Music Speaking to the Soul
“Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”
Music and religion have empowered each other since prehistoric times. Religions evolved, looking fundamentally different from one another, yet almost all continued to incorporate music into their expressions of faith. Jan Swafford, in Language of the Spirit, confirms, “The oldest instruments found from the cave days are flutes made from mammoth ivory and bird bones, over forty thousand years old.” “Earlier bones with drilled holes that may be flutes date back over eighty thousand years; their makers were Neanderthals.” Swafford continues, “Singers ushered the dead into the afterlife, their lyrics sometimes written on the tomb.” Music speaks to the heart of religious expression.
When I contemplate the ways music speaks to the soul, I think of the melody. Whether one is listening to a children’s song or a complex piece of Classical music, the melody holds the musical selection together, keeping it from sliding into nonsensical noise. In religion, there is a melody of truths that convey meaning that holds faith together. When the melody is ignored or isn’t recognizable, the religious expression turns to mush, and people go off on bizarre tangents that do not reflect what they claim to profess. For Jesus, the melody was the Great Commandment, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” Hold the melody of your faith close to your heart.
Music is not created in a vacuum. Each measure and each verse is created to flow in harmony around and through the melody. Each measure builds on the one before and inspires the next. The composer lives with the notes. Each measure is questioned, other options considered, and heard. The denied options are not necessarily worse or wrong; rather, the chosen line feels “right” and speaks to the composer’s soul. The composer trusts that if the new stanza speaks to their soul, it will inspire others. Composing music is rarely easy, and it shouldn’t involve shortcuts. Instead, it often requires listening, reflecting, and reviewing the creation.
At some point, after completing the musical selection, the composer must let it go, call it complete, and offer it to the world. The piece will never be perfect, but since it inspired the composer, its imperfections can still inspire others. We are God’s creation. The composer created us, who took time to listen, question, and review every aspect of you and me until God was ready to offer us to the world. Our task, as God’s creation, is to follow the divine melody and continue God’s composition, making new music on a similar theme of grace, peace, justice, and love. When we live God’s melody, we add to the composition, making it ever richer and more inspiring. Value the music you make in God’s name and know that you are singing out in every loving action to take.
