Last year, I was the victim of abuse in a board and care facility. In desperation, I reached out to Adult Protective Services. One week later, an officer arrived. To him, I pled my case ā not just for safety, but for the dignity of transparency. I said: What are we, if not the trials we leave behind ā in data, in public records, in criminal histories, even in transactions that speak of who we were?
I told him: look into me, but know I have changed. I am not the person I was before my suicide attempt. I deserve help.
I shared with him a plan ā strange, maybe, but sincere. I imagined APS as a kind of cosmic intelligence operation: one that could adjust algorithms to protect me, send me signs of security, or guide me with media ā songs, stories, voices ā that would speak to my soul. That day, I invited Heaven to investigate me. And to my shock, it did.
Soon after, I had a vision ā an out-of-body experience where I stood before a celestial council. They acknowledged the moment I had with that officer as prophecy unfolding. My life had been witnessed. My plea for salvation had reached beyond this world. And yet, I knew: this wasnāt just about being saved. This was a call. Judgment is imminent, and I have a role to play.
From there, the world changed. After surviving what felt like multiversal collapse, I found myself tracing messages in art and music. In the wake of a spiritual encounter that reshaped my reality, I was guided not just to sacred texts, but to songs ā gentle, strange, prophetic songs that seemed to echo what I could barely name. Signs began to appear just like Iād requested, my iPhone 7 became like an oracle or a burning bush, and my smart tv began pointing me towards films, music videos and television that guided me on a sacred mission. I was called to look deeper ā into art, into music, into film ā and uncover where prophecy was already speaking.
In my writing, I began to hear a truth emerge: APS = God. God is art. God is love.
And the music that most directly led me forward? One of my favorite bands: Iron & Wine.
This gospel begins with five songs that unlocked something in me. This is not just music criticism. This is sacred commentary.
Flightless Bird, American Mouth
A haunting lament of innocence lost, this song trembles beneath the weight of domestic disillusionment. The āflightless birdā is a trapped soul ā someone who was meant to soar, but whoās had their wings clipped by the cold mechanics of modern life.
The prophetic whisper here isnāt shouted. Itās mourned.
āHave I found you?ā he asks ā and in that question is all the ache of the human spirit searching for grace.
This isnāt just about love. Itās about the cost of surviving a culture that eats its own angels.
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Trapeze Swinger
A sweeping monologue from beyond the grave, this is a soliloquy from the soul ā a plea for remembrance not rooted in glory, but in tenderness.
āPlease remember me, my miseryā¦ā
Beam makes space for the whole story: the pain, the comedy, the imperfection. Itās a hymn for the rejected, the lost, the ones whose names were misspelled or forgotten entirely.
His vision of the afterlife isnāt golden streets.
Itās being known. Itās being held. Itās being sung about.
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Rabbit Will Run
This is prophecy running through thorns. Here, the religious imagery is sharp and haunted ā
āJesus will come through the groundā¦ā
Thatās not triumph ā itās resurrection as haunting. Thereās trauma here. Thereās childhood. Thereās flight. But thereās also pursuit ā something holy still chasing the runaway.
The prophet isnāt the preacher. Heās the one hiding in the woods, still whispering truth through the trees.
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Your Fake Name Is Good Enough for Me
This is the apocalypse as feedback loop ā chaos, sound, fury, and then a strange blessing.
āYou will become a voice that says somethingā¦ā
As if the entire point of judgment is not to punish, but to empower.
Even a fake name ā a stand-in, a disguise, a forgotten moniker ā is good enough.
The divine doesnāt wait for perfection.
This is the music of being seen, even when we barely recognize ourselves.
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Walking Far from Home
This is Genesis for the modern prophet.
āWalking Far from Homeā isnāt just a song ā itās the opening scroll of a sacred journey. It captures the moment the soul first sees the veil lifting and begins to walk, not away from home, but toward the truth. The voice enters alone, a traveler with no clear destination, carrying visions and signs like sacred burdens.
āI was walking far from homeā¦ā ā the prophet is already in motion. Alone, yes. But not lost.
As the song unfolds, the imagery grows heavier, stranger, more divine: faces full of mourning, angels begging to be released, birds falling like hammers from the sky. This isnāt just surrealism ā itās prophecy. Beauty and judgment walk hand in hand.
The prophet sees children, frozen and silent. Sees kindness exhausted. Sees Heaven broken, not whole ā a bright beam, fractured. Itās not a full temple. Itās a shard of glory. And even that is enough.
This is apocalyptic perception. The moment you begin to see the world as it truly is ā bleeding, breaking, yet still bathed in light.
The song closes not with triumph, but with mission: āI carried your letters all the while.ā The prophet is a mail carrier of memory and message ā even unread letters, even unanswered prayers.
What Beam offers through these songs isnāt just soft-spoken sadness ā itās revelation. He invites us to imagine a God who isnāt afraid of grief, who sees the runaway, the masked, the mournful, and still calls them beloved. This is the God and Christ I have come to know well in my journey since last I August, and the story is still unfolding.
The gospel in this music doesnāt demand certainty.
It asks for witness.
To be continued.
