A Teenage Symphony to God – A Homage to Brian Wilson
When I heard that Brian Wilson had died, it rocked by soul. Brian had been a spiritual companion to me for nearly sixty years. He was the musician of my life, who spoke to my spirit in the same way that the hymns of my childhood still speak to me. Whether it was a surf song, a hymn to youthful angst, the melodies of “Pet Sounds” and “Good Vibrations,” or his Gershwin album, there was something about Brian Wilson’s music that fed my spirit.
His death was a reminder of my own mortality. I am just ten years younger than the 82-year-old Brian, and I chart my life by his music. “In My Room” reminded me that there was a place I could go to be still and listen to the Spirit who comes without name or religious label. Each time I hear Brian’s hymn to the healing power of sacred space, I think of my brother Bill, who like Brian dealt with serious mental health issues, and always went back to this hymn to find space to face his own demons. “There’s a place where I can go to tell my troubles to” and even in the dark “I won’t be afraid.” That still provides consolation in this troubled time in the US in which power trumps empathy, and division eclipses empathy.
One of my high school friends, a still lovely 72-year-old, referred to me recently as that “cute surfer boy” in high school. And, though I was more psychedelic than surf in those days and didn’t own a car till college, my spirit soared with high school anthems like “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Catch a Wave,” and, of course, “Surfer Girl.”
I still listen to the Beach Boys, and Brian’s work, and I return to a timeless time, the youth of the spirit, and fondly reflect on my first loves (mostly unrequited) in high school, four of whom died too young. I find myself taking a mind excursion to the Santa Cruz beach making out with a surfer girl, and lamenting the Vietnam War, or listening to the wind whispering though the redwoods fueled by LSD or psilocybin. I realize with Plato that “time is the moving image of eternity,” and that the spirit is timeless even if I daily note the flesh of an aging hippie-surfer boy. As a tombstone in Northern Virginia promises, “Dust to Dust and Ashes to Ashes were never said of the Soul.” Deep down, despite painful joints and wrinkles, there is a part of our lives that is forever young. A spirit that never ages or dies in its communion with the Holy Adventure that flows – or surfs – through Creation.
When the Beach Boys and Beatles traveled to India in 1968 to learn Transcendental Meditation from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, I had my first encounter with Asian religions. Influenced, in part, by the Beach Boys, I learned Transcendental Meditation as a first-year college student and learning TM opened the door for studies in mysticism, learning Christian meditation, returning to Christianity, and becoming a theologian-pastor. Although spirituality was in my bones, as a reflective child of Baptist revivals, who sought God through psychedelics in the sixties, TM marked a new road to mysticism and faith, and I owe its introduction to the Beach Boys.
Brian Wilson described the ill-fated and finally released album, “Smile,” as a “teenage symphony to God,” and that is the spirit I take away from my life with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Brian was haunted – a troubled childhood and youth, mental health issues, substance use. He was also in quest of God: there is a tragic beauty in his work that transcends the pain he endured. Tragedy and beauty, youth and age, join in the celebration of life, and yet a recognition that youth doesn’t last forever, and that in the midst of the troubles of life, we can still “come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave.”
Deep down, we are all mystics, and Brian felt the presence of the Holy in the production of the epic “Pet Sounds.” Wilson avers, “When I was making Pet Sounds, I did have a dream about a halo over my head but people couldn’t see it… God was with us the whole time we were doing this record. God was right there with me.”
I am sure that there was a halo and that light still shines and inspires this “surfer boy” from the psychedelic sixties. “God only knows what I’d be” without the Beach Boys and the tragic beauty they brought to my life.
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Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD (https://www.westmorelanducc.org/) and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 80 books including: “Homegrown Mystics: Restoring the Soul of Our Nation through the Healing Wisdom of America’s Mystics” (Amazon.com: Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries: 9781625249142: Epperly, Bruce: Books) “Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet “(Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet: Epperly, Bruce: 9781625248732: Amazon.com: Books), Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet”( Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999215: Amazon.com: Books), and his most recent book, “God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality and Social Change.” (The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books) His latest book is “A New Pentecost for Progressive Christians.” (A New Pentecost for Progressive Christians: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999413: Amazon.com: Books)
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