Erika Melek is our Woman of the Week, nominated for her work as a musician, songwriter and artist who brings Orthodox elements into her art and songwriting. We asked her to tell you about how she began this line of work:
“It really all started with my grandfather and my mom. The two of them together were and are unstoppable in terms of art, whether it came to music or iconography or just being creative. My grandfather was kind of like me, a jack of all trades, so to speak. He loved exploring with different media. He would do relief prints, metalwork, caricatures, painting, storybooks, and the list goes on and on. He definitely passed all of those interests on to my mom, who passed them on to me. He used to do projects for our local church and churches in the US, but he never really cared about being recognized. That means that lots of people don't even know that he made the work in their church. He just had such a love for art and for bringing God into these creative spaces, and letting himself disappear so that God could appear through his work. I’ll never forget that about him.
“Ever since we were young, my sister (who is a phenomenal songwriter herself) and I have loved writing songs for one another - I used to write songs about how much I loved her (cheesy, I know). We spent a lot of time together being creative, whether through producing action movies in our house (to our parents’ dismay), writing songs, drawing together - that was a huge part of our life growing up. Both of us ended up teaching ourselves how to play different instruments as we grew older. I learned how to play the ukulele; she learned how to play the guitar. We would sing together and learned how to harmonize with each other. When I finally started writing songs, she was always the first person that I would go to with a new idea, and vice versa.
“My first project was one that is very close to my heart. It came to me during a turning point in my life where I went from always keeping God an arm's length away, to wanting to be completely enraptured by His love and presence. That first project was a song about the Prodigal Son, and it was so fitting given that I was His prodigal daughter, sister, bride, and friend. It reflected my journey going away and coming back to Him. That will always stay with me as a songwriter, because the goal in my songwriting is to unite the heart to God through beauty and truth. For some of my other songs, I tell people that I co-write with the Church Fathers because I love putting the poems of St. Ephraim the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian to music. They are such phenomenal writers, and many of their hymns and poems are not sung in the church today, as far as I’m aware.
“One of my best friends teaches a Patristics course as a book club at our church, which was the first time I was ever exposed to the writings of the Church Fathers. Prior to that, I didn't know anything about them. In that book club, we read the Hymns on Paradise by St. Ephraim the Syrian. I was so touched and moved by his visual language and how he brought a deeper color to deep spiritual and theological matters in a way that I had never heard. A song based on that was the first one I made ‘in collaboration’ with a Church Father. It is called ‘Living Paradise’ and was very much inspired by his hymnology in that collection of texts.
“Later, when I read the work of St. Gregory the Theologian, I found that Truth in his writing transcended all time and all space. He has a beautiful poem on the soul, which I am currently basing a song on. It's a beautiful analysis of the soul, asking, What is the job of our soul? What is its place in this universe in which God has placed us? His thinking is not archaic; it has relevance to us today. I think many people, myself included, would have thought there's no place for any of this ‘old’ stuff in my modern life. But some things don't change, as much as we'd like to think that we're more sophisticated, more advanced, more ahead of the curve than they were. To me, it's the other way around. I think we have a lot to learn by looking to our Fathers and looking to our Tradition. Our souls are just like theirs; they haven’t changed over time. We have a beautiful depth of knowledge in the writings of the Fathers, and bringing it to center stage in our very modern world is exactly what people need right now. I know it's what I need.
“Songs are for everyone. Songs can be sung around the campfire, and they can be sung to young children. When I’m singing, it doesn't feel like I'm taking in a heavy text, but in reality, you can be singing something that is conceptually difficult, but hearing it in song makes it a little less daunting. Yet it's the same content, same depth, same message.”
As always, we asked our Woman of the Week, Erika Melek, to tell you about her morning routine:
“When I saw you would be asking me that question, I actually laughed and told my mom, because she knows routine is not my favorite word.
“I have a corner in my room where I love to sit and sing, or I might read a little. Sometimes, I might write in my journal about some of the things that I hope to do that day or some of the things that I need to get done. I also enjoy just sitting in silence with coffee just listening to the sounds around me.
“No matter what, though, I always set aside time in the morning and the evening where I have no obligations, and that's my favorite time of the day. It's time that I get to use, between me and God, whether it's walking or singing or reading or being in complete silence with Him. It's the best part of my day, but it's also sometimes a bit inconsistent because I tend to emphasize different things every day.
“My day job is in an area that might seem very different from my other interests. I work in advisory for a consulting firm. I get to solve all sorts of problems and interact with loads of different people, which are both things that I enjoy. I used to want to be a psychotherapist because I love connection and facilitating a conversation. I feel like I'm doing those things, just in a business context.”
Thank you, Erika!