Undivided
Page 13
A fleet of tour buses would be our mode of transportation—a huge improvement from my usual travels on budget airlines or fifteen-seater minivans. This time, I’d get to sleep in a tour-bus bunk, a brand-new experience. The sleek buses each had a lounge at the front with a fold-down table, a fridge, a coffee machine, and leather sofas. A sliding door separated the lounge area from the middle of the bus, which held all the bunks. These were stacked three deep: top, middle, and floor level, with twelve total.
Bunks were assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. We met at the start of the tour in a Walmart parking lot on the edge of Nashville, and I quickly hopped on board to choose a bed. Sleeping on the lowest bunk meant easy access; you sat on the floor and rolled into bed. But you also felt every bump on the road beneath you, far more than those sleeping higher up, and risked getting kicked by anyone shuffling to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Those in the top bunk were farthest away from the feet of passersby and from the bumpy road. But those bunks were tough to get into, as they were so close to the ceiling. Plus there was the risk of falling out. One night on that tour, with a crash and a squeal, one of the merchandise sales girls fell out of the top bunk and onto the floor. The bus had turned a sharp corner and, still fast asleep, she’d rolled out of bed and crashed to the ground. Thankfully, she didn’t break any bones and escaped with a few bruises.
Middle bunks were the most desirable, so on this tour I grabbed one of those. But even the best bunks took some getting used to. They feel a bit like a coffin—six and a half feet long and so close to the bunk above that you can’t fully sit up. If you do, you whack your head on the bottom of the top bunk and wake up its occupant too. It only took one nasty head bang for me to learn that lesson.
Tour buses were certainly an adventure. As I chatted with the musicians each evening, after the concert was over, I found that many of them did forty-city tours all the time. Several of them didn’t pay rent anywhere. “Why have an apartment,” they said, “when you perpetually sleep on a tour bus? Might as well save the cash.”
Life on tour was fun, but it also felt like living in a bubble. Each night we did the same show: I sang first, then Rebecca, then Delirious?. Each evening we’d return to the buses, eat pizza, watch reruns of The Office, and then crash into our bunks. While we slept, the bus rumbled along miles of freeways through the night, and we’d wake up in a new city and do it all over again.
Rebecca and I bonded over our non-American backgrounds (she’s Australian) and enjoyed drinking endless cups of tea and discussing the latest books we’d read. We became fast friends; she’s a wonderful person and I have great respect for her to this day.
Her hit song about sexual purity, called “Wait for Me,” which I’d heard years earlier, was one that she sang most nights on that tour. On stage, Rebecca would share a few words, saying sex was only meant to take place within the confines of marriage, between a husband and wife. So Christians should wait until their God-given spouse appeared and remain abstinent until their wedding night.
After we’d toured together for a while, Rebecca’s team asked if I’d like to introduce this theme into my future concerts too and talk about my belief in abstinence before marriage. There were a growing number of Christian artists doing this, as it was such an important value in the evangelical churches we all attended.
A popular band called BarlowGirl (three sisters with the last name Barlow) had made this one of their key messages. The slogan they’d shout from stage was “No more dating, I’m just waiting . . . my prince will come for me.” When BarlowGirl and I played at the same events, I watched their show and was always taken aback when thousands of teenage girls joined in with them, shouting, “No more dating, I’m just waiting,” over and over. Even though I agreed with them, the intensity of the shouting was a little unsettling; it felt militant and way over the top.
Rebecca and the three Barlow girls spoke confidently about their virginity, saying they wanted to be worthy women who were suitable for a godly husband. For them, this way of life had been helpful and life-giving, and they wanted others to benefit. From my knowledge of them, I believe their motives were nothing but good. But deep down, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it all felt very extreme and I wondered if it might have unintended negative effects on people too.
I hadn’t spoken about this theme from the stage yet, but I couldn’t duck many more conversations about it. After that tour was over and I was doing solo shows again, I began to include the abstinence message in my music sets.
In between songs, I’d say to the crowd: “I’m saving sex until marriage. It’s the best way—it’s God’s way. I’m a virgin, and I’m not embarrassed by that. Let’s follow Jesus’s teaching and believe that he knows best.” All of this was true, and at that moment in time I believed it.
I still wore the purity ring I’d bought in my teens at one of the abstinence events, although deep down I had an increasing sense that this might not be the healthiest approach to life and love. It was almost impossible to question it, though; abstinence until marriage was a foundational belief in evangelical culture. So I promoted the purity movement publicly and yet questioned it in the recesses of my own mind all at the same time. It was a strange tension I knew couldn’t last forever; I felt fragmented.
The fact that I, in my midtwenties, was still single and had never slept with anyone was seen as a badge of honor in that setting. People’s assumption was never that I might be gay, but instead that I was waiting for the husband God would bring me. As a result, I found myself becoming perhaps the most unlikely spokesperson ever for the Christian abstinence movement—an ardent feminist and a closeted lesbian.
A few people in Tennessee were increasingly bothered that I still hadn’t found Mr. Right. As we walked through the hallways of the record label one day, one of my agents made a joke, saying, “We’d better invent you a boyfriend, Vicky, in case any rumors start.”
I was taken aback by this, wondering what he meant. No one had ever asked if I was gay or even insinuated that I might be. Here, for the first time ever, it seemed to have happened, albeit in a joking manner.
One of the song-publishing team, standing in the room with us, chimed in, “Yes, we’ve already had one ‘girl with a guitar’ in Nashville—on this Christian label in fact—who turned out to . . . umm . . . bat for the other team.”
He nodded toward a large poster on the wall of Jennifer Knapp, who was a highly successful Grammy-nominated Christian artist who’d sold 1 million albums and had been signed to the same label as me. She’d decided to take a hiatus from music in 2002 and had disappeared from the scene. Nashville was rife with gossip that she was gay and in a relationship with her female tour manager.
They looked me up and down. I was a tomboy to the core, always in jeans and usually with an electric guitar slung over my shoulder. I didn’t own a single dress. I was a geek too, obsessed by amplifiers, pedals, and recording technology. Not that any of that determines sexuality, of course, but it seemed to play into their expected stereotype.
“Yes,” my agent replied, “maybe we could spread a few rumors that you’re dating one of those handsome Australian guys from the band Hillsong?” They both laughed, and I forced a smile, hoping they couldn’t see the embarrassment in my eyes.
I’d hoped I could outrun this, that no one would suspect, that the always-busy work schedule and the abstinence campaign would mean I could stay single and avoid questions. But the story about Jennifer Knapp had changed the tone of the debate; all of a sudden, everyone in the Christian music industry seemed to be talking about it. I’d never met Jennifer, but I fell asleep that night saying a prayer that she would be kept safe; I thought she was brave indeed and hoped she’d make it through in one piece.
The way the industry gossiped and hypothesized about Jennifer Knapp left me cold. Any vague hopes I’d had that the evangelical community would still accept me even if they knew about my sexuality were now gone.
Years later, in 2010, Knapp bravely told her story on the American talk show Larry King Live. She was gay and had needed to escape the Christian music scene, so with her female tour manager she’d moved to Australia and lived there anonymously for several years, recovering from the strain of living in the closet for so long.
That brief joke exchanged between my agent and one of the record label staff had totally thrown me. After that day, I went into high alert. I felt as if I was being watched.
A breathing space arrived. I would be singing at a conference in the UK called Spring Harvest. I’d see some familiar faces and get to escape the Nashville bubble for a little while.
Attracting around five thousand people, Spring Harvest was the flagship event for evangelicals in the UK and Europe. The director of the conference was a woman named Wendy Beech-Ward. Her husband, Simon, was one of the UK’s top sound engineers, working with artists like Boy George.
That year at Spring Harvest, I sang every morning and evening in the large meetings and spoke at seminars in the afternoons. It was always a grueling schedule, but this year, thanks to all the emotional ups and downs in Nashville, I was running on absolute empty.
“Would you like to get coffee with us after the main meeting?” Wendy and Simon asked me one afternoon. I knew them reasonably well, but we’d never sat down for an in-depth chat. Aware that I needed to tell someone how much I was struggling, I wondered if this might be an opportunity to talk confidentially to safe people.
At the nearby Butlins café we ordered three giant hot chocolates, each topped with a mountain of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. After some small talk, Wendy asked, “How are things really going in America?”
I decided to trust them and say how hard things were: the incessant tour schedule, lack of sleep, lack of income, Tyler and the rape threats, feeling pressured to do what the music industry told me—it all came rushing out.
I also told them about several recent stalkers—another drama I’d been dealing with. A handful of men had written to me on social media (back then it was MySpace), saying, “God told me I’m going to marry you.” I hadn’t taken it too seriously and just ignored them. But, offended by my silence, a couple of them started threatening to show up at my local church or at a concert to find me. One actually flew across the country and worked hard to find my home address by asking my church members and posing as a friend of mine, but thankfully he never tracked me down. The authorities had been involved in that case. So the incident with Tyler was not the first time I’d dealt with threats or the police. As I told Wendy and Simon, I felt as though a weight had been lifted. It was good to be able to talk openly.
But despite trusting them with all that information, I said absolutely nothing about my sexuality. Deep down, I wanted to confide in them about the trauma I was dealing with as a closeted gay person in an industry that vehemently opposed LGBTQ+ equality. But I was far too afraid to tell anyone.
We finished our hot chocolates and walked back to the main venue so I could grab my guitar and do my prep for the evening meeting. I could see Simon and Wendy were visibly moved by all I’d shared, and by how tired and worn down America had left me. Both admitted that they’d had a hunch I was struggling and said they’d do anything they could to help. Wendy said she’d phone me once a week when I returned to the States.
True to her word, when the UK conference ended and I returned to the US, Wendy called me each week. I was highly stressed and reluctant to let anyone become a close friend, as the walls I’d built around myself were so well established, but her persistence and genuine concern won me over.
On one phone call, as we talked about the latest stalker the police were monitoring and the latest block of tour dates that would see me jump back and forth across the US for months without any breaks, she asked compassionately, “Is it always like this?!”
It was helpful to have a fresh pair of eyes seeing the relentless and stressful state my life was in.
“Yes, it’s pretty much always like this,” I replied, sounding more exhausted than ever. I wanted to explain to her the reasons for my extreme workaholism—that I was trying to drown my inner turmoil about being gay by distracting myself with constant momentum. Fear kept my mouth shut; I still couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone this closely guarded secret yet.
Events like Spring Harvest were committed to women’s equality, carefully balancing the number of male and female preachers who were on stage each year, something I loved and respected. But that commitment to gender equality was not shared by a large sector of more conservative churches—especially those in the Southern part of the States known as the Bible Belt.
I got invited to sing in lots of these Bible Belt churches. They didn’t have a problem with me, as women were allowed to sing as long as they steered clear of preaching or teaching. In those settings, I was painfully aware that I was not considered equal to the men who stood next to me on the same stage.
One memorable day, I was invited to sing at a large church in Oklahoma that did not allow women to have the title of pastor or to preach sermons. On my way into the event, I ran into a friendly church member who asked, “Where are you headed?”
“Oh, I’m leading a few songs at the start of a meeting happening in the auditorium this morning,” I replied.
“Really? They asked you?!” was his quizzical response.
His reaction seemed odd. I raised my eyebrows to signal I didn’t understand.
“Hmm. You’ll see . . .” he said, looking a bit worried, and walked away.
I’d arrived early, so I got my guitar out of its case and grabbed my Bible from my bag. I often read a short passage of scripture in between songs; it helped congregations to engage and added meaning to the song lyrics.
I tuned my guitar and went into the backstage greenroom to grab some water and make sure I had all my music ready. I could hear the auditorium filling up with people and the senior pastor of the church welcoming them. This was my cue to be ready in the stage wings, as singing always happened at the start of meetings.
Peering around the stage curtain, I noticed every person in the room was male. The leader greeted everyone, welcoming them to the statewide gathering of senior pastors for that denomination.
He introduced me, and on cue I walked out onto the stage. Picking up my guitar, I sang an opening song. After this, I took my Bible from the music stand and began reading out a few verses from the Old Testament and reflecting on what they meant for us today. As I did so, I noticed a few of the men raised their eyebrows. I continued speaking, and more of the men shifted in their seats and looked uncomfortable. It suddenly dawned on me exactly why: I was a woman and I was standing in front of them, in a church, teaching from the Bible. Embarrassed by their response, I stopped talking and sang my final song. They joined in, but less heartily than before.
As I left the stage, a local pastor took the microphone. He said they would be spending the next half hour praying for social-justice issues around the world—something I was keen to do. I put my guitar away and walked down into the auditorium. There were a couple of empty chairs left, so I sat down.
Then, to my surprise, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a senior leader from the church. Seeing me sit down and join the gathering of men, he’d rapidly made his way across the room. “I need to talk to you about something,” he whispered.
I looked puzzled, responding, “Shall we talk later when there’s a break? I can be around afterward if you need me—I’m keen to be part of this prayer meeting.”
He sh
ook his head. “It needs to be now. Can you come outside with me?”
I was mystified. As the men began praying, he led me out of the auditorium—noticeably past everyone else—and out into the hallway. Outside he stopped and leaned against the door, so my way back into the auditorium was blocked. Then he paused. I waited, wondering what could be so urgent that we had to walk out of a prayer meeting.
“What is it?” I asked politely.
He looked a bit flustered. “Umm . . . Well . . .” He tried to find an answer. Clearly there wasn’t anything urgent at all.
“I just needed you to leave that room because . . . it’s a senior pastors’ gathering . . . and . . . as you know, women can’t be pastors in this denomination . . . so that room needs to be men only.”
It all began to make sense. The strange murmurings and frowns I’d seen when I’d read from the Bible and the awkwardness I’d felt from the men around me when I’d sat down after singing—it all became crystal clear.
“So you just walked me out of that prayer meeting because . . . I’m female?” I asked, with pain in my voice. He looked embarrassed and murmured something apologetic about it “just being the rules” and that they’d “always done things that way and it couldn’t be changed.”
At that moment, I saw two women walking past us into the auditorium. Noticing them too, the pastor said, “They are making the coffee for the refreshment break.”
Great, I thought. So women can’t be pastors or teach the Bible, but they can be in the room if they’re making coffee for the men. I was crushed, and appalled, that my gender had barred me from being part of a prayer meeting and that it meant I could never be a pastor or church leader within a denomination like that one, even if I’d wanted to.