The Musical Mysticism of Trevor Hall

“Love all, serve all, and create no sorrow.”
- Trevor Hall 

God speaks in every language and to every heart through the visible world and through Sacred Scripture. But all of the universe cannot contain the Divine Whirlwind of His Trinitarian Love; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For humanity, the sacraments are our access point, our invitation into this Mystery of Forever Love, of the Exhilarating Mystery of the Divine Other. But God is not bound to those sacraments; He can work outside of them. The Eucharist is absolutely the source and summit of the faith, but it also shoots off tiny waves and streams of life-giving water that trickle into everything and can draw everyone back to that source.

This gospel of redemption, in short, is in the DNA of every great love song! With the lens of faith and the help of grace, when we hear it, and decipher it, and hold fast to what is good, then we can truly “dance to the rhythm of love” in the music of our culture. In the words of St. Paul we “test everything and retain what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Enter Trevor Hall; dreadlocks, tattoos, Buddha beads and all. He was born in South Carolina, grew up in California, and is currently rocking the music scene with his spiritually charged lyrics and reggae beat. Deliriously positive, Trevor’s music rushes over you like a mountain of salt water, then lifts you up and takes you for a ride on the crest of a towering wave. He is also an avid surfer, maybe that’s why his music swells?

To introduce you to his music, I think I'll follow the pattern of the sea. Waves come in sets of three, so here are three samples of his mystic poetry, and I suggest you ride whichever one you catch, or maybe just the one that catches you. 

Wave One: This one is fast and furious, like a wave off the Australian coast; from the song Volume.

"Rush like a river from the highest mountain, drink from the fountain and stop your counting. What kind of wine does he have in his tavern, oh so enchanted and sing like a mad man. Mad with the love of a wife for her husband, child or mother, sister or brother... sing for the Most High, sing for no other. We are all notes in this eternal song, God plays his flute and we all dance along."
- Trevor Hall

St. Theresa of Avila in her commentary on the Song of Songs once spoke this way. She sang of the King's wine cellar, of drinking deeply, and of losing oneself in that intoxicating love of the Divine, the Most High. Here we see the near limitless expanse of divine love opening before us. What a treasure that Trevor has slipstreamed into this mystical way, and in his wake he draws so many fans with him. It blasts a cold, obligatory type of religion out of the water doesn't it? It’s a reminder that we were made above all for love. Merely following the rules doesn’t seem to answer the heart’s deepest yearning, does it?

Wave Two: Bubbly, strong, and playful, like a California tumbler. From the song 31 Flavors.

"Tell me how many songs that I must sing before I can see you in your glory, hear your whole entire story, bathe inside your golden, golden sea?"
- Trevor Hall, 31 Flavors


This verse is a true hymn to love. Streams of praise pour from him and love draws him up and out of himself! It’s hard to say if he is speaking to a woman or to God Himself! I believe it can work on both levels, like the Song of Songs. Blessed John Paul II said that the great Scriptural hymn is not just a praise of human marriage, or only of spiritual union of Israel with God. He said it’s both!

What a blindingly brilliant thing it is to be able to say to another human being, "Come in... look around. The place is yours." What a crazy thing it is to say to another person, (you with all of your sins and weaknesses, they with theirs) "Let's become one. I give you permission. I turn over the key. What's mine is yours and what's yours, I ask of you, let it be mine." And what a greater wonder that Jesus desires this with us in the Eucharist. If any one is scandalized by this Divine intimacy, just read John 6.

Wave Three: Soft and steady, like the waters at Avalon.

I don't want a reason anymore about the one I love, the one I love
I don't want a reason anymore about God above, God above
I just want to melt away, in all His grace. Drift away, into that sacred place
Where there's no more you and me, no more they and we, just unity…

This final wave from the music of singer/songwriter Trevor Hall is the most mystical. In the song Unity he is pushing the very edge of the heart’s reach for meaning in life. For this young man, guitar in hand and poetry in heart, it all boils down to one word; communion. It is powerful to reflect that this is the very same conclusion so many mystics and poets have made, including Blessed John Paul II in his powerful Theology of the Body. The human heart is made for Oneness, for Communion, for Unity.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. – Galatians 3:28

It will be a unity beyond dreams, beyond expectation. When we sprinkle a little holy water on the songs of Trevor Hall, when we see their earthy mysticism purified and proven in the fire of God’s revelation, we learn that Heaven will not be a great fading of humanity into a formless cloud, but a finding of ourselves in Christ. We don’t disappear; we reappear as our true selves! The seed verse of St. Paul in Ephesians 5 will fully blossom; “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

The unity that Trevor sings of and the unity the saints cried out for is hinted at more in marriage than in anything else. “In this entire world there is not a more perfect, more complete image of God, Unity and Community, than marriage. There is no other human reality which corresponds more, humanly speaking, to that divine mystery.” (Blessed John Paul II, Homily on the Feast of the Holy Family, December 30, 1988)

This truth is out there, on the sea of music and poetry. If we watch the waves (the radio waves), sooner or later one will come along that will take us further out and further into the Mystery than we ever imagined.

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This article was originally written and published for Phaith Magazine.

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Family Bonding

The first thing that a person finds in life and the last to which he holds out his hand,
and the most precious that he possess, even if he does not realize it, is family life.
- Blessed Adolph Kolping

The history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family...
The family is placed at the center of the great struggle between good and evil,
between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love.
- Pope John Paul II

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
- Pope John Paul II

The family is the great catechism God has given the world. The work of our lifetime is to learn how to read it and then study it prayerfully.
- Mike Aquilina

How to Love

I would not recommend reading the lyrics to any of his songs, save this one. Perhaps a diamond in the rough, Lil Wayne has given us a glimpse into the broken hearts of women so tragically used and abused by "men" who are anything but men. Watch as the story of this girl is redeemed. An incredibly pro-life, pro-family, pro-woman message. Thanks to Aggie Catholics for the heads up, but be warned, the imagery in this video is graphic and at times disturbing. For those with eyes to see there is great hope.

The Queen of Hearts

Maybe you've heard one or more of the following statements made in your various circles of life. "You Catholics put too much emphasis on the Virgin Mary." Or "Mary is a distraction! Jesus is who you should be praying to and through to the Father. He's the One mediator. Mary is only a human being!"

I confess in the early years of my reversion to the Faith, reading the works of St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Louis de Montfort, I struggled with the same concerns. But by the grace of God I set myself to live within the tension of the question, rather than move too hastily towards an immediate answer (We Tolkien fans would call that a very "Entish" way of thinking). I tried to give the Church, which is 2000 years old, and these doctors and mystics of the Church who probably had the same concerns as I did at some point, the benefit of the doubt. I wore my scapular and prayed the rosary and I let the seed of Marian devotion germinate. Now at 40+ years old, I'm really starting to see it blossom.

To say that looking at Mary distracts us from looking at Jesus is like saying that looking at a beautiful landscape distracts us from looking at the sun.

We are drawn to look at nature's beauty precisely because it has been touched, graced, and illuminated by the sun. I look at Mary, I am drawn to her beauty, because I see the effect of the Son, Jesus, upon her.

Why is Mary so important? Why does the Catholic Church heap so much attention, so much focus, so many accolades towards this woman? For the same reason humanity is drawn towards art, music, poetry, and love. These created things occupy our hearts and minds because they reflect the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness of God, and so does Mary. They don't take away from God, they mediate His Reality. We might say they embody Him, but that would really only be true in Mary, in whom He took on a body... the Word became Flesh in her, and dwelt among us.

So she is the masterpiece in the gallery of humanity. She is full of Grace. She is what we are meant to be; dwelling places of Divinity, tabernacles of the Most High. Mary is pure, she is the holy one. The whole one. Mary is the Queen of Hearts.

Mary's open YES unraveled the knotted NO of Eve. Mary's YES brought harmony out of the disharmony of sin. All of our NOs shouted out to the Father throughout human history can never quench the great YES this one woman gave. Mary's great YES opened a window in the skies and gave Love the freedom to reign again in a human heart. And she can teach us, like a good mommy, how to speak. She prays our first word will be "YES."

So I had a Couple of Hours... and iMovie

As our little princess Clare turns an historic ONE this Saturday (which we can't believe), I thought I'd toss up this fun little summer diversion. I have to say the Boy Wonder is a natural, and took extremely well to my direction ("surprised face!" "Throw this!" "Run over here.") Be warned there is a climatic cliff hanger. Part two should be out, oh, next summer. Life gets busy! I'm just glad they will have these little snapshots when they are 15 years old, to reflect on how cool their dad was, in his sharper moments. Or how nerdy. Only time will tell.

I have a feeling nerdy will win out. Yeah!

Listen to the Lion

I've long been a fan of Van Morrison's music for several reasons:

1. He is Irish. Born in Belfast.

2. He is deeply mystical. Just listen to his Poetic Champions Compose album.... brilliant!

3. He is not a fan of the music industry's obsession with merely selling music. He wants to make music, the way spouses long to make love.

Van reveals in his very body language that the music is bigger than he is. If you don't know this, then seeing him in concert for the first time can be a little befuddling. Like a priest before Vatican II, he often turns his back to the crowds. This is not to give them the cold shoulder in a sort of musical snobbery. He is leading us into the Fire. Like the priest turning to the East from whence the Son rises, he says "Look, He must increase, we must decrease. Come, let us worship!"

Now let's recall as we proceed, I'm sprinkling holy water on this one, as I do with all of my film and music references. Blessed John Henry Newman said "With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event." St. Paul says "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely... think about such things." (Philippians 4:8)

Enter Van's "hymn" to the interior life, as I see it, from the album St. Dominic's Preview, 1972. After an opening line "All my love come tumblin' down", he sings simple lines over and over, delving deep within himself in a sort of contemplative prayer, urging himself and listeners to "listen to the lion, inside."  

I see the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, unleashed to ravage my heart in the words of another metaphysical poet from across the sea, John Donne. I see flashes of Aslan's mane from C.S. Lewis' immortal Chronicles of Narnia. I see the Lion laying down with the Lamb in Isaiah's ancient vision; Christ the King coming to rest in my weak and vulnerable heart. And what does He unleash in me? Van chants on...

"All my tears have flown, all my tears like water flown, for the lion... inside me."

When Mercy hits the sinful human heart, in the place of vulnerability, the chink in the armor we wear daily to protect ourselves, the tears will flow. The question is, will we allow Him access? Can we look up from our own busyness, our constant chatter, and let His arrow pierce us through? Let Love come tumblin' down?

In these days of endless distraction, we must attend to this Lion inside. If we want to sing the songs of Zion once again, from our Babylonian captivity, we must let Him have His way with us. Let the journey within begin, let Him lead us home again. Let the way be that sea of tears, on which we journey. 

"And we sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed... All around the world. And we sailed... and we sailed... and we sailed... Looking for a brand new start." 
 

When Oh Lord will this happen? Where will we hear Your Voice calling to us from the deep? When the muse speaks through the radio. When the poets and the minstrels of our day sing out, even unknowingly, those ancient longings, we can baptize the notes, wash the music in the water of grace. The music is never-ending and always beginning. Listen. Listen to the Lion, inside.