In the beginning of my breakdown, I didn’t have capacity for very much input, so my normal stays of writing and reading were set aside. The words I could receive came from people close to me in real time. However, three artist voices broke through the darkness of severe anxiety and depression, bringing peace instead of added chaos, and because of the debt of gratitude I have to them, I want to share them with you.

Hannah Anderson

Anderson’s book Humble Roots was the only book I could read during the first awful weeks. I don’t even know how to tell you why this one book took hold of sanity for me, but it is graciously written and my mind graciously received. It spoke to a distinct need in my heart to be okay in this body in this place, in this life – to be fully human, fully a created being. Reminiscent of Wendell Berry, Anderson writes of being rooted to the place we are in, connecting this idea to our spiritual selves — what does it look like to be rooted physically? What does it look like to be rooted spiritually? Her strong, gentle tone and honest examination played like orderly notes of music in my chaotic mind. The biggest help the book offered me is the simple thought that we are physical beings with actual limitations. Anderson devotes a lot of time to this, and it’s a concept you really have to open up to as an Evangelical, because at first glance you’ll say, “well, that’s obvious” but then as then as you dig, you realize our entire theology and religious practice operate as if this ‘obvious’ truth isn’t true at all.

We have bodies and our bodies have limits, we have needs and our needs are real. We are created creatures, and accepting our creatureliness is an act of faith and love and worship. These ideas gave me something to land on during my breakdown, and more than one panic attack was weathered by the reminder that I am a body. A panic attack would feel infinite, eternal, as open and dark as the universe, but I would look down at my body, wiggle my toes, bend my knees, run my hands on my torso, feel the top of my head, and say to myself in the midst of the panic, “at the most, Harmony, this anxiety is contained in your body. It is not endless. It has a limit.” Though such an application was not Anderson’s intent, I am grateful to her for planting the seed that afforded me such grounding. This idea of my body (and self as a whole) having limits, and the second idea that if I am a creature, then there is a Creator, helped save my life.

Again, this is an entirely subjective takeaway from the book, but it is one for which I am incredibly grateful.

Andrew Peterson

Many of Andrew Peterson’s songs brought comfort and healing during the last 10 months. Songs like And The Rain Keeps Falling (about depression), After The Last Tear Falls,  Is He Worthy (the Chris Tomlin song you’re hearing on Christian Radio is actually Andrew Peterson’s and I strongly recommend listening to Peterson’s version!), Rise Up (will God set things to right, will he vindicate?), Be Kind To Yourself (love yourself even when you are your own enemy), and His Heart Beats. But the one song I listened to daily, on repeat, for many months and still frequently now, is God Rested. It is my evening song, my go-to dinner making song, and has carried me past the void and onto something solid, night after night.

It feels to me as though Andrew Peterson wrestles with God like Jacob wrestled with the angel. His lyrics take hold of God and refuse to let him go, while also taking hold of the actual real earthy stuff we deal with in our hearts and heads and bodies. He doesn’t exchange one for the other, as so many artists can. This keeps his scope narrow, but it is oh, so faithful, and deepens with time. It was Peterson’s dual grip on God and grip on life that made his songs so healing to me during a time when very little felt real except for pain.

God Rested is part of a narrative-driven album called Resurrection Letters (you can buy the album here, and learn about it here) that goes through the last days of Jesus’ life, his death, and his resurrection. Specifically God Rested is about the holy pause between Friday and Sunday, when Christ rested on the Sabbath before being raised to life again.

On the album, God Rested leaves you longing and hanging before the song His Heart Beats bursts forth full of surprise and joy.

Subjectively, and most forcefully, this song held my heart steady because it spoke of the chosen limitedness of God. The idea of God setting limits on himself (particularly, limits for the purpose of relationship with us) was the vehicle that drove my mind toward sanity throughout this whole last year. I was exploring it in every area of my life, so having a song speak to that aspect of who he is was powerful.  To a lesser degree, the song mattered to me because I was hearing an artist break with the norms (in this case the “subject norms” of Contemporary Christian Music) and singing what is true because it’s true and not because it’s a popular theme. This is a lesson I am working out in my own art. And beyond all that, the song was dear because I have a love for and history with the Saturday Sabbath. I love theology, and having a tiny piece of theology to work with in a beautiful song proved a resting place for my mind.

Josh Garrels

Josh Garrels and Andrew Peterson vie for the favorite music artist spot in my heart. For Peterson, it’s serious respect: I respect all that I know of him and his work – his books, his music, the use of his platform and position to form community and foster non-mainstream creativity within the Christian artist world. When it comes to his music, I love the depth and poeticism of his lyrics. With Josh Garrels, it’s the music as a whole that sets him apart. He is a poet, and in my opinion no one weaves words like Josh Garrels, nor puts them to music quite so well. The emotion, the depth, the use of story and myth and scripture all woven together into tapestries of song – this artist sings my heart.

Even so, when my mind fell apart, I couldn’t listen even to him. But once I was able to take in tender doses of audible input, it was this song that held me fast: Born Again. I would sit in the deck during the winter twilights, looking out over the fading colors of the sky, and let this song put into words what I felt and could not describe. It cried out from every fiber of my being, this need to stand up, come to the light, shake off what was, put on what is, walk away from the ties that bind, and go forward made new.

Born Again