Deconstructing Deconstruction
On Audrey Assad, Fr. Richard Rohr, and the rest of us
When my husband + I chose our wedding music, I insisted on an Audrey Assad song being played while we received communion.
Good to Me, the song we chose, is just one of the many, many Assad tunes I play on a weekly basis. You Speak helped revitalize my prayer life after a long season of dryness. I Shall Not Want helped me pray through anxiety over vocational/career choices. Her entire Inheritance album caused me to re-fall in love with hymns I’ve heard since childhood. Christian music had long felt like happy-clappy K Love tunes to me; something more melancholic and contemplative was exactly what my heart was craving. The day I got to interview Audrey Assad for the Catholic Feminist podcast, my family went to dinner afterwards to celebrate. Interviewing a person whose art impacted my life in such a magnificent way was a day I’ll never forget.
But Audrey Assad no longer identifies as a Catholic—or Christian at all.