MEASHA BRUEGGERGOSMAN-LEE
Opera Singer & Concert Artist
Artist’s Spotlight – Heart to Heart Interview
Hello artistic souls,
Like many other Canadian classical singers, I’ve watched Measha rise to glorious heights in her career. These heights seem to pale in comparison to the depths of her unwavering faith. I had the honour of transcribing Measha’s answers from voice recording, so I felt as though she was talking directly to me, but I know she’s speaking with great intention to all of us.
During the pandemic, I added a new interview series, on Instagram Live called, Heart to H-Art – Artists discussing matters of the heart and of our art. Initiating the conversations is the idea that now, more than ever, the world needs our art. Measha echoes this sentiment as she surveys the world in which we now live. As artists, and creative types, we are translators of our times, healers of hearts, and soothers of anxiety, helping to ease minds and make sense of the intense and uncertain times we live in.
In this heart-healing, faith-filled interview, find out how Measha fills her life to the brim with love, and how she hands her battles over to God. Her faith is inspiring, and she eloquently clarifies the difference between ‘action’ and ‘inspired action’ to which I refer below. You’ll also discover how Measha deals with her own ‘stinkin’ thinkin’, and shares how we can be blessings in other people’s lives.
This interview is coming at a perfect time, as we start to busy ourselves leading up to Christmas. It’s a season which should focus on sharing love with our family and friends, and sharing our gifts and talents with all those we come across. Let Measha lift you into the spirit of gratitude, hopefulness, and faithfulness.
Measha will be performing with the Southern Ontario Lyric Opera company on December, 7th at 7:30 pm, at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre. As the chair of the board of directors, I am honoured to have brought this special interview to both our audiences. Here, Measha’s written voice will fill your heart and soul, in preparation to hearing her glorious singing voice on December 7th!
Journeying with you always,
Tonia Evans Cianciulli
Creator of Wish Arts
WISH ARTS: What have you learned about yourself throughout the global pandemic and current world we live in as artists?
MEASHA BRUGGERGOSMAN-LEE: I love that question. I don’t know if the pandemic taught me anything else about myself that I didn’t already know. I have had two emergency open heart surgeries, been through a divorce, lost two babies, and my own father. The lesson of loss is the most valuable lesson that everybody naturally wants to avoid, but it’s in the value where the water flows, that’s where the fruit grows, and so too must we view hardship, even if it’s not what we would choose, what comes from it is far more valuable than anything that comes from succeeding all the time. So, what I love about being an artist is that we’re called to be authentic, and to be a reflection of the times. When we speak truth and couch it in our gifts, and use our gifts to communicate difficult messages that gives us a wealth of art and a community and a hearth of which to gather, which is the nature of music. The current world we’re living in needs artists more than ever because we’re all very disenchanted with the way we thought things were going to turn out, even pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. There’s a new reality that is much better if we choose to embrace it, and move forward not looking back, but instead believing, and acting out of the truth that our best days are ahead.
WA: What’s your greatest Wish for yourself or your career that you plan to see through with inspired action?
MBL: To be a good wife, and mom, and that will shape the career that I, or that God, more accurately will shape as a result of me prioritizing my first calling, which is a wife, and mom. I like the term ‘inspired action’ because it delineates from the belief that if we’re busy that we’re going to be fruitful. Busyness is not in any way associated with fruitfulness. It’s just a frenetic energy that gives us the illusion that we’re accomplishing things when really, busyness is a symptom of wanting people to think that we’re accomplishing things, or a subscription to the ideology that if you move fast enough, long enough, doing enough, that the doing will somehow amount to fruit when usually it amounts to a heart attack, a divorce, or emotional carnage in your wake. So, best to sit, sit in the truth that God wants good things for you, and He is in control, and He has ordered your steps before this concept of time even began. If your creator is good, and is love, then He doesn’t want you stressed out, or filled with anxiety, and calling yourself realistic, while really you’re just a pessimist, is just another discovery that you get to make on the road to understanding that God made you to bear fruit but that a lot of that fruit won’t come to pass until you extricate the parts of your life that are just busyness, and just distill it down to inspired action.
WA: Where are you in your life right now, from your own perspective?
MBL: I am in a season of redefinition, of growth, of filling myself with as much inspiration as I can, so that I stay filled to the brim with love, which is a strategy because love is the mother of hope. Hope is a currency and I have a mindset that really does believe the best of people until I’m shown otherwise. It’s a great way to live and I have been watching my own land, my own yard that gives me hope. I’ve started gardening. I’m not interested in shrubs, and biannuals, and perennials, and that kind of stuff. I only want stuff that comes out of the ground that I can eat. I am not a sentimental person, in so far as, there can be a bunch of stuff hanging around that doesn’t serve any purpose. I believe that I was created for a purpose, on purpose, for God’s purpose, and I’m starting to see my land, and the earth around me, as me aligning with that.
WA: Do you have a mentor, how have they influenced and empowered you to chase your dreams? (Note: I’ll be happily tweaking this question now that Measha has pointed something out in her answer!)
MBL: Chasing your dreams implies that they’re trying to get away from you. And I don’t think that’s necessarily how God works. He doesn’t mean for us to be toiling, again, it goes back to that busyness thing, that fruitfulness is understanding that you are loved, you’ll never be more perfectly loved than you are right now because that would imply that God can improve but He can’t cuz there’s no shadow of turning with him. And so, working from that truth my mentor would likely be one, my mom, and two my husband. My mom is a stole ward soldier of the faith, and my husband is someone who is constantly open to understanding that God is continuing to work in him. I watch him discover, I watch his skill set grow, I watch him buck against what he’s always known and know that God desires greater. And I see that fruit being produced in his life, I get to be in his life, I get to be his wife, I get to see him discover in every new way how deep, and, vast and, high, and wide is God’s love for him. Watching him react out of that in how he loves me and our children is a real inspiration to me. My mom, if you squeeze her, the Bible comes out. I know that she always kept a cool head, even though she might be screaming on the inside of her, I’ve learned from her that, help is always on the way. God is an ever present help, in every single aspect in our lives. And this is Jesus heavy because there’s no one else I’m talking to, and I’m speaking into the air on this recording, and for me that always means that I’m sitting here talking to God. So, really, if I has to pick the ultimate mentor, it would be Jesus. But, for the purposes of this secular interview, I’ll say my mom and my husband.
WA: Do you ever experience the negative voice inside your head that says: “You can’t do that. Who do you think you are?” And how do you deal with this voice?
MBL: Man! Ha! That voice is often my own because if it has a head and a body attached to it, I immediately respond in love because I know it’s from a place of pain. People generally don’t step to me in an aggressive way. I don’t give off the scent of victim. I don’t give the impression that I’m someone to be disrespected. I don’t say that I don’t get disrespected. I just say that I lead so positively that I like to think that I cut those things off at the pass. It’s hard to insult a smiling face. I mean, you can do it but, you really just revealing your own pessimism. So, I like to always be the best part of anybody’s day. When I am confronted with negativity or pessimism inside my own mind, my own stinkin thinkin, I’m then going to try and give to someone what I would like to receive myself. If I’m lacking in confidence, I’ll build someone up. If I am very sad, I will make someone else feel better by telling jokes. It’s all available to you. It can be a Twitter post, an Instgram video, a text you send to someone you know who’s prone to depression. All of these things outward expressions of what will fortify you inwardly is my strategy for stopping the hater that is inside my head. My haters are a committee. One is in charge of how bad of a parent I am, one is in charge of how my career is going, the other person speaks up when my house is a mess, one tells me I’m not doing enough, and the other one tells me I’m doing too much. Once you can identify these voices, and repeat what they’re saying to you, and realize how ridiculous they are, it takes their power away, and gives the enemy his marching orders. Because by the power of the Holy Spirit alive inside of me, I can all things. It’s not my strength I’m doing it on.
WA: Do you have a favorite quote or story that motivates and inspires you?
MBL: Wow! Well, listen, probably no one will say this, I can’t imagine you’ve heard this answer before. I’m literally looking at 2nd Chronicles, verses 20, Old Testament. It is not disputable that King David brought about the longest rein of peace in the history of the Hebrew people. There’s an enemy in the gate, and it’s absolutely impossible for them to get out of this pickle, without the help of God. And they’re convened and someone stands up who’s a messenger from original tribe of Levi, who has a message from God that says this, and this is my favorite quote, “Listen, King Jehoshaphat, and all who live in Judah, and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged!” The whole point is, do not be discouraged or afraid. Why? Because the battle is not yours, but God’s. That is my mantra. This fight is not mine, it’s God. I am here as God’s co-worker, as his hands and feet, his standards don’t change.
So, whether it’s a heart attack or Covid, no matter what it is, I am to get up, to keep marching, keep loving, keep encouraging. ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged’. I love how that quote covers all the bases of what negativity is. This commandment tell us that God is in charge of not just the fight, but the battle and the strategy. Anything that exists in our lives, He has a plan for because it’s not like it’s surprising Him. Nothing dawns on God, God doesn’t have an Ah-Ha moments. Nothing occurs to Him, He’s omnipotent. He knows you, the hairs on your head, the thoughts before you think them, your needs before you have them. He anticipates everything. He is the same God here in 2nd Chronicles, as who is speaking through me right now, and that is comforting. Because when everything changes, when everything falls apart, when nothing is working, He’s still love. So, we don’t have to be discouraged, or afraid, in fact, we can be encouraged and we can be of good courage. And that is the quote I keep going back to, every single time I’m up against an enemy that I don’t think I can win. And then I remember that, ‘oh wait, fight is not mine, it’s God’s’. And I pray this for you. Listen, I know this is super specific but if a faith isn’t specific then it’s just a theoretical, ideology that does nothin’ for anybody, and it leads to a wishy-washy life that doesn’t amount to anything and I want it, and I have prayed for, and I have an extraordinary life, for which I am incredibly grateful. I don’t deserve it, I didn’t earn it, it is all by the glory of God. And I give Him absolute glory for having battled for me, in places I’ll never be, having saved me from perilous downfall that I’ll never experience. And, He is just that good, and I know He’s going to be just that good to you.
