Like a Prayer

Like a Prayer

Occasionally radio stations in Phoenix decide to play a little old-school Madonna mixed in with the essential Billy Idol, Steve Miller Band and Journey playlist. When this happens, I get very excited and will inevitable dance within the confines of my seat belt. Exhilaration sweeps over me as I jam out to a little, “Holiday” (“If we took a holiday. Oh yeah, uh huh…”) or “Borderline.” (“Feels like I’m going to loose my mind…”) I know these songs by heart from my early adolescence and I have stopped being ashamed to say that I still love them. The other day the FM dial gave me an even bigger treat. Madonna’s, “Like a Prayer” came on and I actually really listened to it. Let me rephrase. It was the first time I really listened to it since I was 15 years old and sitting in religion class.

"Life is a mystery..."

At the Catholic all-girls high school that I attended, it was requisite that all students enroll in “Old Testament” their freshman year and, “New Testament” their sophomore year. It was within the Gospel teachings of Jesus that I learned, in depth, the art of music video analysis. For about six weeks at the end of my tenure in, “New Testament” our teacher, Ms. M., had us view the Madonna, “Like a Prayer” video. I am not saying that we saw it once and were to write an essay to support the Vatican’s denouncement of both Madonna and Pepsi products. What we were tasked with amazes me to this day. 

Ms. M. would push play on the VHS and then pause the video and throw out to the group of disinterested girls in plaid, what she thought to be a provocative question. Silence. “I need participation! This is counting toward your grade!” The female Eddie Haskels were first with a response, “I think Madonna really loves Jesus?” Ms. M. was unconvinced, “Do you really think so? I am going to say that more is going on here! Let’s watch again!” The rewind button was pushed, and then the video was resumed. Within a minute it was paused again. “Do you see the Stigmata? What is she telling us? What does it mean?” Silence. After a tense few seconds I sarcastically responded, “She is becoming Christ-like.” (The term, “Christ-like” was always my fall back and usually guaranteed me an “A” when used as an analogy for any protagonist.) Ms. M. searched my face for authenticity. I stared her down. “That’s wonderful! Absolutely! Madonna is becoming like Christ!”

The other parts of the video were equally exhaustively reviewed and scrutinized. Weeks went by and I would drag myself into my 2^nd hour class and wonder how in the world this had anything to do with the New Testament. One day one of our star tennis players, who I was always intimidated to talk to because she was tan, pretty and walked like she had just gotten off a bull, approached me and asked, “Is Ms. M. really going to make us watch that video again? I mean is she like a dyke or something? I swear she wants to ‘do’ Madonna!” (Maybe that’s why I didn’t talk to her.) Needless to say all of the students were done analyzing this video and the semester could not have come to an end fast enough.

Now, sitting in my car and listening to the music from a generation ago, I paid close attention to the lyrics and it hit me. I think Ms. M. was actually tapping into the song’s overt mystical religious message. I wonder if my teacher had experienced these types of religious experiences and had no place for them. She was lay faculty working in a Catholic school and Rome had just condemned the “Like a Prayer” video because its sexual innuendo. There was no safe place for her to express what was obviously being triggered by this music. I see her plight as tragic.

I just read something about not being able to experience the spiritual without the corporal. It makes sense. Look at Sufi Whirling. Also known as Whirling Dervishs. These ascetics can send themselves into religious ecstatic states through their movements. This is one example of accessing God through one’s body and I know that God needs to deliver His message into our bodies. I don’t think there is another way. Denial of the sensual has done more harm than good over the years and I think Ms. M. was just another victim.

I leave you with a quote from the poet Milton Klonsky,

“Sexual repression, as it blights the human spirit, breeds pestilence in society.”

Think about it in your prayers.