The longevity of Dolly Parton’s career relies both on her music and her personality. She has written countless beloved songs, but she also draws people to her with her warmth and genuineness. She said she has always been a highly positive person, a quality that has a great deal to do with her faith and spirituality.
Dolly Parton said she is a highly positive person
Parton grew up in a religious household, an upbringing that shaped her into the person she is today. Still, she said that many of the positive qualities faith instills in people were innate in her.
“People are teachin’ positive thinking and the magic of believing, but somebody had to feel and know that sort of thing naturally in order to start the program,” she said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “I just happen to be one of those people born with that gift of believing, of having all the faith in the world. A lot of it comes from my religious background, but it’s really just my true nature to be a positive person. I have no negative sides. I’ve read those books about havin’ a positive attitude, but they just told me things I already believed. In fact, readin’ ’em was just like I was sayin’ it myself.”
She said her faith in herself has been unshakable since childhood.
“You have to have a child’s faith, pure, innocent faith,” she explained. “I believe a thing will happen. I see no reason why it cannot. The Bible doesn’t say some things are possible. It says all things are possible. And when I read that years ago, out of a child’s faith at the time, I’m sure, I just thought, ‘Well, I can have whatever I want, and I can do whatever I need to do.’”
She has always felt a sense of direction in her life
Parton explained that her faith has guided her throughout her life. There is something in her that seems to know the right steps to take and she has always trusted it.
“I’m a dreamer, but I’m a doer, too. All of my life, there has been this strange thing about me. A thing that I can feel; it’s almost as if it’s something within me that says, ‘Do this and that,’” she said. “The part of my career that looks like plannin’ is the part that’s already planned out for me. It’s just like it’s there. I don’t try to outstep or outdo it; I wait until I feel it.”
It is not an instinct that she had to hone; rather, it has existed in her since she was a child. She views it as a God-given blessing.
“It’s not an actual voice, or an actual thing that I can see. But even as a very small, young child, I knew when I should walk in a room. I knew when I should exit,” she said. “I knew when I should be somewhere when I was wanted; I knew when I was not. I knew the right things to say and do to get out. See, I don’t know what it is. That’s why I say it’s a God-given thing.”
Dolly Parton said she didn’t consider herself a Christian despite her faith
While Parton has an unflappable faith in God, she said that she didn’t necessarily consider herself a Christian. She grew up in a Christian home, but she came to view herself in a different light.
“I know that the Bible says you must believe and be baptized — and I do believe in God and I have been baptized — but I don’t consider myself a Christian,” she said. “I would like to think that I have a Christian outlook on life as far as the way I treat people. I feel like that one wrong thing you do to somebody else is a sin. But for me to say that I am a good Christian, I would have to be devotin’ the same kind of time to God and givin’ him all my efforts the way that I am with this business.”
She said this stance on religion upset some people around her, but she felt it was as truthful as she could get.
“I don’t tell nobody that I’m a Christian,” she explained. “In fact, a lot of people condemn me for sayin’ this. They say, ‘Well, I wouldn’t go around tellin’ people I’m not a Christian.’ I say, ‘Well, I’m not a hypocrite. If anything, I’m just a sinner.’”
In later years, Parton explained that she grew to see herself as more spiritual than religious.
