"Hallelujah" (Shrek Movie Soundtrack)
Rufus Wainwright
Our first electric eye-contact... introductory words vibrating solely for each other... embrace... passion... orgasm... afterpeace... all a song of utter praise flowing from somewhere deep... a "hallelujah" of sorts. This chorus does not resonate continuously. Time after time the music abruptly halts in cold silence. Difficulties... disappointments... hurt feelings... compatibility challenges arise and break our hallelujahs. We quietly roll over in bed... with our backs facing each other... and go to sleep with unhappy, unfinished business. Yet, it is YOU I want to sing with. I choose to work through the pain of broken hallelujahs because I love you. Our songs of praise crescendo higher and more profound each time we overcome our obstacles together. In this way we compose our own hallelujahs and then sing them in unison... as one voice.
Love is not a "victory march" because the battles never end. It is more like a series of interrupted marches with occasional, and hopefully temporary, defeats along the way. Yet two men with vast differences can come together... write... and sing the most meaningful music imaginable if each is man enough to endure and find a way through and above the broken hallelujahs.
Sometimes, I'm just not in the mood for music. I can remember walking into churches feeling that way. But then the song leader and back-up choir came rocking and praising onto the platform and I found my spirit lifted and carried away by the beat of the music... the energy... the soul stirrings... in the air. I lost myself in the flow with every ounce of my emotion and it felt so very, very good... and healing. Not too many hours after church, the realities of everyday life would hit me from different sides and I would be left with a broken hallelujah again.
More often than not, I seem to need a "song leader" in bed too. Maybe I'm just getting old... I don't know. I work too many hours... I often just want to roll over and go to sleep. I smoke too much. I don't get enough exercise. I don't always eat right. All of these things factor into my tired sex drive, I'm sure. Last night was one of those nights. Bouy was ready to lead me into a beautiful song of praise, but I didn't respond properly. He went to sleep with a broken hallelujah and I didn't have the energy to make things right. I love Bouy and I feel terrible about how I must have made him feel. He didn't say much about it because he's sort of used to the way I can get sometimes. He remains committed to "us" even in the midst of broken hallelujahs. It proves he loves me. For that I am very grateful!
The church song leader effectively led me out of
my funk and into higher dimensions in only a matter of minutes.
Bouy has the skillful ability to do the same for me in bed if
I let him. Once I am into it, it is an awesome hallelujah and
I wonder why I resisted it at all!
I have heard plenty of people criticize all the emotional "hooplah" that is experienced in high-energy praise and worship church services. They say it is all just superficial and meaningless because people walk out of religious thrill rides like this and just continue living like Hell without changing or improving as a result. I suppose, depending on each individual involved, this may or may not be true. There are also many sexual song leaders among us who are guilty of such accusations. They are truly gifted in leading men into sexual encounters which are void of deep and continuing meaning. Many of us know first hand the broken hallelujahs which result. When the music stops, they are nowhere to be found.
I have written before about a couple of truly deep loves which were abruptly ripped out of my life by the death angel. Personally, they were broken hallelujahs of the worst kind because they were taken while we were both still singing. Devon, a broken hallelujah of not too long ago, profoundly damaged my openness to love again. I would rather not sing hallelujah at all than to have it permanently break another time. If I totally give myself in sexual hallelujahs to Bouy, he then has the power to break me and I don't want to be broken anymore. I haven't even healed from the broken hallelujah of Devon yet! I don't think I could take another hit in whatever form it could come!
I'm not fooling myself, really. We all live to sing hallelujah as often as we can. And Bouy is the one I want to sing it with. Even when I have deluded myself into thinking I don't want to sing, there is something inside me that really DOES want to sing my heart out with total emotional rapture. I just need the skillful, gentle song leading of my life-partner Bouy to take me there. Slowly, he is healing my broken hallelujahs of the past... and restoring my strength so that I won't be causing him so many broken hallelujahs in the future.
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"
Rufus Wainwright
I am determined, one step at a time, to once again fully give myself to love in Bouy's careful hands. If there are more debilitating cold and broken hallelujahs for me to face in this life, I trust I will be prepared to endure and rise above them... especially if they are being caused by me.
