Innocence

Had I been asked in the summer of 2011 if I thought I would write a song inspired by the Eucharist, I’m not sure I would know what that even meant. I didn’t know what was happening when I received my First Communion, and Confirmation felt like graduation. Growing up, God was a benevolent Creator, until, over time, He became more of a question who may or may not exist. I was raised “Catholic,” which to my parents meant I received the Sacraments of initiation, and was expected to be a “good person.” It really was by God’s Grace that I am where I am now.

I was born with Muscular Dystrophy, which only became evident when I wasn’t learning to crawl when I should have been. Initially, my diagnosis was terrible, and I was given five years to live. This did lead my mom to pray. When news continued to be bad, she decided to pray only to the Virgin Mary, and said she’d raise me as a “good Catholic girl” if my life was spared. Eventually, my diagnosis was changed, and I was expected to live a relatively normal life on wheels.

A normal life on wheels is basically an oxymoron. I wasn’t exactly bullied in school, but I was ignored, and in some ways, I grew up fast. I had friends, but my friends had their own issues—some of them were directly bullied. I had a lot of time to think as a kid because I was alone a lot. I was agnostic by the time I was ten or so, ironically because I am a believer. I believed in things like Santa Clause for much longer than most kids, until my mom simply had to explain to me that it was made up. The trouble was that I wanted to run around with the other kids, and when this benevolent Creator God didn’t heal my legs when I asked, I started to doubt. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I developed epilepsy when I was eight. That was taken care of for many years by medication, until it was worsened in college.

By the time we got to high school, one of my friends had a girlfriend, and I realized boys could be more than friends. This friend was also involved in several sports, and I began to see him much less. My best friend, because of mental health problems transferred to a private school. She met new friends, and also began dating someone. At this time, Jesus was a distant historical figure to me, and I had no idea He even could be a friend.

To fill this empty space I was feeling, I turned to music. I have always loved music, ever since I was very young. It must have been for my brother’s birthday in the Summer between middle and high school that we got the game Guitar Hero. When I was very young, I had taken piano lessons, but none of the music I loved was classical, or piano-based. I had liked the idea of learning to play guitar, but I can’t turn my hands over, and assumed I wouldn’t be able to.

That was until I learned to play the game upside-down. I decided I’d try to learn to play a real guitar that way. I got a cheap guitar for Christmas, and started taking lessons in January. A significant part of my first lesson was trying to figure out a way for me to hold the guitar so that I might be able to play more or less normally. When that didn’t work, my teacher, who owned and taught at Alpha Omega Music Studios, agreed to teach me upside-down.

My teacher was young, fun, really nice, and cool. After about a year of taking lessons with him, during which time I’d also started writing my own songs, I asked where he’d got the name for the studio. He said that the name honors God—Alpha Omega—and expresses that they do everything from teach beginners to produce professional artists. This confused me. My only experience of Christianity to that point was what I had got from my parish. Everyone there was old, boring, dorky, judgmental, or some combination of the four. My teacher and I didn’t talk about God after that, but this stayed in the back of my mind.

To read the whole story and listen to Katie’s music, click HERE.

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