit in orchestra then and, you know, play these like gorgeous, gorgeous, like, um, emotive Tchaikovsky movements. And I was like, I love this. And I, I just, I just think about my own love life. And I think about the drama that's happening at school. And I think, you know, but it was so, it was a moment where I, I was bringing myself into my music and my work for the first time, and it became less about doing the right thing and more about embracing myself and what I did. And then in college, I, I think I just really hated my violin professor, but I also was starting to really find my voice in my own songwriting, which coincided with my coming out to myself, right? It's all of its sort of mixed together. And as I sort of started to find my voice and my own songwriting, I realized I needed to spend less time studying classical violin and more time honing in on my craft of songwriting. And so that was when I made the switch and poured myself into, yeah, into my own music, into my songwriting. And it has not changed. I've just been doing it since.

Wow.

Well, what a What a wise instructor too, as I hear that story. For him to be able to kind of say that and feel like the only thing missing is you. What a powerful thing. And for that to really inform, as music often does, I think, it started informing so many other parts of your life and permeating it. We're not really segmented people, we're whole people. And so that the music just really helps sometimes for us to um, discover new things inside of us and about, you know, about God and the universe. And I mean, it's amazing the way it does. So I love hearing that part.

It's like a tool for like integration, right? Yeah, like processing. And like, there's a reason that it's, it's so healthy, and like, we want kids to be in it. And then sports too, right? It's like these things that get us in our body and in our spirits just help us integrate our lives. It's great.

Yeah. And, and as one, you know, like, I, I personally am one that I've I've never been good at sports or even had much of an interest in it. Unfortunately, my son is following in my footsteps a little bit in that area, I think. And my wife loves football, and she just wants to— you want to watch football with me? And I'm like, not really. But it's kind of one of those things that is very interesting. And so I've always found music to kind of be my sport in some ways. So it's a really— everybody kind of has their different thing that they do. But I love hearing that part of the story, and I love hearing the multi-instruments that you play too. And if we have time, we're gonna get into a little bit of that. But, but you play violin, you play guitar, I've seen you play piano amazingly. So it's— it obviously just flows from you, you know. And that— and it's not that— it's not that it doesn't take work, it's that you've committed yourself to do something that you love and to do it well, you I think a lot of people look at that and they think, oh, it just all comes naturally to them. And my guitar instructor used to tell me, this is, I don't know if it was a backhanded compliment or not, but when I was a teenager and I was learning guitar, he said, after a few months, he said, I didn't know if you were going to make it at first. He said, you don't have a lot of talent. And then he said, but what I mean by that is it doesn't seem like it at first, but you really applied yourself and you worked hard and you're now one of my top students, you know, like he said. So, so it wasn't, it wasn't really like as bad as it sounded at first. It was actually like a big compliment that he said. And he said, I would much rather have somebody like you that wants it and will work so hard than somebody with a ton of talent and just as lazy, you know. And so it's, it's, it's, it's obvious you have both and you've applied yourself in that way. So that's a exciting to see. Well, let's, let's talk if we could, because I, I'm really, uh, the soundtrack of my life recently, in the last couple weeks especially, has been your song, um, Plowshare Prayer. And I especially the, the live version. I love both versions of it, but there's something so powerful about the one that, that you recorded with, with Crosspoint Church. And, and that, I mean, it's just a beautiful outdoor setting The way that you're playing, and it just hits in a way that it sounds like you're belting out your heart, you know? It's such an amazing song. I wonder if you could share with my listeners today and me, where did this song kind of come from for you? Every song has its own story. Some of them kind of roll right off the tongue and onto the page. Others, we struggle with a while and come back after a matter of years, it seems like. Um, what, what's the story behind Plowshare Prayer?

Like I said, I was working in 3 churches at once.

Okay.

And for one of those churches, my job was specifically to write songs for their worship gatherings. And at that point in my faith journey and my belief journey, I wasn't really— I didn't really believe anymore, not in the same way that I used to, and not in the same way that a lot of my coworkers were believing. But I knew I had to keep writing these songs for this church. And I kept compromising myself or filtering myself to write the kind of songs that they needed for their services, but also the kind of songs that didn't betray myself, right? They were sort of half-hearted truths.

Yeah.

They were filtered truths. And then there was this prayer service and they said, can you write a song for this prayer service? And I thought, I don't pray anymore, I can't write a song for a prayer service. And then I was thinking, well, maybe I— what if I could? What if I did? Let's just, let's imagine that I wrote a prayer. What would I say? And I was stuck on that for a couple days, just thinking, what would I say in a prayer? And I was out walking my dog and the line came for me, came to me: I pray that if you go all day being brave, that you can go home, go to bed feeling safe.

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, I would pray that. I don't know who I'd pray to. Who would I pray to? So then I started the beginning of the song, which is, okay, I guess we start with the Creator. Dear blessed Creator. And then I started naming God right? Dear Mother, Dear Savior, um, and then Dear Father, Dear Brother— Jesus is a brother— and then I'm like, well, I'm non-binary, let's, let's add sibling. Dear sibling, dear baby. And then I was like, well, it sounds like I'm just talking about people now. And so I started praying to people, um, and then the song sort of rolled out from there and, um, it became a, a plowshare song, right? A, a 'Plowshare Prayer.' And a plowshare is a gardening tool. A lot of your listeners, I'm sure, know this. It breaks open the ground so things can grow. And there's that verse in Isaiah that talks about turning our swords into plowshares, right? Turning our weapons into something that can help us. And as somebody, as a queer person— I self-identify as queer— a lot of times prayer is used as a sword, is used as this thing to beat us into something that we're not supposed to be, that we were not created to be, something that hurts. And I just thought, what if, what if a prayer could be not that? What if it could just make us grow and make us whole and make us open? So that's where the song came from, and it sort of was written in a day, happened very quickly.

Wow, that's, that's amazing. That's a good afternoon of writing, or however long it took. But well, Man, thank you for sharing it. If you don't mind, I actually printed off the lyrics. I've got my— listeners can't see this, but I printed off the lyrics and I just took a highlighter because I thought, you know what I want to do a little bit while I'm here is just express to you— how often do I get to talk to the songwriter and say, this is how it's hitting me? And I just started highlighting parts that, you know, when I hear the song By the way, I think I've gotten through it once without just going completely to tears when I hear this song. I mean, it really strikes a chord with my heart. Whatever it is that is about it, something is being spoken to me in the midst of it. I love, first of all, that you do go to that space that is uncomfortable for a lot of people right at the beginning with "Blessed Creator, dear Mother, dear Savior." One thing we talk about from like day one at Loyola University when I entered their religion classes there was they said, you know, it's very important that we talk in inclusive language when we write and when we speak and to understand that first of all God doesn't identify as any one of these things. I mean, Jesus was a man, but we have this Trinitarian language and we really have metaphors that we can use for who God is. And even this past Sunday, the lectionary passage was Jesus saying to Israel, or to Jerusalem, "How I longed for like a mother hen to surround you and basically protect you, you know, but you wouldn't come to me and you wouldn't listen." So there is this like very strong mothering image in scripture that we so often don't go to. And then the ways that you start, so that was one thing that first of all, I was like, thank you for exploring that for us. We so often just hit Jesus in songs or whatever, especially in the church world that I'm in. And so it's nice to hear some of that language used in a way that helps us pray to a much bigger God than maybe we're used to. So that was the first thing I wanted to point out. You already mentioned, you know, if prayer has been used as a sword against you, against you and your word, I pray that this prayer is a plowshare of swords, that it might break you open and might help you grow. And then there's a line, just two lines after that, when you first mention it, and it came up just the other day in a conversation with someone. It says, if you don't want healing, I just pray for peace. And I know that can take a lot of different places, but my conversation— and it was online over email, it wasn't like a face-to-face, but it was with a classmate. And they had said that in working with, like, people who are handicapped, they said, you know, some of them don't want healing. And I heard your lyrics in that way. And she had said to me, she said, you know, this one friend that I have who is in a wheelchair, she said, the wheelchair is a part of me. You know, it's not— you know, people ask, do you want to be healed, and walk away. And I think of even that question Jesus asked to the man at the Pool of Bethesda, "Do you want to be healed?" You know, when he asks him. And it never hit me quite that way that I had that conversation like last week as I'm hearing your lyrics about, you know, if you don't want healing, I just pray for peace. And I thought what insight there is to that, you know, that maybe not everybody's praying for healing. Maybe that's not the path for everyone. So I thought, I don't know that I've ever heard it expressed in that way ever in a song. So like, bravo for that, you know. And that was an amazing thing. Um, I pray the mean— you're on Voices in My Head, the podcast, so one of your lines, I pray the mean voice in your head goes away. So I hope that today I'm not one of those mean voices. But you know, that I pray that you honor the grief as it comes. Um, in my family in the last year especially, really over more than the last year, we've, we, we lost my, my father-in-law. So we're dealing with that place of grief, you know. My wife is, and I keep telling her, it takes as long as it takes, you know, kind of as you said, deal with it as it comes. Hello, puppy dog. It's okay. Um, so there's, anyway, that's just a couple of the things that I that are hitting me as I hear. And I just, I kind of wanted to take a minute to say thank you for these, these ways you include everybody. It feels like in this song, for sure, it really is like, um, this list of people, but, but there's just so many. And then it brings us to the, to the last of the song. I could go on and on about the lyrics, and I'll stop talking and let you talk again here.

But no, you're doing great.

As the, as the You know, the lonely, the recently spouseless. Amen for the queers and their closeted peers. I mean, just things that we don't often think to pray about, you know. And the mothers of little Black sons. And amen for the kids who grow up scared of guns, you know. We're just in that time. And getting down to one of the last lines of the song: Amen for the children down at the border. Amen for the victims of our law and order. I mean, wow, what an amazing— I mean, that's, that's like a master's class in songwriting, this whole thing. It's amazing. Um, and you have so married the lyrics with the music and the, the, the tone of it and just helped us, um, find a way to keep these things in our hearts, I guess. So if nothing else, I wanted to mention them as a way of saying thank you, because it really— it's been helping me and helping me in my own walk and in my own journey. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really appreciate what you've done in that song.

Thank you, Rick. That's really sweet. Thanks.

Well, it's my pleasure. Let's switch, and I want you to talk again. I'm sorry for listeners. I'm sorry you didn't tune in to hear me. I usually just facilitate the conversation. But let's talk about some of the fun stuff, okay? Because we're going to play the song at the end of the show, and I don't want it to be like too heavy of a thing. And you have a whole catalog of music people can check out. Again, we have— we're gonna have links on the website for Voices in My Head podcast, and we'll— in all the show notes and things, we'll have those links. But let's talk a little bit about just some of the fun stuff. What is your go-to instrument, first of all? Because as I said, you play a lot of them. So what's your, your one that you go like, yeah, this is really my instrument?

My instrument that I'm most comfortable on is violin.

Okay.

If I am— because I've done it the longest. But if I am performing, uh, my like a songwriter set, guitar is most comfortable. If I am songwriting, guitar is also most comfortable, but piano is best for my creativity.

Gotcha.

Uh, so that's a complicated answer.

Yeah, no, it's funny how that works out though. And you're right, there are different instruments for, for different things, for sure. I, I even find that sometimes a different guitar— like, I have 3 or 4 guitars in my basement. Depending on the mood, I want a different guitar.

Yes, tuning it differently.

Yep, yep, yeah.

That—

well, that was another question. Is Plowshare— I haven't tried to play it yet, I've just listened to it— Plowshare Prayer, is it in— is it Dagdad? Is that the tuning? Open D. Open D, okay. I knew it was one of those for sure, tunings for sure. But it sounds great, you know what you do. Uh, here's another, uh, fun question for you. Do you have a favorite artist? And if not a favorite, because I know we all have like tons of them, is there one that specifically right now is speaking to you?

Right now I am on a Brandi Carlile kick. That's just cyclical for me. I always go back to Brandi.

Yeah.

She's got this like really like sacred quality to her, to her music. And it's not like, I don't know, it's not church music, but it's so sacred and yeah, so it's just good. She's a good writer.

There is music that's not church music, but still takes you to church, so to speak, you know, it's kind of one of those things.

Literally my job.

Literally your job as a singer-songwriter right now, for sure. So, and let's talk about something else that I think is so important. Just as a songwriter, it's obvious that you put time into this because you don't— it takes, let's say, the song that came out with Plowshare, "Prayer," for instance, that's a song that maybe came to you in an afternoon, but it's sort of like, as they say, the tip of the iceberg sticking out of the water underneath this huge iceberg of work that was underneath all of that. There had to have been a lot of practice and work and writing, working out your skill in order for that one afternoon to happen, you know, where you can write that way. So do you have like a particular writing habit as a songwriter that you go back to? Is it like a daily thing? Is it once a week, twice a month? You know, it just, it just depends for, for everybody.

Yep. Right now, um, since my wife and I just moved to Boston and still the cost of living is very high, I have a day job, so my practice is not what it used to be. But right now I'm writing I have a songwriting group and we have a prompt every month, and at the end of the month we have to post a song that we wrote using that prompt. So that's helpful. I used to, when I was in my healthiest songwriting days, I used to take one day a week off of my day job and spend the entire day songwriting, and I had to produce a song by the end of the day, and If I'm really healthy, I'll do a free write every morning, whether that is 3 full pages, morning pages, of just stream of consciousness writing, or if it's just 10 minutes, an object writing exercise. I love doing object writing, it helps me a lot, just dive down into my sense memories. But yeah, all of those things are tools that I have in my pocket and I try to do them with regularity.

Yeah, terrific. That's, that's great. So I always try to remind songwriters, if they can, if they can find some consistency in, in the practice of it, it really helps, uh, in one way or another. So some accountability, right? Yeah, yeah, that really does help for sure. Well, I've got one more fun question and then we're gonna probably wrap up the conversation and, and I'm gonna play Plowshare prayer for our listeners to hear today, if that's all right with you. I should have asked you before. So great. I always try to share the artist's song when they're on the show. This is, this is a completely, uh, just for fun question because I always enjoy hearing musicians answer. We all have really good gigs and we all have really bad gigs, and some of the funnest stories, even though they're not fun at the time, some of the best stories to tell are about like, oh, that was a bad gig, you know. So I'm just wondering if, if you have a, a story to share. You don't have to name the place or, you know, the people or anything like that. Just wondering if there's a situation that, that's fun to share.

All of my songwriter gigs, the really bad ones, happen in like corners of bars and there's like a strange patron at the— or something. But there's too many of those to count. My— when I was playing in a string quartet back in college, that was our summer job, and we did a lot of weddings.

Okay.

And I was not in charge. Our violist was in charge of booking these weddings, and she usually got it right. But one time we played for this wedding, and the father of the bride was presiding it was at his church, and the bride and the groom hadn't kissed before the wedding, and which is a thing. And the dad, it was this, it was this really creepy, um, you know, passing on from father to son-in-law of the daughter's purity, sort of. And the whole ritual was just absurd and And the groom at one point picked up a microphone in the middle of the service and sang "All of Me" along to our arrangement of it at the bride. And we did not know that was going to happen. It was just a comedy, just a real comedy. We couldn't believe that we were there. That was probably the most uncomfortable gig I've ever played.

Oh my goodness. That does sound uncomfortable for sure. And I just was expecting like, you know, It's a coffeehouse gig where the grinder's going on in the background the whole time, you know. So this is—

oh, all the time.

Yeah, anytime you play a coffeehouse, you constantly have— and then that, that foam thing that goes, you know, and it's just like right, right in the middle of the most important part of your song or whatever. So, well, I, I wish you many, many more good gigs in the future. The, the bad ones are the fun ones to tell about, I think, and they, they're they're never reflective of the artist. It's always the environment they're put into, for some ways. But thanks for indulging me. But I think, um, I, I think as a, as a songwriter, you have such a bright future ahead of you, and I, I wish you all the best. And I thank you for your transparency today and sharing with my audience. And probably you're stretching many of my audience a little bit with even your story and, and trying to find some new paradigms in what they're, when they talk about faith and what it means to be in that place of maybe uncertainty. Rich Mullins had a great song lyric that I've held on to many times, especially in the journey I'm on right now as I'm going through this master's program, not sure what's next for me. And the line says, "I don't know where you're leading unless you've led me here where I'm lost enough I'm lost enough to let myself be led. And, uh, and I've always appreciated that, that lyric of, of, uh, and I've applied it to my own life. Uh, I'm lost enough to let myself be led. Oh, there goes my dogs. So, um, so I guess as, as you've written this beautiful song as a prayer, I'll pray for you in the coming days too, in your journey and wherever it may lead you, and praying for all the best for for you, and thank you for spending time here with me today. I really appreciate it.

Thanks, Rick. I appreciate you having me.

Yeah, well, I say this to guests every week, and so I'll close out the show just before we go into the song Plowshare Prayer by my guest. And I'm going to be playing the live version, by the way. There's also album versions, but I'm going to play the live one just to let you know. So stick around to hear that. But as I say to guests every week, uh, it's Spencer, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week. Thank you.

Dear blessed Creator, dear Mother, dear Savior, dear Father, Dear Father, dear brother, dear holy other, dear sibling, dear baby, dear patiently waiting, dear sad and confused, dear stuck and abused, dear end of your rope, dear worn out and broke, dear go it alone, dear running from home. Dear Righteously Angry, Forsaken by Family, Dear Jaded and Quiet, Dear Tough and Defiant, I pray that I'm heard. And I pray that this works. I pray if a prayer has been used as a sword against you and your heart, against you and your word, I pray that this prayer is a plowshare of sorts, that it might break you open, it might help you grow. I pray that your body gets all that it needs, and if you don't want healing, I just pray for peace. I pray that your burden gets lighter each day. I pray the mean voice in your head goes away. I pray that you honor the grief as it comes. I pray you can feel all the life in your lungs. I pray that if you go all day being brave, that you can go home, go to bed feeling safe. I pray you're forgiven. I pray you forgive. I pray you set boundaries. And openly live. I pray that you feel you are worth never leaving. I pray that you know I will always believe you. I pray that you're heard. And I pray Amen. That this works. Amen. On behalf of the last and the least, on behalf of the anxious, depressed, and unseen. Amen for the workers, the hungry, the houseless. Amen for the lonely, and recently spouseless. Amen for the queers and their closeted peers. Amen for the bullied who hold in their tears. Amen for the mothers of little Black sons. Amen for the kids who grow up scared of guns. Amen for the addicts The ashamed and hungover. Amen. For the calloused, the wise, and the sober. Amen. For the ones who want life to be over. Amen. For the leaders who lose their composure. Amen. For the parents who just lost their baby. Amen. For the chronically ill and disabled. Amen for the children down at the border. Amen for the victims of our law and order.

I pray that you're heard.

And I pray— Sì, this works. I pray if a prayer has been used as a sword against you and your heart, against you and your word, I pray that this prayer is a plowshare of sorts.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.