What David Bowie Taught Me About God
David Bowie made me love God even more, respect God and see God outside the Baptist perspective passed on to me. I realized that God was truly creative and inventive, not just in nature but in people. That God is not ordinary and status quo. He’s bold. That God, love, is bigger and stronger than race, gender, sex, death. That different and strange is a special blessing if we are willing, courageous enough to explore who he created in us. There is multi-dimensional artistry and genius in all of us. There was no limit to the connection and influence we could have with others when we trust in our creation. David Bowie seemed to do this and God loved him for it.
In 1987 I was a twelve year old misfit growing up in East Texas too “white” in my tastes and mannerisms to be black (“Elvis” and “Oreo” were frequent nicknames) and too black to pass for anything other. Too nerdy (that’s code for “teacher’s pet while talking white.”), too tall (I didn’t realize at the time that being all legs and no torso would come in handy later), too hairy (black girls in East Texas were not waxing in 1987). On top of it all, my feet always hurt seeing as I chose to wears shoes whole sizes too small to my hide big feet. I was becoming angry with God and wondering what made him make someone like me in a place like this. I was caught not wanting to be so different, yet not particularly wanting to fit in.
My grandmother didn’t listen KZEY, the black radio station. She listened to the station that played Carole King, James Taylor, Elton John, mixed with a little classic rock. It was in her brown Cadillac Deville that I found and fell in love with David Bowie. One uneventful day headed to shop with her, a haunting and commanding voice pulled me from my daydreams about being somewhere else, “I’m stepping through the doooah and I’m floating in the most-a- peculiar waa-hay…and the stahs look very diff-er-ent to-dayayayayay.”
After the DJ announced, the artist as David Bowie, I became obsessed to know him and hear more of that voice. MTV had not yet taken off — at least we didn’t have it so until I could make it to the record store to find out what he looked like, I pressed record and play together — remember doing that — to make David Bowie mixed tapes — even recording over Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” on one.
When I finally laid eyes on David Bowie, he made me believe in and see God and myself anew. David Bowie’s eyes are the show stopper for most people. Are they different colors? Is one more dilated than the other? For me it was his mouth that completed his kaleidoscopic presence. And, so it was Bowie’s angular and sharp teeth that would be forward in my mind whenever I listened to him. The sharp protruding incisors and the two front teeth flush with sharp, rouged cheekbones. I wanted to dive into his voice and live in those vivid colors and sounds forever. By the time I made it to the eyes, Bowie was already so special to me that in looking in his eyes I saw sort of a God like divinity. I knew he was special and I’d love him forever. God loved him and made him unlike any other person I’d ever seen or known.
Bowie became my soul mate and an inspiration for embracing my own (and others) quirky authenticity. I found out he was British. That he had an alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. He was a Capricorn, like me. Fate. I worked constantly and secretly on my English accent in case we’d meet, hit it off, get married. I’d perfected molding my mouth into a new cadence without ‘r’s and ah’s at the end. (Yes, I still have it.)
His extraordinary presence and pure authenticity gave me a new sort of hope about who I was and what God had placed inside of me. The artistry on the outside reflecting the struggle, pain, and alienness within. Suddenly, it all had a purpose — East Texas, my life, my story, my confusion, my pain, and my desire to run to something bigger.
David Bowie made me realize our tendency towards the ordinary and perfection is boring and uneventful. It wasn’t just his look and costume, his penetrating authenticity has no equal. Bowie was not only dramatic but cinematic in a way that bears no neediness for provocations sake. His performance always felt like expression and story. He was a performer yes, but he was also a looking glass for seeing all the colors and sounds of God. I’d hear him and be in awe of what God created; I recognize what an in infinite, undefinable genius our God is. Just sit in awe of how the hands of an infinite genius sees us, molds us, ponders us, delights in us, marvels in our beauty — skin to bones. God makes beautiful things. God makes beautiful people. God loves David Bowie. I love him and I always will.
