In the past week I have spent a lot of time reading about the life of Sinead O’Connor. I’ve read the tribute posts, I’ve watched the interviews, and I’ve lost count of how many times I have now listened to “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

I am ashamed to say I wasn’t familiar with her voice, both on or off the stage, prior to her death.

In a way I am grateful for that. Had I listened to her even five years ago, my constricted, goodness-obsessed Evangelical heart and mind would have cast judgment on a woman who I, along with so many others, now believe was in fact a prophet.

Most of the tributes I read noted how Sinead tore up a picture of the Pope in a live performance on SNL, “the air went out of the room” was the claim made by those there that night. Sinead prophetically spoke out about the systemic cover ups made by the Catholic Church regarding child sexual abuse and it was a significant milestone in her career; catapulting her into controversial and polarizing waters. People hated her for what she did that night: speaking truth to power always seems to garner that kind of response.

When I watched that performance, I realized immediately that Sinead was a woman who knew her root system. She was Catholic, born and raised. And I knew, as someone also deeply healed and harmed by the institution of the “C”hurch, that this woman, this prophet, knew exactly what she was doing when she tore up that picture of the Pope, challenging all those watching to fight the real “enemy.”

What was interesting about so many of the tributes made to Sinead is everyone was quick to call out this badass, prophetic act on SNL, but, there is a second act to this part of her story that hasn’t gotten as much coverage. Sinead, a few years later, was ordained a priest. Off the record of course, because the institution of the Church still deemed women unfit for ordination (as is still the case in many denominations but that’s neither here nor there). My point in naming this is Sinead was one of those wise souls that could hold paradox. She hated the systemic evils embedded in the Church, yet she refused to give up on it. She held tightly to the beauty and healing power of orthodoxy, of tradition, of the best parts of what the Church still tries to offer to this world today.

Few people can do that. It is much easier, especially these days, to rail against the Church. “Cancel” the church, it’s failures, it’s misgivings, its constant blurred associative lines with power and systemic injustices. Rare do you see someone who can look at all the evils, clear-eyed, unafraid of critique, while also offering to serve it with a heart that remains wide fucking open, in order to keep trying to love it. Help it. And midwife it into something more beautiful, pure, and true.

Sinead was indeed both prophet and priest. A critic and a lover. A constant seeker of the Divine, following those wild breaths of the Spirit wherever they blew. And thanks be to God, she took us with her on that ride.

If you want to see what a lived embodiment of the incarnation of the Spirit of God is, watch her live performance of Nothing Compares 2 U. It is incredible. She brings church to the people in that performance.

Artists, often far better than preachers or theologians, show us what it means to hold the fire of God, of Spirit, in one’s body. Artists embody what it means to become that metaphorical burning bush that is set totally and miraculously ablaze. Sinead offered her whole self to her audience, to her performance, to this world. She let us see her burn. It was her sacramental offering, her declaration of: This is my body, broken for you, watch this, and know it is God.

I read one article from a Jesuit priest who spoke about how in seminary he stumbled upon Sinead’s album called “Theology.” It is a whole work of art dedicated to the book of the Prophets in the Bible. This academically trained, male theologian, said it was this album of Sinead’s that taught him what it meant to actually pray. Her voice, her echoes of the Prophets’ lament, wrecked him to his core. Because of Sinead, he got “it” in a way he never did from his professors or fellow priests.

This is what real prayer or an encounter with the living God does to us. It breaks open our hearts from the here and the now to that which is beyond. And Sinead was that kind of bridge, that kind of breaker; she was an occupier of “thin spaces” as my Anglican, Charismatic self might name it. She was our guide between the worlds of visible and invisible. She showed us what it means to be totally set ablaze.

And there was a cost.

I have my own critiques of Sinead’s life. As do many others. Lots of folks saying she struggled with her own inner demons and lots of other folks saying it was the demons of the industry, of the empires that ultimately broke her. Sinead was a survivor of abuse, she’d buried a child, she knew loss and pain and trauma all too well. On the good days, my guess is it was this pain that fueled the power of her voice and on the bad days, the combination of this pain with her prophetic fire, was likely too much to bear at times.

I have been around the church, charismatic leaders, and creative fire long enough to know few people talk about the muscular skeleture that is required to hold actual fire. You want the alchemical heat of eros; the kind of passionate voice of the prophets, or the creative genius of artists? Then you better damn well learn how to hold that kind of energy or it will kill you. Literally or figuratively. It takes years of intense discipline learning how to wield this kind of creative power so that you do not go setting everything you touch ablaze.

Most of the prophets in the Bible did in fact walk a line of insanity. They went around setting everything on fire. But I think there’s an important shift that happens in the New Testament. Mary, Jesus’ own mother lives into a new kind of example. So does Jesus and Mary Magdalene. All three of these people offered their lives in service to God; they became living vessels to carry that holy fire. They burned, but they did not burn out of control. Both Marys had a steadfastness in them that I think was developed over years of surrender, sifting, sorting, failing and returning. They were set ablaze but always knew how to come home to themselves. Jesus, too. I think it was his carpenter nature, his ability to be extremely patient with time, details, and precision that developed a kind of interior strength that allowed him to hold holy fire in a very human body.

Sinead converted to Islam in the last chapter of her life. She said when she read the Quran for the first time, she knew she was home. And I think she was. I think it was this steadfastness in Sinead, the years of holding that holy fire, failing, and returning, that kept her open to following the curiosities of the Spirit of God inside her, trusting that no matter where this path might take her, it always lead her home. Few preachers, theologians, faith leaders or dare I say “Christians” in general, know how to do this kind of faith-filled following.

Sinead did.

Imperfectly…but so damn faithfully.

Rest in peace and power, dear Sister. Your faithful, fiery, and steadfast spirit lives on.