The queen is back. Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul and known for her empowering song “Respect” recently dropped her surprise cover album that she announced on David Letterman’s late night show.  Franklin is naming the album, “Aretha Franklin Sings Songs of the Great Divas.”

The album will do just that. The album is a tribute to 10 female artists. Franklin will sing the songs of these women but with her funky twist. 

Her first single is her cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” 

Producers such as Babyface and Andre 3000 are helping Franklin with finishing touches all with Clive Davis behind the project. 

This surprise album will make for Franklin’s 39th studio album. 

This album release might come as a shock considering the recent history of the diva’s illness. This summer, Franklin canceled multiple shows and was placed on bed rest. 

But after a pep talk with Clive Davis, the artist was up in no time performing and heading to the studio. 

Aretha Franklin has been in the industry since the late 60s. 

She’s collected over 18 Grammy Awards to date. Franklin also holds an Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Grammy Legend Award, and she is one of the most honored artists in Grammy history.  

She became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Franklin has categorized in many different genres of music such as gospel, R&B, pop, jazz and opera. 

She’s opened the door for most female artists. She’s also been called many of those artists’ idol. Many of her most popular hits are now considered classics in American music.  Franklin has sold over 75 million albums worldwide.

Religion can be spoken about freely, yet we tread softly when publically mentioning it.

But, the hardest idea to grasp is that having the right to spread religious awareness is certainly not the same as pushing beliefs on others. 

While people reserve the right to practice religious freedom and to speak without restraint about any faith they choose, forcing others to listen isn’t freedom of speech; it’s harassment.  

There are over 127 major religions and seven billion people on earth with seven billion different views of God. Some love Him, some fear Him, some question His existence and some are still searching for Him.

Some will decide that God plays no role in the trials and tribulations of life, while others will find faith the moment they see their newborn child take the first breath of being. 

Whether we discover where we spiritually belong in a pew on Sunday morning or on a lonely drive with no destination, the journey to finding or forgetting God is what determines our views. We can’t be told what and who to believe in, or to even believe in anything at all.

What we learn, who we meet and the challenges we face are what we remember when we stand before Him, not the church members that knock on our front doors, or the people that stand in the quad condemning us all to hell.

And if the church goer at your front door changes your perspective, let them. Be baptized in one church, change your mind, and be baptized in another. Let what you learned in biology class make you question evolution and the powers above. 

Learning from life experiences and questioning God’s ways isn’t sin; it’s human. It’s human to change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually when physical surroundings change. It’s human to simply be curious and indecisive.

Faith only exists because there are people that believe strongly enough in it to make it a reality and a way of life. Without doubters and differences, the strength of religion would never have anything to be measured against. 

Because of that, religion without true belief is weak. 

Never practice out of habit, don’t follow just because your parents or friends do, and don’t ever think one religion is superior to another. In a time that seems to have the explanation for everything in a test tube or on a database, people believing in any God at all is a miracle in itself.