Rachel Wilhelm

In a culture that often mistakes grief with weakness, singer-songwriter Rachel Wilhelm is on a mission to remind the church how to biblically lament. She released her first full-length record, "Songs of Lament," in 2017 and her latest, "Requiem," in 2021. Her heartfelt lyrics and tender melodies invite listeners to grieve as God intended — with him.

As the minister of music and worship arts at Apostles Anglican Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, Rachel relishes the opportunity to lead God’s people into worship. Today, she’s getting honest about how the Holy Spirit invigorates that work, what role lamenting should play in our lives and the books and communities that strengthen her faith.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

All my life, I’ve been searching for a hometown. In my real hometown in Orange County, I couldn’t tell you what my favorite restaurant would be. In-and-Out, maybe?

After having lived in many cities in the U.S. (Irvine, California; Greenville, South Carolina; Nampa, Idaho; Manassas, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Atlanta, Georgia), my husband and I landed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in January 2021 like weary travelers entering the gates of Rivendell. We were tired, ready to settle and moving for my job at Apostles Anglican Church as the Minister of Music and Worship Arts. I love Tennessee, and I especially love Knoxville.

This summer while leading a songwriting retreat in Pitlochry, Scotland, I was shocked to see that the landscape looked identical to my new home city. If you take the billboards away and insert some scotch pines, the area just north of Edinburgh looks a lot like East Tennessee.

Exploring the city is probably one of my chief delights, and since turning 40, I’ve developed a true love of beer that makes the sudden appearance of all these breweries all over the States that much more delightful. In fact, I feel like I have been on a perpetual pub crawl since January of 2021, and it’s been a good thing — even if I’ve gained 10 pounds. It’s love.

One of my absolute favorite places to go is a restaurant called Simpl in South Knox. It’s conveniently connected to Alliance Brewing, which is a perfect establishment. Simpl serves farm-to-table dishes, all beautifully made and presented. They also have a stellar cocktail menu. I often grab a stout, sit at a table outside at Simpl, and order their homemade hummus and grilled vegetables. After running across the street to South Coast Pizza to grab a slice of their pepperoni, my husband joins me, and we can both eat something we like with a great pint of beer to go with it.

After our meal, I love driving home through the city. It gives us the chance to see the ridiculous but rad Sunsphere, our World’s Fair structure from 1982, as I head west.

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?

I’ve been making soap for 20 years. It funded half of my first full-length album, “Songs of Lament.” For many years, it paid for Christmas for my family. It has paid for vacations. It has paid some of the bills at times. And one point, I had an actual soap business with my friend, but sadly, I moved away. My husband swears the reason I have so many friends is that I constantly give my soap away. I can’t help but share it. It’s too beautiful not to!

People would say soapmaking is “nonspiritual,” but it’s a holy process. It makes me slow down as I work with my hands. My mother-in-law always said she “rather liked ironing” because she could see all the newly ironed clothes lined up in her closet afterward.

Soapmaking is like that. It gives the brain the chance to process work, allowing great ideas to come up to the surface — like when you have to take a weekend and paint your living room. After a while, you tune out the music that you have on and you start dreaming about solutions to problems or remember an old memory you wouldn’t otherwise have the space to retrieve.

I take three hours to make a few batches, plop the hot soap from the oven into long, loaf-shaped wooden molds, and after a few more hours, cut the cooled, hardened soap log into bars. I have baskets of batches scattered all about my house. It’s the best-smelling house in the neighborhood, hands down.

Soapmaking is a process that produces a complete chemical change. You have oils, water, and lye (an alkali), and they mix together in saponification to create a completely different substance that cleanses and even helps heal dry skin.

There’s a mythical story out there for all of us soapmakers as we measure oils and stir our water and lye, and I think this story actually has deep meaning. It goes like this: Up on Mount Sapo, the Romans sacrificed animals on an altar, and the potash from the fire slid down the slope with the oily fat from the animals while the clouds released rain. The result was a bed of suds at the base of the mountain, which created a cleansing pool. You can see where this is going — animal sacrifice on an altar, water, cleansing from filth. Sounds similar to how Jesus’ sacrifice cleanses us from sin. It’s holy.

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?

I’m one of those people who doesn’t have a cage or fortress guarding her heart. I’m sure it’s annoying to some people and comforts others. Either way, I wince at how open I can be. I think it’s because I was raised by a narcissist who constantly denied reality and invalidated everything I felt, said, or believed. I hungered so much for truth. Ha! There I go, revealing something super personal again.

That said, my kryptonite is the fact that I struggle to believe that others believe me when I tell them something. It surprises me most of the time. It’s funny that your formative years can play such a huge part in how you think later on in life.

Because of this, I always strive to reveal the truth, identify with others (maybe too much), and live as an open book. I figure that being made fun of, disrespected or rejected because of my honesty is better than being dishonest or fake. I remember a few times when I’ve been very honest about my story and have been shut out by the hearer afterward because it made them uncomfortable in some way. My natural inclination is to think that they don’t believe me. But more and more, my goal is not to be believed so much as to be a help to anyone who doesn’t dare to step up and say what they need to say. God uses us like that, and he can turn our fear into courage for others. I choose to believe that.

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?

I work for an organization called United Adoration (UA). We assist the local church in building its own creative community. One of those ways is to facilitate arts retreats. My specialty is songwriting, so leading a songwriting retreat is one of those beautiful toils that bring me life.

Through my work for UA, I have met so many grassroots songwriters. During the 2020 pandemic lockdown, one of those songwriters, Kate Bluett, told me she was experiencing so much anxiety at night that she would listen to classical requiems to calm herself down. She was burdened by the fact that so many people could not attend the funerals of their loved ones or stand by their side as they died in the hospital. She was holding the weight of the world, in a sense.

When she called me during the early stages of the lockdown, she suggested I write a requiem. I was in the throes of writing, so I challenged her to write the lyrics and I would write the music. I think it took us maybe a month and a half. We immediately started to study what it would take to make a folk-style requiem — all the parts and pieces that were essential. I began recording remotely with my producer right away, and eventually, the project became an album with a Kickstarter campaign.

Why did we do all this? To bring a funeral to those who couldn’t mourn the proper way. Not only did “Requiem” become a musical environment to mourn a death, but it also became a space to mourn divorce, disappointments, job loss, national tragedies and any other kind of reason to grieve. I didn’t know that it would turn out this useful to those who happen to come across it. It’s also meant to be performed, but it never has been. Maybe one day it will be.

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?

As the Minister of Music and Worship Arts at my church, I see the Holy Spirit active when I choose songs. My church is Anglican, so we have a set of Scriptures for every day of the week, and on Sundays, we read those during the service. I have them ahead of time, so I pour over them for hours sometimes to find just the right songs that speak to what God is telling his people that Sunday. For me, the key is asking the Holy Spirit to work through me in making those creative connections. It sounds really simple — and maybe it is — but I think we often forget to ask.

That leads me to the job I have through UA leading retreats with songwriters. Before we break off into creative time during the retreat, I pray over our creative process and invite the Holy Spirit to inspire and work alongside and through us. “Give us songs” is essentially our prayer.

Many artists approach me afterward saying, “I never think to do that. It actually makes a difference.” Yes, it actually does! Oftentimes when I’m toiling at writing a song and it feels like I’m twisting a dry sponge, I stop and ask the Holy Spirit to give me a song. Turns out I forgot to ask again before I started! A favorable result doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens probably 70% of the time.

So I guess I find inspiration by just asking. As it says in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It can seem like once we make one great idea or song, creativity will never come again. But all that God asks of me is to be faithful to my craft, and faithfulness to my craft is just showing up and asking for the good inspiration of co-creation. It takes the pressure off.

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?

I find it hard to rest because working in ministry is so varied that I’m often not sure when to shut it off. I leave my phone on the kitchen counter instead of the dinner table when eating. And I always keep my phone on silent.

When it’s not too hot in the summer, I go on my back deck and just sit and read Scripture or even just sit and think. Right now, the practice that is tricking me into resting on my days off is going shopping by myself. I get time in the car with God, and those are usually the times I do my personal lamenting. Sometimes I complain to God about something that isn’t working out right. Or sometimes — and this is newer for me — I lament on behalf of other people who tell me their struggles and ask for prayer.

We all tell people we’ll pray for them, but sometimes we forget or we remember enough to whisper a quick prayer before another activity. But going into the car to pray for someone else, ask God why they have to go through this, and ask him to fix it is another world of lament I didn’t see before. I’m not regular with it by any stretch, but I’m now convinced I should do it more often.

Once I reach the store for my shopping trip, I get out of the car and feel this continual conversation with God happening. I sense how patient he is with me as I look at grocery items, household goods or clothes. It’s weird. And my days off can be days off because I’m not home, tempted to work. (I know, right? It’s that bad.)

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?

When I was 18, I was married and five months pregnant. Two years later, I divorced and never really grieved it well. The grief was locked in because I was too young to understand what was happening. Moda Spira, the moniker for Latifah Alattas, put out a record called “Divorce” in 2018. I avoided it for many months but recently played it with great courage on a drive to Nashville. I’ve been happily married for 24 years, but my goodness, this album created space and voiced what I never could voice about the pain I felt and kept locked inside. I sobbed the whole ride. It was like I was punched in the gut (in a good way) and the hurt, teenaged me linked arms with the healing, adult me — and I freaking understood myself.

Andrew Peterson’s “Adorning the Dark” helped me understand my songwriting craft in a new way. One thing that has stuck with me is his plea to “serve the song.” It was a new way to say, “Be faithful to the craft God has made you responsible for in this world.” Now when I write, I have a goal that makes me ask, “Can this be better?” If so, I start over and serve the song.

“The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri (specifically the Hollander translation). That answer may sound super pretentious, but hear me out. It begins with a confused guy at the midpoint of his life about to walk into a dark wood. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through hell into purgatory, then Beatrice takes over in paradise. It made me love epic poetry. Even though it was very hard to read at times, it forced me to slow down, look things up, and see how this great poem has affected so many other great books. I realized why C.S. Lewis was inspired to write “Surprised by Joy” (another favorite) in his studies of medieval literature — because Dante’s “Beatrice” is “joy” to Dante.

I also read it at the same time as my middle son when we were homeschooling, and he was only required to read “Purgatory” but asked to read the rest. He said he cried when Dante was parted from Virgil once they hit the borders of paradise. I’ll never forget that.

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.

As a songwriter, yes, I receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit, but I oftentimes need a goal and something to work toward. For the last few years, I’ve been doing what’s called The 12 Song Challenge by Resound Worship. Each month, we get a theme to write a song for our local congregations. Themes like “God Songs,” “Women of Scripture,” “Psalms” or “Multi-Part Songs.”

I record my song using my phone recording app and post it on the 12 Song Challenge Slack workspace, and songwriters in the group (there are a few hundred) give feedback to help me refine my work.

They have a podcast at the end of the month highlighting songs and their stories, with a discussion of the next month’s challenge. If you are a songwriter or poet, I highly recommend it!

There’s also a devotional aspect to this whole process. It becomes almost liturgical because I count on a prompt and then study what I need to in order to serve the song. It also forces me to learn how to give and receive feedback with humility and grace. Overall, it’s made me a better artist.

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 a few dreams that pull me every which way. One is for my church to have an Art House attached to it for the Knoxville community. It would be a place where the traditional arts, icon writing, retreats and other events can take place right on my church’s property. There is an actual plan to do this, and I can’t wait!

I spent a lot of this year working on music production and managing music projects for other people. I have a lot of songs unrecorded, but I keep thinking about three of them as a set: “Daniel’s Song,” “Jonah’s Song” and “Job’s Song.” Not sure what I want to call it yet. Plus, I’m looking at how much time left we have in 2022 and feel full of doubt. Do I plunge ahead and make my life seriously busy to the point that I have no rest? It’s hard to know.

On top of the Bible character EP, I want to record another with one of my collaborators with the songs we wrote for the book of Jeremiah back in 2018.

It will take going through the pain of a Kickstarter campaign, song re-writing, recording (which I hate, but that’s Christian suffering, right?) and putting out another project that goes out into the ether and seems unnoticed. But as my husband the historian says, “It’s recorded now, and no one can take that away from you.”

Earlier in the interview, Rachel talked about her recent project, Requiem, an album created specifically to help people lament. Such an important project begs the question — when did we forget the art of lamenting?

After all, our Western culture today tends to view grief as weakness. And yet the Bible shows us over and over that God doesn’t expect us to neglect our pain — he invites us to mourn.

Jeremiah was called “the weeping prophet” and wrote the sorrowful book of Lamentations. David wrote numerous psalms that featured prayers of mourning and desperation. And the book of Job reveals the deep heartache of a righteous man.

When we invite the Holy Spirit into our suffering, we can give full expression to the pain we feel, find comfort in his love and experience the healing only he can give. Because we don’t grieve like the world. We mourn as those who have a lasting, unchanging hope in Jesus.