As I'm sure none of you know, I'm a member on Christian Songwriter's Network. I have my own little reputation there for going against the grain, which is no surprise when you consider that most of my songs (not so much the ones I upload on here, but you can see it in my poetry) are thematically focused on depression, angst and all forms of abuse (eg substance, neglect, sexual, verbal, physical). I've even been known to make such wild claims as:

- Whether homosexuality is a sin or not, it's not our job to hate homosexuals;

and
- Actually, I live outside of America, and I'm affected by climate change as well. Odds are, contrary to what you all seem to think, it wasn't invented by terrorists to destroy the American way of life.

Anyway, this morning a read a thread titled: "Is the Holy Spirit in your music?" This is an issue that's always had me wondering, because a lot of my songs don't feel like I wrote them. I've often just started hearing music in my head and started scribing, which seems to me as if a spirit is trying to communicate with me in some way, or give this song to me, or whatever. There's actually been a couple times where I've been in a transe state, and have heard the music in my head as if it were playing to me on CD in perfect quality surround sound. I think a song I wrote once called "Black Today" is uploaded on here somewhere, and I know that song came to me like that.

For the record, I don't use any min-altering substances for inspiration. I barely even touch prescription drugs when I'm sick. I've never used illegal drugs, have quit drinking and, long before I quit drinking, I worked out on my own that alcohol doesn't inspire creativity in me. It just makes me swear a lot.

Anyway, whether the songs I write are all my own work, or they come from elsewhere, I don't know. If they do come from elsewhere, I don't know if they're coming from somewhere good or somewhere bad. This paragraph feels like it should be leading towards a "but," but it isn't, other than the but that there is no but.

Now I'd like to give you the answer I gave on CSN.

"Most of the songs I write are on a What Not To Do basis. On the surface they often appear pessimistic and often amoral or even immoral. But the idea is that you're supposed to see that it's wrong and not adhere to the content. Is that of the spirit or is it completely opposing the spirit? I don't know. But it's where my creative energy takes me. While I feel spiritual filling when I go to church or speak to my pastor to learn more about God, usually when I try to write songs that have an obviously good message (rather than songs where any good message is hidden in the fineprint), the song always feels empty to me, like I'm writing for no purpose and the words are all meaningless forced rhymes.

Complicated, much?"