Music of our Hearts

Waves move in patterns. Patterns move in rhythms. A human being is just that, energy, waves, patterns, rhythms. Nothing more. Nothing less. A dance. —Gabrielle Roth

If you hold your Bible close to your ear, you can actually hear a sacred soundtrack pouring forth.

Miriam picks up a tambourine on the other side of the Red Sea and breaks into sacred song and dance about our liberating love of God.

Joshua leads a marching band around the outskirts of Jericho with trumpets blaring and blasting to cause the walls to come a tumbling down.

David played what we think was a lyre and it would soothe the troubled soul of Saul.

Mary pregnant with the possibility of being the God-bearer lets loose with a solo worthy of any singing competition on television today sending shivers and goosebumps down our arms.

Our Bible is less some history book and more of a Broadway musical.  There are sound vibration that resonate and reverberate from every book of the Bible.  And those hymns invite us into the holy.  This is true not only of the Hebrew Hymnal we call the Psalms, but also other places in the pages of Scriptures.

Have you ever been in a group where people sing in a serious and somber way?  There is no spirit...the walls of our hearts do not tumble down - might even be bored.  How about when someone is pouring out energy and every note seems to come from the soul?  Now I am leaning forward in my chair...listening to the story being told note by beautiful note.

What if, the poetry and hymns of the church are continually being created because God isn’t finished with us yet?  What if, God is really a conductor and composure of life?

That would make this moment right now part of the melody.  Maybe right now (since you are staring at a screen) the sound of the symphony called, "Your life" would be muted or quiet.  Or maybe you are in such agreement with what I am writing that you are shouting, "Hallelujah!"

I can only hope you are not in a coffee shop where everyone is looking at you now.  But if you are, hey, you do you.

Which leads me to the question, what song is on repeat in your mind and heart and body right now?  What do you hum or sing to yourself?

Part of the power of music is that it is incarnational - it is embodied in its best sense.  Music enters in through our ears...but doesn't stay there.  Good music (however you define that) is what moves our whole lives.  Why to you think people tap a toe or sway or close their eyes when music is happening around us?  Because something is happening IN us.

So, go play that song that is saving your soul right now.  Feel free to blare and blast it...

Again...unless you are at the coffee shop, I'd wait until you are alone or with someone who doesn't mind that you are singing along.

And I'll share one that offers more than a trace of grace right now for me.