"Beauty That Brings Life" with Melody Olson
"Beauty That Brings Life" with Melody Olson
I will forever be grateful for Melody Olson. For years, I was a bit skittish about how distant the characters and culture of the Bible felt. However, after studying passages from the Old Testament with Melody for a few years now, I am steadily seeing that the gracious heart of God is very much alive and well in the entirety of the Bible; yes, even in the Old Testament, that felt so dusty and removed to me before.
In addition to leading Scripture Circles in the rabbinical tradition, Melody Olson is a gifted singer/songwriter and Director of Music and Art at Awaken West Seventh in St. Paul, Minnesota. There is artistry in all that Melody is involved in, awakening hearts and minds to the beauty alive in the world and alive in the character of God. I think you’ll also find that to be very true in our conversation together.
The Interview
Audio Engineering: Podcast P.S.
The Interview Transcript
Melody: Hi.
Melissa: Hello.
Melody: How are you?
Melissa: Good.
Melody: Good.
Melissa: A little cold today, but good.
Melody: I know it's freezing.
Melissa: Yes, it is. But that's okay it's sunny here as well so that's good.
Melody: We try to think positive in Minnesota this time of year, you have to.
Melissa: You really do you, it takes out a hearty…you have to really have a hearty character to get through the winter.
Melody: So hearty.
Melissa: Yes.
Melody: Definitely. Our winters, I have a friend who says, [it] keeps the riff-raff out. You really got to invest in Minnesota to live here. I think that's why it draws people back, because they're like, "I've put in my time."
Melissa: Yeah. It's a commitment. It totally is. So, I have known you Melody for I think a couple of years now. I started coming to your scripture studies…
Melody: Yeah, pretty early on, right? When I started teaching.
Melissa: Yeah, I think so. At Art House, which Sara Groves and her husband Troy started for those who might not know. The way I like to start these out though, is to give people a sense of the work that you're doing in the world. You have the Scripture studies and I'll turn it over to you just to say a little bit about what work you're doing in the world right now.
Melody: Sure. I'll start with that. Scripture circles or rabbinical studies, there's a lot of different names for them. I started studying the Bible in a way that is rooted in the rabbinical tradition, I would say about three or four years ago now.
A rabbi named Alan Ullman had been itinerarying in the Twin Cities for some time, and I got the chance to study with him, and found it to be this really beautiful open space for wrestling and questions. Seeing nuance in the text, which as a person who has a little bit more of a need to ask questions, I think artists in the world, people with creative bents like space to do that, and I'm definitely one of those people. I found it to be really, really life giving and it really made Scripture come alive in a new way for me, and a lot of the things that I had trouble with, with Scripture, as far as like, “that feels weird to me.” Or some of these Old Testament stories just seem archaic or something.
I found a new relationship with the Hebrew language, that made the wrestling good because you learn the layers of meaning in these terms and in these stories that offer a new sense of beauty and expansion to them, and they become even more beautiful than you think that they are.
I really highly value it, and really thought when I started studying that way, man, artists would really dig this and I think need it. Prescriptive learning in many ways with artists doesn't seem to go well, so I thought, “I would love for people in my life who have had to keep Scripture at a distance because it felt so black and white, really need this.” I felt compelled to offer that, and then that's a longer story that I won't tell, but ended up teaching myself through Art House North, which, yeah, my very good friends Troy and Sara Groves own that space in Saint Paul, and generously let me start a monthly study there for artists and it's been really sweet.
That's part of my world. Then I'm also a Music and Arts Director at a church in Saint Paul called Awaken Community. They let me do stuff there, which is really fun. I feel so thankful to have the space there to create and make beautiful things happen, and with people that are just so willing to be adventurous and take risks. That's been a really sweet thing. Basically, I'm in charge of what happens on Sundays musically there as well as other things. Then I also try to create communal spaces for artists and encourage people in their creative lives that are attending and are part of that community. It's pretty rad. I like my life right now.
Melissa: That's so good. You perform or sing, and do you write music as well?
Melody: I do, yes. I have two original albums to my name. I would love to venture into a third of some kind in the near future. I've had a little bit more commitment to church music than I have to my own music over the last few years, which has felt good and right. But it's something that I'm kind of leaning back into now, which I'm excited about, and hoping for more and more of that to come in the future. It's scary. That's a vulnerable thing to do, to get back into after you haven't done it for a while and feel like, does that pump even work? I'm not sure if there's anything in there. That's something that I'm creeping back into right now, but I'm hopeful with a little terror in there as well that “oh no, can I actually do this?” But yes, I have enjoyed song writing in the past, I'm learning to enjoy it again. We'll see what happens with that.
Melissa: In case I forget to ask you want to end, can you say the names of your albums that are original?
Melody: Yes. The first one is called All These Things, and I made it in 2010, which seems like just forever ago now.
Melissa: It does.
Melody: Then the second one is called Controlled Burn, which I made in 2015.
Melissa: I'm so old when it comes to technology, so say someone wanted to download that or check it out, is it on Apple Music?
Melody: Yeah, all of the ways people receive music right now, it's pretty much available. Streamable on Spotify or Apple Music or whatever, and also downloadable yes on iTunes or Amazon. Anywhere you can download music most of the time it will be there. Just under my name, so artist name Melody Olson.
Melissa: Okay, awesome.
Melody: Yeah, thanks for asking.
Melissa: Yeah. But I do feel really old, so I'm like, where can I buy that CD?
Melody: Where can I get that tape?
Melissa: So many reasons why I wanted to talk to you about beauty. Since I began attending your groups, I so love all of the depth and nuance that you are able to bring to the Hebrew text in particular, because I just found it quite inaccessible for years.
Melody: Me too.
Melissa: I feel like a whole world of God and beauty and mystery was opened up through jumping into the Hebrew Scriptures in a different way. Even a word like beauty or, there's just so much depth that I didn't realize was there. For a while I have been wondering, what would Melody say about beauty given your background of scripture and also as an artist? I just think…I love talking to artists about creativity, and I think beauty is so a part of that conversation.
Melody: Yes, I love that question and I totally agree with you that it is in the text for sure, and art is such a huge part of that. A place that I found it in the text, which I was surprised to find it there, is actually in the creation story itself. The second iteration of the creation story in the book of Genesis.
The first Genesis one actually correlates more to a Babylonian myth of creation narratives, which is a whole other conversation in itself. But the second chapter of Genesis actually has more Hebrew context to it. The way that story goes if I were to paraphrase it, is God first creates land. Then it's a really beautiful picture if you take some time to visualize it in your mind. God creates land and then there's a vapor rising from the land. Then He creates human, which the Hebrew word is human, not man. There's no gender attached yet to that being. Then God creates a garden.
Right after the being is created God creates a garden, and He brings the being to the garden. So, the first thing that this being experiences is these trees coming up in a garden, and the word used to describe these trees is the Hebrew word chamad, C-H-A-M-A-D. It's actually not an adjective at all. It's both a noun and a verb. It means a desirableness pleasing to the eye, and also it's used later on in the Old Testament as beauty. There's something very inherent and moving in these trees coming up off the ground in this garden, which just compels the being towards it. I believe that is beauty. That beauty is inherent in this garden, and it was the first thing that God walked this being into.
Melissa: Wow.
Melody: I think that tells us if we believe that Genesis, the creation narrative in Genesis is something that is dripping with meaning, dripping with truth, that beauty is something that we are inherently drawn to. We just can't explain it. There's a delight in that. It creates a desire within us as human beings to just take it in, and it's just for us to receive it. Also, I think it's God showing us God's self in what He creates. There's a measure of God in everything that God creates.
I would say finding out that that word existed in Genesis two, this word chamad which has so many layers, it both being an adjective and a noun is really interesting to me too. That both of those things can exist in one word that it has definition to it. It's a noun, it's something to be held, but it's also moving. It is created to draw us near to it.
It's translated as “pleasing to the eye,” which is interesting to me too that that plays a part in the initial relationship between God and humanity, that that was present and very strong.
I would say that has helped me know beauty in a way that I need it. It's something that I'm drawn to, and it's something that God has created in order for me as His creation to just enjoy it and delight in it. It's just for me to do that. There's nothing for me to construct, or even achieve in that, it's just a very simple gift I think.
Melissa: A question that I tend to ask here too, is just a very succinct, what is the definition for you? Your definition it sounds like it's self-revelatory of God's character, and then also, I don't know the right wording for this… but draws us in and is meant for our delight. Is that a succinct iteration or repetition of what you said?
Melody: I think beauty in itself is so hard to put a box around. I think that's even it, right? If God is beautiful, we can't put a box around God. I think inherently beauty is mysterious in that, and we can't put a box around it and I don't think we should.
I think we just notice. It's our job as human beings to notice what are we drawn to and why? How can I appreciate that? It's connecting with your own self and your own heart, and being alive to what it is that I'm drawn to and appreciating, like thank you that this exists, and thank you that I can revel in it and delight in it, and feel the aliveness of a moment, and appreciate that a creator made that.
I would say it's hard for me to actually define beauty and put it into words. I think it's transcendent. It transcends our earthly language in a lot of ways.
Melissa: Wow, thank you.
Melody: Sure. Good question.
Melissa: I love that it invites an engaged presence in the world. So then for you, it sounds like there's a sense that it's a bit nuanced then for every person. How about for you, where do you find beauty in the world?
Melody: I love that question because I feel like I'm always on the lookout for it. I would say there's a lot of places where I don't see beauty, but if I were to pinpoint some places where I do, I think art is a big one for me.
Especially in the last couple of years coming alive to the amazing nature of visual art, and how images and things that are intentionally created and crafted and come from someone's imagination, can really invite you into something that feels transformational, and work on you little by little by little by little. I would say I find a lot of beauty in art, visual art. Poetry, I think is a place that I find beauty. I find a lot of beauty in poetry in the text, for sure. Some images there, especially in the creation narrative, a lot of beauty there.
I would say I also see beauty in people, especially when I witness people stepping into the truest version of themselves and taking risk to do that. I think that is a moment in someone's life where God is so present. Where risk and vulnerability is I think there beauty is as well. I honestly don't think beauty really exists without vulnerability. When I experience that in people, people taking measures to take risk to become their truest self.
Especially in generous places, where you see people investing themselves on behalf of others, I think beauty is so wonderful there. I would say those are a couple of places.
Music for sure. There are so many moments where especially in those tension and release places in music, where there's a little bit of dissonance somewhere, and then it releases. That to me is like oh, I just enter into a transcendent moment there when that happens in any sort of music that's written, where it hits my heart in a really big way. So, I'd say maybe that's it too.
When I'm engaged with my own heart and I feel that coming alive, I feel like I know that beauty is being made and is present there.
Melissa: Mm-hmm. I can't help but ask this. What is it about that part of music about the tension and then the release that is beautiful to you?
Melody: Sure. I think it's metaphorical in a lot of ways. I think it displays something about life. Life is in itself a process of tension and release.
If music was always harmonious all the time, I think it would be boring. In some ways life is like that too. We always want life to be okay, but where we really grow and we change and we transform is in those places of tension and then release.
I think that's why that kind of music really grips people. Somehow somebody found that out, I don't know who. I don't know much about music history. I took that class in college, but that was a long time ago. Actually, if you think about like I do remember that in church history itself, there is a story of a chant where there was no tension allowed. There were certain intervals that were against the rules. Because of that tension it freaked people out. Someone somewhere said, "No I don't think so. I think we need that. I think that's actually beautiful and good." I think that's probably why, and I think our ears are drawn to it hopefully, because that's what we were created to want.
Melissa: It may be more reflective of the actual human experience.
Melody: Yes, absolutely.
Melissa: A couple of minutes ago too…well and even thinking about tension, obviously there's a lot of brokenness in the world. One thing I'm curious what I love to ask people, is just about their own experiences of brokenness. Maybe if you could think of maybe one experience in particular where maybe there was brokenness, but in the midst of that or in the midst of that you saw beauty breaking through in some way.
Melody: Definitely a story comes to mind for me for sure, and that is connected to my family of origin story. My dad, who passed away, gosh has it been three and a half almost years ago now, a little under three and a half years ago now, had a really hard life, and is the major character in my story that's made me do a lot of the healing work that I've needed to do. It was actually before he passed away, but it was after my parents had gotten divorced, and he was in a really, really bad place and wasn't living at my house anymore.
My parents needed to sell the house that I grew up in. I went back and, which my house was in Chicago [and] I was living here. I went to Chicago and helped my mom clean out the house, and get the last of the stuff out of our house that I grew up in. I feel like everyone's sentimental about their childhood home, but especially me because that's where I learned how to play music. My dad designed it. My dad was an architect and he designed our childhood home.
I have a lot of really great memories from growing up there, and also a lot of really hard memories. I think that place just held, especially at that time for me, a lot of meaning, and so to say goodbye to it was really difficult.
It also made me come to grips with my own brokenness around my dad and things like that. Everything was just very heightened at that point. Anyways, I was helping my mom clean it out, and I was laying on an air mattress in my living room, which felt weird because I'd always had a bed in my own room, and all of a sudden I'm just laying on an air mattress in the living room, totally empty house.
Everything just came crashing down on me, like the pain, the beauty, the laughter. All of a sudden, I had all of these memories just coursing through my brain, of what I was losing at that moment.
I just broke down into tears on my air mattress. I remember my pillowcase was wet, because I just could not stop it. I was just uncontrollably crying by myself there. Then at the same moment it was like, I couldn't help but write this song about it.
I wrote a song called I Can Still Hear It, which is a song about the nature of music, and how music unlike a lot of other things really never, it doesn't have a shelf life. Music lasts forever.
I was so thankful at that moment to remember the music made in this house, I will always hear it. It will always be in my memory in my imagination, and I can always go back to it. I literally, I never even wrote down the words I don't think. I just had it shooting out of me, this song, and it was probably the truest experience I've ever had of song writing in my life, and also one of the most painful moments of my life, really coinciding at that same time.
Reflecting on that now, I mean, if you think about Genesis two, the way that that passage ends up is that God invites humanity to cultivate a garden. He puts humanity to work. He creates the beauty and then He says “take care of it. Guard it, keep it, work it.” What I feel like I experienced in that moment was a garden, like a present moment of being in the garden with God. I would say that moment signifies to me beauty and pain intermingled so deeply and so connected to one another. I think I've had other moments like that too, but that one definitely sticks out for me.
Melissa: Thank you for sharing that. This might be a weird question, but do you think did anything shift for you in the midst of the before and then the after? After having this deep experience of writing that piece of music, did that shift your experience? I don’t know if you remember at all.
Melody: I think naming, for me being able to name that the music will never die shifted something in me because then I didn't feel like I was losing everything. I still was really sad. I don't think it alleviated much of the pain that I was feeling in that moment, but I think it helped me remain hopeful.
Because I realized that not all was lost. Because at that moment it really did feel like my family is falling apart, and I don't think we'll ever get back. That's definitely how it felt at that moment. I would say yes, it did shift something, but I was still sad.
Melissa: It wasn't going to totally transform everything magically.
Melody: All of a sudden I was doing cartwheels and was super happy, no. That would have been fine.
Melissa: But something to hold on to and give some light in the midst of a really dark moment it sounds like.
Melody: Yes, definitely. Then the chance to feel like I'm putting language to it, I'm creating something that is long-lasting too, felt good.
Melissa: Thank you again, that was a really, it sounds like such a powerful experience that's why I'm drawn to keep asking you questions, but I can transition us to the next question that I'd like to ask, is just about lies that you've experienced. Because you have painted this beautiful picture of what authentic beauty is or what it invites us to. At the same time... I don't want to lead the question too much. With that, have there been lies about beauty that you experienced?
Melody: How can you not? I think we're so acculturated to see beauty a certain way.
I think that humanity, one of the things that humanity has done to beauty, like I was saying earlier, has tried to define it and say “this is it. This is the goal.” Especially with physical beauty.
I was doing some research for a talk I was giving on beauty a little bit ago, and I just typed into Google “beauty.” This article came up, I think it was in this magazine called The Economic Times or something like that, which was really interesting to me, but it was naming the four most beautiful women in the world. It was actually giving their facial features like percentage marks, as far as like whether or not they were perfect or not. I was like, that's the problem. I'm not saying that those women are not beautiful. I think the most beautiful woman was named Bella Hadid or something, a model a supermodel. Beyoncé was in there I mean she's pretty good looking.
But I realized I was like, “yeah that's what I believed what beauty is, is a picture and a perfection.” What I think that has offered us is really a rat race and competition. That only a select few of people are going to win. I don't think that that's beauty.
One of the things I'll just go back to Genesis two, one of the things that I love also about that passage is that not only are the trees in the garden pleasing to the eye, but they're also called good for food. The “good” word is one of my favorite Hebrew words, and that's the word tov. What the Hebrew word tov is, is generativity basically. It's the ability to recreate and recreate and recreate and recreate, life that gives life that gives life that gives life.
That's helped me see that true beauty is inherently going to give me life. It's going to lead me down a road towards life, life, life, more life. If what I see and I think is beauty is leading me down a road of shame and not feeling like enough, it's not actually beauty.
I think that's then a good plumb line for me.
I would say beauty that I see as something to be achieved or compete for, or even narrowly defined, I would say that to me is a lie that I think is unfortunately pretty pervasive.
One that I feel pretty passionate about talking about with people, because I think unfortunately it's led people down such roads of inner turmoil and shame, and I have fallen definitely victim to that in my own world.
It's hard, it's really, really hard to not believe those things. That's why I think it's really, really great that we're having these kinds of conversations, so that people can identify the life-giving beauty that they're drawn to and work towards that, look for that. If it gives you life then, yes, absolutely it's definitely important to recognize that, to name those things that give you life that are beautiful, and to have them be a part of your world and your existence.
Melissa: That's so good. You just articulated that so well and teased that apart so beautifully. Thank you for that.
Melody: Yeah, absolutely.
Melissa: I'm thinking how different would our lives be if instead of thinking about having this list in our head about what's wrong with our appearance or how we don't meet the mark, versus how that focus is so different than really being on this hunt for what brings us life. Such different postures to do life with or your day, and one seems to bring tov, I don't know the right way to say it.
Melody: That's right, you said it right.
Melissa: Like you said the other brings all sorts of unfortunate things that seem to disintegrate us.
Melody: Yes. Even having that connection with your inner self to know I think is important, is this life-giving? How does this make my heart self feel, my brain self function? It takes a little bit of I think solitude and awareness, which I think we need more of that too.
Melissa: Totally and to know that that matters. What brings that beauty? What do we enjoy? We forget that that actually matters.
Melody: Absolutely. We were created for that, and I think especially in Evangelicalism and things like that, we've been kind of trained to not care about what is good for us or what brings me life. I think in some ways we've been told “no, it doesn't really matter, as long as you're doing all the right stuff and checking all the right boxes, then you're okay.” If I actually want to be a whole, well, fully alive human being, I think it's CS Lewis that said, "The glory of God is man fully alive."
I don't think I can be fully alive without beauty. What is the beauty that I'm drawn to? Finding that out for myself and then being like I want that and wanting something is good too. Can we connect with what we want?
Melissa: The last question that I like to ask is, have you had any experiences that have transformed your ideas around beauty?
Melody: Yeah. I would say an experience that led me to what we were just talking about. I went on a trip to Paris, France in the fall of this last year. It just made me fall in love with beauty in a brand-new way. Just walking out of the subway station when I first got there, and onto street level ground. I feel like I had a garden experience there because everything was so well crafted and intentional. At that moment it seemed like it was just for me.
I realized I think in that moment, this is foundational for my life. My experience of beauty, I think we've believed that beauty is superfluous or an on the side kind of thing. When you have time experience beauty, or maybe it's an addition to all the other stuff that you have to experience and get done and achieve.
But I think in that moment for me I realized its foundational nature…of I am my best self when I am experiencing, cultivating, creating, investing and ingesting beauty. Because it was just so present. It's so present in that place. Have you ever been there?
Melissa: No, I've always wanted to go.
Melody: You got to do it. I did not expect it. I knew it was going to be amazing, but I have never felt so connected to a place in my life and felt like I was having a conversation with a city. Where I just was like…and I think it just holds so much art. There's so much art there and it's been purposefully artful in its nature for so long.
If you think about authors and poets and painters and where that place has been kind of a Mecca for artists. I think that is why it probably has that nature. But for me it definitely made beauty become even more important. It let me know that it's something to pay attention to in my life and go after. See it as a foundational part of my life, not just as something that I like a lot. That feels like frosting on the cake. No, it's deeply entwined in the fabric of our being I think and our existence.
Melissa: Wow. Have you found any helpful practices or anything? I feel like sometimes when we have these immersive experiences like for you in Paris or something else where you experienced this tremendous beauty like on a trip, or something like that, and then come home to your normal life. Have you found anything to be helpful for integrating that into everyday life?
Melody: Yeah, that's such a good question. I would say creating space to just go to the Art Institute, and even reading poetry when I can. Even crafting food that has a beautiful aspect to it. What do I really want to make?
It's just like connecting with your own desire to do and be and make. I would say I'm more intentional about weaving it into my every day than I was before, and not in a perfect way or anything like that. I feel like there's definitely days where I'm like I haven't anything in me like that today.
I feel like there's definitely been a switch of being on the lookout for beauty and planting myself in beautiful places, even the Conservatory here in Saint Paul, going there, the gardens and they're so lovely. Just taking time to gaze at it and appreciate it. Feels like those practices have become sweeter and more important probably since I got back.
Melissa: Thank you.
Melody: Yeah sure.
Melissa: Is there anything else that I haven't asked you about? I know you've done a talk on beauty. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention about this topic that I haven't, or that we haven't talked about yet?
Melody: Let me think about that for a second. Is there anything else?
I am just glad I will say, I appreciate you, and I appreciate you having this conversation, and I'm very thankful that it seems to be a conversation that we're having in Christian circles even more.
I feel like the Western church has made beauty a side, and has focused on function and utility over beauty often. I think that has been to our detriment. I think especially in the church we need beauty.
Because beauty ushers us into the transcendent moment that we desperately need. We need transcendence. We need to be lifting up our heads, and there is a power in beauty when we really experience it to do that.
I spoke on this at my church and then I had a friend come and do music. Then after I spoke on beauty he had a string quartet and him on the piano play a Mendelssohn piece, just so that we could all experience this beauty together. I won't say the person's name, but I had a friend come up to me later who, after that, who had a lot of anxiety leading up to the birth of her child. She was terrified. She was having a C-section, she was terrified. It was bringing her down, and then she came up to me after that Mendelssohn piece crying, and she was like, "I'm not afraid anymore."
Then she ended up going into labor that night. Then she had emergency C-section. I was like “whoa.” I think there is just the transcendence, which means just like you're entering into something that's above our earthly experience.
There is transcendence that we need, and I think beauty offers us that.
Melissa: So good, Melody. Thank you, thank you for sharing.
Melody: You're welcome, thank you for having me.
Melissa: This has been great, thanks.
Melody: You're welcome. I appreciate the conversation.
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