In this new semester, Franciscan Sisters spotlight Shellee Coley’s Bright Idea. Like St.Francis, may you have a most radiant effect on any darkness found in our world. May an extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit be yours this month of September!
Listen to the Song
Spotify link directly to Shellee’s page
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6pKKcL1cuqO4NYuVGbGm9j
Lyrics
http://shelleecoley.bandcamp.com/track/bright-idea
About Shellee Coley
Shellee Coley is a Texas-based singer-songwriter with three studio projects under her belt and a fourth on the way. Her songs often bring light to the not-so-celebrated parts of life and walk people through them, into growth and change.
There is a clear spiritual undertone to her music that sets a listener up to experience their own faith while listening to her songs. She says, “I want to write music and create spaces that encourage people to see themselves in my stories and hopefully get to know themselves a little more. Because how can you truly know God, if you don’t even know yourself?”
Shellee makes her living touring and playing venues, churches, house concerts and community event centers. She also teaches workshops on journaling and creativity for women and teenage girls. She has a passion to give people a voice by helping them find their unique creative process within their own personal Spirituality. She founded Circle Sessions in 2014 and teaches both private and group sessions on personal growth and healing through writing and various forms of creative exploration.
Shellee’s Comment on Bright Idea
“I wrote ‘Bright Idea’ when I was feeling extremely frustrated about finances and bills. Early in my marriage, I came home one day to the electricity being shut off because we didn’t have enough to pay for it. I was sitting on the floor of my kitchen looking at the bill with a little light bulb on it and thought “I just need one bright idea to figure out how to pay this bill”. I have no recollection of how we actually paid the bill, but I remember going into my room in the 100 degree Texas summer with no air conditioner and writing this song with in about 15 min (which is rare). It just sort of wrote itself.
Sometimes words come in a song from past experiences, but sometimes they come as gift and lessons that you have yet to learn or will continue to learn. The words that stuck out to me most in this song were “living and loving and growing and knowing I’ll never get it right”. I remember writing those and feeling such relief that I gave myself permission to not have to get it right!
We strive and strive and want all of these perfect things in life, (including our relationship with God), but really in the end, it’s often about the mistakes and inability to be perfect that bring us closer into the presence of God. It’s the little things in between the bright ideas that grow us into who we are longing to be. And somehow that brings me comfort and allows me to bask in the beauty of my humanity and allow the Spirit to bring the bright ideas at just the perfect time when I’m ready.”
To book Shellee for a concert or workshop, contact shelleeinfo@gmail.com. Shellee’s New Album ‘The Knowing’ will be released November 15th.
