IN HIS GRIP: MY MUSIC

I’m a music person (no, I haven’t mastered any instrument, but I do play a bit of guitar and bamboo flute). There isn’t a day that I don’t listen to music. There isn’t a day that I don’t sing.

I grew up with ears for music. But since I got a brother five years older than me, I seem to have adopted the type of music that he liked listening to – rock music. I did listen to boy bands, dance, Broadways, classical, and my dad’s ‘Oldies but Goodies’, but I particularly liked rock. I liked listening to the loud drum beats and screeching electric guitars.

I was a “rakista” since grade school (90’s). That was the time of “Tunog Kalye,” the birth of famous local bands in the Philippines – like the Rivermaya, Eraserheads, and Parokya ni Edgar. I went from listening to alternative rock to hard rock. And to be honest, the lyrics of the some of the songs I listened to were not so nice. Some were more of a noise than music.

During those times I was a loner at home and in school. I was somehow a pessimistic person going through teenage angst. It was the time when most of the poems I wrote were of anger, loneliness, and death. It seemed that I was suffering from depression for no apparent reason. Every time I’d get angry or depressed, I’d turn on the radio in full volume and listen to the loudest, hardest rock song I have on my collection. And when I do this, the beat of the drums seemed to absorb my anger and pain. At least temporarily, because after a while, I’d become more aloof from the rest of the world. Rock music was hardening my heart.

But there was this instance when I found a cassette tape on my brother’s collection. It belonged to our uncle.  It’s an album of DC Talk, a rock band, and its title was Jesus Freak. It made me curious and cautious. The first time I saw it, I thought that my brother was listening to satanic music and the band was calling Jesus a freak (a freak means that you are a person who is unusual or abnormal). But then as I read the lyrics of the songs, I saw that they were talking about people who were labeled as “Jesus freaks” or people who were persecuted or ridiculed because they were not ashamed to stand up for their love and faith in Jesus. I found out that DC Talk was actually a Christian rock/rap band.

That was the beginning of one of the major turns in my life. I was unconscious of it at first, but I seem to have this inner yearning to find other Christian bands. And I slowly became a bit conscious of the song I listened to.

College days were a blast. I lived in a dormitory inside the campus, which made rock concerts very accessible. I believe I attended almost every rock concert especially during my freshman and sophomore years. I’ve been to concerts of Rivermaya, Slapshock, Chicosci, Sandwich, Imago, Greyhoundz, Cheese, Razorback, and many more. My roommates and I would then go back to our dorm room at about two in the morning, with our shirts stinking of sweat and cigarette smoke (no, we never smoked; it was from the people around us who did). Attending these concerts made me feel “astig.”  But if I dug deeper in my heart, I eventually found it feeling empty, and oddly, I felt guilty. There was like an inner voice telling me that I shouldn’t be in those concerts; that I shouldn’t be listening to those songs.

It was summer in 2003 and I was walking with my roommate when I noticed some sort of disco lights at the topmost floor of a building. There seemed to be a party there every week. Later on, I found out from a dorm mate that the “party” on that building was actually a Christian youth service. And she invited me to go there.

I could still picture the first time I went to the youth service. The lights were closed. The worship team was on the stage which was the only part of the room that was lighted (these were the colored lights that I saw before). There were no chairs in the center – only the youth standing, with their arms raised, jumping, dancing, praising. It was like a rock concert, but it felt different. There was reverence there. The people in there were jumping and dancing and singing with purpose, with love, with admiration to God, with worship.

At that moment I found myself crying and the lyrics of one song pierced my heart like no other secular song did.

The song says:

“Hungry, I come to You for I know You satisfy.

 I am empty but I know Your love does not run dry…

I’m falling on my knees, offering all of me.

Jesus, You’re all this heart is living for.”

 It felt like my heart of stone melted that day and that all the emotions wanted to burst out of my chest. It was like every page of my life was uncovered in front of my Creator, seeing myself so unworthy to be in His presence, yet He received me with open arms and loved me anyway.

A lot of changes happened in my life since then. But one was evident – a change in my love for music.

The last time I went to a rock concert was before I graduated. That was when I really felt that I didn’t belong there anymore. I even found the lyrics of their songs offensive to my ears. Gradually, I found myself getting rid of CDs and cassette tapes of the rock bands that I liked – even the CDs of Bamboo, my used-to-be-favorite band. It was overwhelmingly odd that they don’t mean as much to me as they once did. It was freedom!

I began collecting praise and worship, and contemporary Christian songs. I have over a hundred  in my phone right now, which I listen to everyday.

If I wanted to listen to secular songs or songs that are not Christian in theme, I now choose them carefully, minding the meaning of the lyrics very carefully.

So, have I been to a “rock” concert recently? Hmm, I believe I did in 2010.  I attended Passion Manila with my sister, which featured Chris Tomlin and Kristian Stanfill, both Christian singers. It’s not really a rock concert. It’s more of a very big Christian service at the Araneta Coliseum attended by hundreds of Filipino youth who want to know more about Jesus.  It was a night of singing, jumping, and dancing – with a purpose – to worship God.

I am Kat, a music person. There isn’t a day that I don’t listen to music that gives praise to my God. There isn’t a day that I don’t sing Him praise.

Judges 5:3b "For I will sing to the LORD. I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel."