Trust and Faith

How Elvis Costello and Violent Femmes earworms helped me deal with a lack of both.

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

1. Trust

About fifteen years ago while attending a 10-day silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, CA, a series of earworms began to plague me. It should be clear to any reader of this newsletter that plagues of earworms are the bread and butter, the meat and potatoes, the lentils and rice (what most meals on a meditation retreat feature), that keep me going strong week after week.

Back in 2009, I was under the impression that 12 hours of daily meditation might quell the brain buggers, might quiet them while I worked to instill and deepen a sense of equanimity, loving-kindness, joy, and compassion. Little did I know that paying attention to my breath in a gorgeous temple deep in the mountains would be the ideal setting for a herd of sonic horses to stampede.

I had nothing more to do than pay attention. What I noticed, after three days of mentally documenting the songs in my head, was that nearly all were songs by Elvis Costello. And not just random songs by Mr. McManus, but tracks from his 1980 album, Trust.

Are you so superior, are you in such pain
Are you made out of porcelain?
When they made you they broke the cast
Don't wanna be first, I just want to last

- You’ll Never Be a Man

Lyrics from “You’ll Never Be a Man,” “Watch Your Step,” “From a Whisper to a Scream,” and “Shot With His Own Gun” circled round my brain for three days straight, until I finally startled myself awake at 4 am the third night with the aha realization: “I’m supposed to be exploring my trust issues!”

My earworms are rarely so direct in their messaging. But when you’ve spent nearly 100 hours silently working to find a sense of calm and inner peace, the clues stand out starkly, waving banners and clad in neon jumpsuits.

Throughout the following day of the retreat, my body hummed with excitement. My earworms, instead of distracting me, were bringing me closer to enlightenment!

The next afternoon, as I sat outside a small office near the meditation hall awaiting a scheduled meeting with Tempel Smith, one of the teachers, my feet tap danced on the cement walkway. I couldn’t wait to tell him all about my earworm-based epiphany.

Tempel listened to me patiently as I babbled what must have sounded like one run-on sentence. My tone was coming less from a place of self-understanding and more from self-congratulations. I wanted this wise teacher to see me as a stellar student, to view my earworm story as proof that I was somehow better — or at least more advanced — than the other meditators.

Tempel didn’t say much in response. Instead, he smiled, waited for me to shut up, and then graciously reminded me to stay curious and use the remaining days of retreat to look deeper into how I might utilize this new insight into my struggle with trust.

Jump ahead 15 years and I still struggle with trust.

I did come to realize, both at the retreat and over the ensuing years, that my trust issues stem from a lifetime of being let down by adults, of feeling like I have to handle everything myself. This has led to an innate wariness, and taking a long time to fully trust anyone. Including myself, a lot of the time.

My parents always provided for me, but my younger sister required most of their attention, both as a child and as an adult, which led to me rarely if ever asking them for help. I never resented them for this; I enjoyed figuring things out for myself. I appreciated that my folks trusted me to handle life’s challenges on my own.

It’s led me to become a self-sufficient and independent adult. Excellent traits for which I’m grateful, but in a marriage (or any relationship) where compromise, asking for help, and trust are essential components, I’ve had to work to undo many of the ingrained protections I’d built up my entire life.

It’s a work in progress, trusting both myself and others. It often feels like two steps forward, one step back (and vice versa).

I love that I have an Elvis Costello album I can play at any time to remind me where I still need to aim my attention. Though I’m grateful that the songs from his Trust album have never returned as earworms since that retreat.

2. Faith

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

I was recently talking about my trust issues with my therapist when the topic of faith came up. I realized that I struggle with my idea of faith as much if not more than trust.

I wondered if trust is more interpersonal in nature, while faith is more conceptual. For example, we can trust a close friend or family member with our secrets, but we have faith that we will rebuild our lives if our house burns down or we get divorced or lose a job. That definition, though narrow, felt right to me.

Faith also has religious connotations, which, as an agnostic, has turned me off to the word. I tend to add the adjective “blind” before “faith,” thinking that most people with faith blindly believe whatever they’ve been told, either by a teacher, a religious leader, a politician, or a book (the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, etc.).

I am told that having faith provides a unique comfort, a landing pad for when life gets overwhelming and unmoored. I get that, and I can see how having faith but not complete trust would be a good combination. I have grown up witnessing how complete trust can lead to being taken advantage of.

3. Faith and Family

My parents have always trusted doctors to have the answers when they’ve suffered health issues. The idea of questioning a medical professional, even for clarity or to better understand their doctor’s reasoning, never occurs to them. I know this first-hand as during the pandemic I joined in on a couple of Zoom meetings with their doctor after my dad had sudden confusion and his lab work — blood sugars, thyroid, and several others — came back either very high or very low. I had researched some potential conditions that my dad might be suffering from and raised them with the doctor, who agreed with me on some of my theories. Additional questions were asked and more labs were ordered, largely due to my insistence.

I know a big part of my parents’ response is generational. They grew up in an era when people had the same doctor most of their lives and could usually reach him (it was almost always a male doc) on the phone the same day. There was no internet to research symptoms or potential treatments. Doctors were and are authorities. Authorities are people you can trust to know what’s best.

My parents don’t have a cynical bone in their bodies. Sure, they get frustrated and voice displeasure when their needs are not being met, just like most humans do, but they have a genuine trust in people.

For all the meditation retreats I attend, for all the Buddhist teachings on living in the present I study, my folks live out Ram Dass’ ‘be here now’ philosophy naturally. I guess I didn’t inherit that part.

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Becoming a durable power of attorney and sole caretaker of my dad’s younger sister Arlene for the past five years (which I’ve written about in many posts, including this one and this one) has turned me into an assertive medical advocate. I know more about Medicare and the differences between the Supplemental plans and Advantage plans than many insurance brokers.

Living alone as a widow for the last 25 years, my aunt developed a distrust of nearly everyone, including her close friends. In the year or two leading up to her dementia diagnosis, this turned into paranoia. She began hiding money and jewelry around her house, thinking her friends or repair people were planning to steal from her.

When it became clear that she could no longer live alone, COVID hit, and I drove down from Oakland to Southern California (a six-hour drive) to be with her until I could find a live-in caregiver. Thankfully I found someone who could tolerate my aunt, and manage her medications/meal prep.

Once I was able to get my aunt vaccinated, it felt safe enough to move her to assisted living in April of 2021, I never would have expected her to thrive as well as she did. Her sometimes nasty, judgemental side didn’t disappear entirely, but it was smothered by a warm, socially engaged woman I barely recognized. The progression of her dementia slowed, and she was able to live at the facility for two years before becoming a flight risk and needing to move to a secure memory-care facility, where she remains today.

Steve and Arlene, out at lunch, March 2023

My aunt trusted me implicitly to handle all her needs and caregiving. All the while I rarely trusted the staff at the facilities to properly handle her medication, her dietary needs, and to keep me informed as to how she was doing. This mistrust wasn’t without good reason — I found out they were giving my aunt her sleeping pills with dinner and she was having evening falls because of being sedated before her bedtime. That’s just one example. I double-checked on them constantly, annoying the staff but alleviating my constant vigilance.

How does faith fit into this scenario? Do I have faith that my aunt will be taken care of by the staff at the facility she now lives in? Do I have faith that however the remaining years of her life play out, I will do the best I can? Is that having faith in myself? Is that faith in the unknown?

I struggle with ‘faith’ and its connotations because in my mind, having faith means letting your guard down. It means turning off (or at least way down) hypervigilance, which has been my way of moving through the world for most of my life. Faith, the way I interpret it, means not having to know all the answers, of letting in something larger than yourself to fill in the gaps.

I see my parents as having faith in the Western medical system despite regular evidence of being let down. Maybe that’s trust. After exploring trust and faith in this piece, I still feel unsure where they overlap and where they differentiate.

4. The Faith Report

Back in college, when I was a sophomore film major at UC Santa Cruz, I wrote and directed a film titled The Faith Report.

I was reminded of this when discussing my issues around faith with my therapist. I suddenly realized that I had been exploring this idea of faith back when I was 20. The film is about a television newscaster who is visited by a Rastafarian messenger of God. This messenger appears unexpectedly and repeatedly (in the bathtub, in the kitchen cooking breakfast) with a mandate to convince the TV host that he needs to add a segment to his newscast on faith. He tries to persuade the host that God has chosen him as a vessel for His wisdom.

It’s silly and, although ambitious for an early college film project, hard to watch now as I had no idea about lighting, camera angles, or even proper editing techniques at the time. But it’s oddly sweet, and if you’d like to check it out, I have posted it on YouTube (clip above).

What led to the idea behind The Faith Report was the song “Faith” by the band Violent Femmes. I used the song in the opening credit sequence and again in the closing credits.

I was a huge fan of Violent Femmes and was fascinated by lead singer and guitarist Gordon Gano’s songwriting, which often combined and contrasted sexual and religious imagery. Gano was (and still is) a devout Christian, who explored his struggles and contradictions through his music.

If you’re familiar with the band, it’s probably due to the popularity of their self-titled first album (1983), and their song “Blister in the Sun.”

Their debut is the Femmes’ most popular album, though I find their follow-up, Hallowed Ground (1984), more ambitious and sonically adventurous. (I’ll be posting a piece all about this album in early 2025. Stay tuned!)

The ‘Femmes released their third album, The Blind Leading the Naked, in 1985. Produced by Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison, it was a more straightforward sounding, less critically acclaimed record. I loved it though. I particularly gravitated to the song “Faith,” an upbeat, religious blues track all about having faith. There’s little irony or sarcasm (but still retains their trademark humor) in the song’s lyrics:

Got my faith babe
In the Lord
Got my faith babe
In the Lord, Lord, Lord
And I know
He'll make everything alright
No matter where a child roam
That child gonna have a home
If he's got his faith alright

It’s essentially a gospel song. Why it resonated with me at the time I’m not quite sure, other than it being a catchy tune from a band I loved. I don’t recall questioning my religious upbringing. I was Jewish but was a reformed Jew which is a “liberal” or less traditional or strict branch of Judaism. For example, I was caught smoking pot by the rabbi behind the temple before Hebrew school studying for my bar-mitzvah when I was 12 and didn’t get in trouble. I appreciated being Jewish and loved that I was not part of a majority religion in the United States. It suited my preference for outsider status. The ‘chosen people’ tag didn’t hurt.

I may have felt a bit unmoored, being away from home for the first time at college, but in truth, I thrived there. I was able to reinvent myself as a more outgoing, less shy, confident person. I could express sides of myself that I never felt free to do growing up in suburban Southern California.

I think what resonated with me was the way Violent Femmes were able to celebrate religion without denying the messiness of it all. The contradictions and the hypocrisies. The joys and the suffering.

5. Trust and Faith

Photo by DJ Johnson on Unsplash

I want to believe. I want to trust. I want to have faith.

I want those things to come naturally to me. I don’t want to have to wrestle my skepticism, my science-first approach, and my doubt to the ground in order to open myself to these qualities. Even though I know it’s sometimes part of the process.

Having faith seems like a much calmer way to live. It’s the rare moment when I’m completely happy and content with what I’m doing, with how I’m feeling. I’m often caught in a perpetual state of planning, of continually prepping for what’s to come next, believing it will provide a sense of safety and control. It can be exhausting, especially when what I’ve been planning for isn’t what comes next.

My hyperactive, hypervigilant brain does (thankfully) sometimes pause long enough to provide epiphanies and realizations. Like my meditation retreat Elvis Costello “trust” earworms, it occurred to me while writing this that I do have faith.

What I have faith in is music.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been able to find a song I can turn to for whatever ails me. Sadness, heartbreak, loneliness — music has provided the medicine to treat my pain. It’s the wise teacher, the mentor, the loving friend, who points me in the right direction when I get lost.

It may seem cliché, but I often turn to The Beatles in such times, and it’s this classic that feels the aptest during moments such as now when it’s clear that I need a break from my overactive mind.

• What do your relationships with trust and faith look like? Hopefully a bit more settled and mutually supportive than mine.

• Has a song (or album or artist) ever opened your eyes/heart/mind up to a concept or belief that you had previously struggled to understand?

• And, as always, I welcome any other comments or feedback you may have on any topic or song mentioned above.