Sandra McCracken
10 min read ⭑
“The work begins with waking up in the morning and, before you even check your phone, tuning your ear to hear the voice that is affirming you, telling you that you’re his child, that you are loved, that you have what you need, that is going to be enough for today. When you hear that voice first, all the other noise dials down, and then you can get up out of bed and face whatever is ahead of you.”
The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does your go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
I live in Nashville, Tennessee, pretty close to downtown, in the neighborhood called East Nashville. My favorite spot is Lockeland Table, which is a little local restaurant that’s close to where my kids went to elementary school. It's like one room. If you're going there, the best time to go is the happy hour—they always have something a little bit Southern. We go with friends in the neighborhood or often end up meeting people because there are so many new folks living in Nashville these days. My husband and I are both in music, and there are lots of people who are moving here to try it out or to figure out if they can do that for a living, so very often we eat out with friends we recently met. I tend to go back to the same places that I love over and over. But my husband loves all the very newest places, so we go to new restaurants, too. If I ever have a moment, though, I default to a place like Lockeland Table where you can just go down the street and find something great.
Sandra McCracken
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
Well, if spiritual renewal weren't part of it, I would say thrift store shopping or antique shopping. I love the idea of taking something old and reusing it, remaking it, and finding something that's kind of a lost treasure. I guess there is a spiritual layer to that. I think the discovery part has a spiritual overtone because God is always making things new in so many ways. So when we go and find some old treasure and put it on the windowsill or use it to fill a need in our house that we didn't even know we had—there’s something about that. It's a great pastime when you have some extra time on your hands.
Another “nonspiritual” thing I love to do is being outdoors, whether it’s taking a hike or walking in the woods. I tend to live in my head a lot because I write songs. Introspection is kind of my day job, so sometimes I forget to just stay in my body and simply be somewhere. When I go outside, I can still be introspective, and I can still have all those thoughts tumbling around in my head, but it also allows me to take a deep breath and enjoy being outside, moving and seeing and hearing the sounds of nature. I think the solitude of it can be refreshing, especially because I live in a house with a bunch of people—our three kids make us a family of five. So I love a walk in the woods for the solitude as well.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
One of the things that's been challenging for me is just being porous, being transparent and authentic—which is the part I love doing. I want to be with people and be transparent about who I am, to tell my stories in my songs and in a conversation with someone across the table from me. But the flip side of that is learning to hold boundaries to keep me safe, because opening up like that is not always the best thing to do. It's not always the healthiest thing, depending on the situation. So some of the work for me has been learning to keep a little fence around that place of vulnerability. I’m learning to let people in and out but also to be careful about how I do it.
Brené Brown talks about having a vulnerability hangover, which is when you share a lot. Sometimes it's appropriate to share a lot. I think we have to do that to learn to trust one another. But it is something that you have to learn to monitor. That would be the kryptonite for me, learning how and when to share with vulnerability.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
For the past 20 years, I've written three-minute songs—that's been my work and my craft. This past year, I've spent more time writing longer-form pieces. I have a book coming out called Send Out Your Light: The Illuminating Power of Scripture and Song. I hope it reads a little bit like my songs do in the sense that it feels invitational, like sitting across the table from a friend. It is part storytelling and part about the creative process. It talks about how Scripture has informed all my writings—sometimes just by accident—and how much a part of my life it has been.
This book is for all of us, really, because God illuminates our lives. He illuminates the complexities and whatever we might be going through. I really think it's God's light that is going forward and it's drawing us forward. That's how I've experienced it in both my work and in my personal life. So this book is a reflection of that and an invitation to come and see how that's been for me and how I think it might be for you, too.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
That's a great question. I remember one time when I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about an image from John 10, where it refers to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. That passage talks about his voice and how his sheep know his voice. When I think about the Holy Spirit and what the voice of the Holy Spirit really is, I find that it's distinct from the old tapes in my head or the things I believe about myself.
Sometimes we prop up these false standards of what we think perfection needs to look like, what our success needs to look like, or simply what it means to be okay. We've set up this whole set of standards without even realizing it. When we meet those standards, we feel good about ourselves. But when we don't, we feel bad or ashamed.
God’s voice is nothing like that. I’ve learned that he doesn’t want to tear me down. I may do that to myself, but that's not his voice. The voice of the Shepherd, like the Holy Spirit, speaks encouragement, affirmation, and yes, correction—but his operating system is completely different from ours. Hearing his voice is tuning your ear to hear that voice of encouragement.
I think the work begins with waking up in the morning and, before you even check your phone, tuning your ear to hear the voice that is affirming you, telling you that you're his child, that you are loved, that you have what you need, that is going to be enough for today. When you hear that voice first, all the other noise dials down, and then you can get up out of bed and face whatever is ahead of you.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So, spill it, which spiritual practice is workin' best for you right now?
These days, there’s a lot going on in my family life. And since I just finished this creative work of putting out a book, there are a lot of things that fill my days around it. Because of that, I think the biggest place of nourishment for me is getting up before everybody else in the morning so that it can be quiet. In those moments, I pull out my journal, light a candle, and make a cup of coffee. It’s being in that quiet place where I can listen and pray and think about what's important. When I do that before everything else, it helps my thoughts fall into place so that stress doesn't take the front seat. So I guess my spiritual practice is a combination of things—prayer, contemplation, and Scripture. And sometimes I can do all that simply by having a notebook on hand.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are three resources that have impacted you?
There's a book called The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, which is a translation by a man named Robert Alter, who happens to be a Hebrew scholar. In the book, he writes line-by-line what was happening in the Hebrew text. The text is written above and then some explanation of the Hebrew is just below. That book has been just beautiful for me. I think digging into language in that way has been a real eye-opener.
Poet Malcolm Guite, artist Bruce Herman, and composer J.A.C. Redford have launched a website, Ordinary Saints, that offers an immersive experience of poetry, art, and music. This combination of poetry and visual art—I think it slows you down so much. Malcolm and Bruce did another project a few years ago based on the work of T.S. Eliot—that's another one worth checking out. They discuss it here in this article. But I think anywhere you can find poetry next to visual art is a place that I've enjoyed exploring.
I recently heard Jeremy Begbie give a lecture, talking about how we rely on visuals so much that sometimes we miss out on the musical side. I deeply enjoy listening to classical composers, listening to Bach’s Counterpoint, and classical music or instrumental music. And sometimes, music just gives you a breather from all the words that we're bombarded with. So in addition to reading books, I would recommend a deeper dive into instrumental music.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it's done for you.
I think that, for a lot of us, this past year has felt like jet lag—kind of in between two time zones. You're not quite in the new one and you're not quite out of the old one. That’s why I think it’s so important right now to have a few trusted resources that you go back to. One for me is The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom by Henri Nouwen book and another is James K. A. Smith’s You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Those two authors have both been anchors for me. And then, of course, the time spent in the Scripture itself. If you’re in a place of distress or destruction of any kind, the Psalms are always available and express the whole range of human emotion.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
I have been collaborating with some new friends who have been more trained in the jazz field, and I have really enjoyed that. There are some new recordings that we're working on that should come out early next year. I've also enjoyed doing some country songwriting on the side, which is not something I think I’ll do as my livelihood. I love writing for the church, but I don’t like staying in one particular groove. I think creativity should be a wide lens.
Another example of that is a covers album that I've been working on. It rolls out recordings from some of my favorite songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne—a lot of writers I've looked up to and learned from for many years. So when it comes to creativity this year, I've been reaching out widely and trying some new things.
What is it about creativity that is so invigorating, so refreshing to our spirits? Could it be that it represents an idea that matters deeply to God—making things new?
Creativity is so much more than painting, making music, or writing poems and books. Earlier, Sandra talked about how she loves taking old items from thrift stores and turning them into beautiful keepsakes or useful tools for her home. That, my friend, is also creativity. She takes something old and makes it new. She takes something forgotten, abandoned, and unwanted, and makes it valuable.
This is how our heavenly Father treats us. He takes our shame-filled pasts, our worst regrets, and the negative words people have spoken over us and turns them into exquisite testimonies of his glory. His creativity makes us new.
If nothing else, we hope Sandra’s story encourages you to find the deeper spiritual meaning behind every creative work in your life. Because everything you do can be an expression of the creative work Jesus is doing in you.
Sandra McCracken is a singer-songwriter and hymn writer from Nashville, Tennessee. A prolific recording artist, Sandra has produced 14 solo albums over two decades, including her bestselling release Psalms; God’s Highway, which made the top 50 on Billboard Heatseekers chart; and her latest album, Patient Kingdom. As a published writer, Sandra is releasing Send Out Your Light in September 2021 and regularly contributes to Christianity Today with her column, “Pending Resolution.” Learn more at sandramccracken.com.
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