The Beat of My Own Drum (31 page)

Taking a deep breath, I took that step back to church, and from that day on, I embarked on a walk of faith, peace, and kindness that I would do my best to continue daily.

We are all attacked by sin and temptation, but my daily walk in love shows me how to handle those temptations. Prayer is essential in all that I do. My band and I pray before every show. I have made a personal commitment to be a blessing to someone or something every day, even if it is just by brightening that day with a smile, a kind word, or a good deed. My whole family tries to do the same.

My father was raised Catholic and always had a strong faith, so he was very pleased that I had found the Lord. He was even happier that I started to do ministry work and became a “minister of music.” My enthusiasm for Jesus was invigorating—Peter Michael became a minister in another church, as did three of my nephews, which is wonderful; God’s love is reaching the young.

Once Pops, Moms, and Zina moved near me, I decided to attend another church so that we could have fellowship together. We have such an enriched spiritual awareness as a family now. Experiencing the power in speaking to Him personally was such a breakthrough, and doing so as a family is even more powerful.
For me, religion is more about following rules and laws. The divine connection is having faith, honoring the Word, and having a spiritual relationship with God.

Faith had always been at the core of my childhood. We went to St. Anthony’s church every Sunday and said our prayers every night. I remember saying my blessings before bed and praying for my family one by one. There was always a Bible in the house, though I don’t recall reading it. When our stomachs were growling and we couldn’t find anything good in our kitchen, we’d knock on our neighbor’s door, enduring the Bible readings in hungry anticipation of the peanut-butter sandwiches they would give us. Most aspects of religious rituals felt like a task, though, and I didn’t feel spiritually connected to them.

I liked when Pops made enough money at a gig for us to have meat on Sundays after church—great big plates of pork chops and applesauce, which was small compensation for being in that drafty old building singing songs that didn’t connect with me at all. When we were younger we didn’t have any choice, but as we got older we still endured it because church meant so much to my parents.

The sanctuary was cold and uninviting. The services were boring, and I couldn’t hear or understand what the priests were saying half the time. It seemed like church was related to guilt. I dreaded the confession booth, racking my brain for “bad” things to confess to the priest, like not listening to my parents or stealing change out of Moms’s drawer to buy candy.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. God, please forgive me,” I would plead. So I talked to God on Sundays, or when I felt I needed forgiveness for some new sin, but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Christ like I do now. At the time, I didn’t even know such a relationship was possible.

My spirituality is personal, but I gladly share it with others. I hope to inspire others to walk with God, but I have no interest in
pushing any agenda. I respect the views and opinions of others, whether they are nonbelievers or they’ve embraced another spiritual path. My spirituality works for me. And through it, I have found healing and salvation. I don’t share the fire-and-brimstone, hell-and-sin talk to minister to nonbelievers. My approach to saving a soul is all about love and being the best you can be. It’s not to make other people become Christians.

My belief is that when you find true eternal love, you’ll see God and want more of Him. I look at myself first to see where change is needed before I even think about trying to change anyone else. I don’t feel it’s my job to change anyone anyway. I believe my purpose to make a difference by inspiring others to be the blessing. And when I’m blessing someone, I’m being blessed right back.

I see that there was no choice in my path. If I had kept standing still, nothing would have changed. I needed a major life shift, a spiritual 180. My music is all about change and spontaneity as expressed in my altering the drumbeat. It was time I altered the beat of my own life. My music, like my faith, feeds me. Combining the two made such spiritual sense.

Once I discovered the depth of my faith, everything took on a whole new meaning. Like the stance I usually assume at the end of every intense solo on the timbales: legs firm, right stick pointing straight up. I acknowledge God, from whom my gift comes.

Liza Minnelli was in the audience of a benefit I performed at once and she gave me a great endorsement, telling me she loved that final stance. “It’s powerful,” she said.

Now, in the midst of prayer, I feel the same intensity. My right stick is in the air pointing to the heavens while my feet are firmly planted on the earth. I’m honoring God, because it’s He who lets me do what I do. I’m praising Him. As the audience claps they’re thanking me, and I am in reverence to Him.

Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. You are worthy to be praised.

Lynn was so important in showing me how to rediscover and tap into my faith. She was also pivotal in helping me move on to the next important stage of my “recovery” from my previous life. Through “walking the walk” and studying the word of God, I came to realize that I didn’t want to carry my former self around with me anymore. It was time to face and examine what had happened in my childhood.

I felt the need to forgive myself.

In one of our deeper conversations, Lynn revealed to me that she had been molested at twelve years old. I was shocked and saddened for her but so impressed by how she’d been able to forgive her molester and move on. What a revelation!

With her being a true friend and one I could trust, I took a breath and broke my thirty-year silence to tell her what had happened to me. We cried and prayed together, agreeing to turn our terrible experiences into a positive force. After realizing that our artistic experience was an essential part of whatever we did, we decided to start a movement to help abused kids.

After much discussion, we went on to cofound the Lil’ Angel Bunny Foundation (later renamed the Elevate Hope Foundation)—an organization to help abused and abandoned children by promoting self-awareness through music, the arts, and compassion.

We’d hold raffles and auctions after shows, auctioning off some of my equipment to raise money for special programs that cared for disadvantaged youth throughout California. The raffle tickets cost around two dollars each for a chance to win one of my snares or a conga, which were worth $300 to $500. Since we were in small clubs at the time, we’d raise about $200 or so, which we would donate to a preselected facility that helped kids. To raise the stakes, I started auctioning off parts of my drum kit and percussion instruments.

Lynn’s role in becoming such a pivotal force in my life and our foundation stemmed back in part to 1996, when she and I were on tour with the queen of Japanese pop music, a teenage sensation named Namie Amuro. I was the percussionist and Lynn was one of her background singers. Namie’s band was massively successful and played to sold-out stadiums through Japan. At eighteen years old, she was a multiplatinum recording artist selling millions of records.

There were six Christians in the band and crew, and, as Japan practices mainly the Shinto or Buddhist faiths, we had a hard time finding any Christian churches to visit. We needed to keep strong and maintain our armor of love. We were instructed by our pastor to conduct a weekly Bible-study group during the tour and to meet at least once a week. In this time of study and fellowship, we’d rotate on leading Bible study by picking a subject matter of our choice and sharing related Bible verses. Before we’d begin, we’d have praise and worship together by praying and singing inspirational songs.

After a couple of rotations, it was my turn again to lead Bible study. Having already done it once, I didn’t have a clue what to talk about this second time.

Lynn offered some suggestions. “You can talk about God’s love, forgiveness, kindness, or even something that you can relate to in the scriptures you read in your own time.” I told her I still couldn’t think of anything at all.

Gently touching my hand, she added, “If you don’t know what to talk about, then why don’t you share your testimony with everyone?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to
talk
about my rape—it was too private and too painful to admit. Besides, I didn’t have a clue how to express it.

Lynn said, “Sheila, you’re at a place now spiritually where you
can confess it to the world. You don’t have to be ashamed of it anymore.”

Still not sure if I had the ability to do it, she suggested, “If you have trouble speaking the words, get on your computer and just start writing your experience, and see what comes out.”

I placed my laptop on the dining room table, sat in the chair, and stared at the blank screen. My fingers hovered motionless above the keys. It hit me that Lynn was right. How much longer was I going to keep my dirty little secret hidden from the world?

I started to type, and then I held my breath and stopped. I was afraid. I blinked at the screen and read the words,
When I was five
 . . . I lowered my fingers back onto the keys and kept going. The next hour or so felt like an eternity of blurred words and feelings as my fingers never stopped typing. I hit those keys with the energy and intensity of a drum solo. The tap-tap-tapping became like a percussion beat in my head—a rising, rousing metronome to the horror story of that part of my childhood.

Finally, my fingers burning, I stopped to take a breath. Shifting position a little, I started to read back what I’d written. The words that filled the screen were like the eyes of my soul, and they tore my heart in two. I had never seen an account of those events in black and white before, and it crushed me. The frightened little girl that I had been back in 1962 was talking to me straight from the page. This wasn’t somebody else, though; this was
me
talking about
myself,
and that was what was so horrible.

Every word I read transported me closer and closer to that night when Moms and Pops went out. I could feel myself being carried to their room. I could almost smell the Vaseline. When I remembered the blood, I felt sick. My stomach cramped as I remembered holding everything in and believing that I would die. Reliving my hours in the bathroom snatched the breath from my lungs, and I started hyperventilating.

I was there again, that little five-year-old, scared and helpless. Pushing the laptop away, tears filled my eyes. I was overcome with sadness and fell to my knees. I curled up into the fetal position as the little girl in me started to cry. Memories intensified, and I began howling like an animal in pain.

Lynn came running in from the next room, knelt down beside me, and held me for dear life. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she kept telling me. “You’re going to be all right.”

I couldn’t speak. All I could do was cry. It was such a relief and a release.

Then, as if she’d read every word I had written, Lynn told me, “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”

I cried for three days straight. This simple preparation for Bible study manifested into the unveiling of the inner pain I’d suffered throughout my lifetime. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t eat. I felt as if I was going through a war. Although the continuous sobs were wracking me, the more I cried, ironically, the better I felt. I just needed to get it all out.

For almost four decades I’d buried all that emotion inside. Music had been my only outlet, and it had served me well. Giving my heart to the Lord and surrendering to Him was my saving grace. It was time to exhume the memories, breath by breath. I didn’t want to carry the pain anymore—or the guilt, the shame, and the anger. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.

In a faraway land, with the kindest of friends, I went through a kind of rebirth. It was an agonizing process, but what emerged from a thirty-five-year-old cocoon of sorrow was a butterfly: I finally saw myself as a beautiful, vibrant creature of light.

I knew then that my life had a new purpose: to shine.

26
. Groove

A rhythm, drumbeat, or feel of something

It all started when I decided to open my eyes

I am free. And now I see

“HEAVEN”

SHEILA E

M
usic had given me a purpose and saved me from myself, and others, for so long. Music had helped Pops through the darkest days of his childhood. And, thankfully, it had done the same for me. I now understood music as a gift from God. I was close to discovering a way I might begin to thank Him.

Once I was finally able to face the truths of my past and move on, I knew what I had to do. Pops had planted the seed by taking us to children’s homes when we were young. From the earliest age, we’d unpacked our instruments and let unhappy children discover the joy of beating our drums and congas as loud and as fast as they liked. I wanted to show other abused kids that they, too, could find that kind of freedom through creativity.

I had been so incredibly fortunate. I was a drummer, a percussionist,
and a singer. I had a loving and caring family, and I felt so humbled and honored to have my parents alive and still married. The love they had for each other opened the door to a world of music. Not everyone had that. The foster kids and those who lived on the streets were the ones I wanted to be able to share my gift of music with—to help them through the arts. I wanted to be their voice.

As a nod to Pops, Lynn and I gravitated toward providing art supplies to several facilities, giving kids the chance to create some color in their monochrome surroundings. It was amazing to me to see how their paintings started so dark and angry but, in time and with some therapy, became lighter and full of color.

We contributed to one facility that taught the kids to grow their own food in their own garden and to cook a basic meal. Many of them didn’t even know how to use a knife and fork, as they’d only ever eaten with their fingers. We funded programs that specifically focused on teaching them to cope once they left these state homes.