Advent Hope Part Three

 

I pray that yesterday naming and listening to music that fills you with hope made your soul sing out with a joyful shout.  One of the reasons why I believe music is such a powerful part of this sacred season is two-fold:

 

1.     There is something powerful and profound about singing together.  We take that first breath together.  We blend and bring our voices together.  It was so difficult last year leading a Christmas Eve service without your singing filling the sanctuary.  I know this year, singing Silent Night drenched in candlelight will fill my heart with hope.

2.     Singing is at the heart of this sacred season.  We are preparing for the birth of God – in the flesh.  God of breath, bone, blood, love, life, and laughter of Jesus Christ.  God with us and for us.  We call God coming to us in Jesus the “incarnation” which means in the body/flesh.  Singing is incarnational too.  You feel the reverberations of the melody and how the rhythm of your heart is caught up in the time signature of the piece.

 

Yet, no matter how familiar the piece of music is, the moment we start to sing is always the first time.  I love the beautiful irony of this.  Every singing of Silent Night is both familiar and always new and different ~ because we are new and different.  Our bodies embrace the melody always afresh and anew. 

 

The poet/prophetess Alice Parker says it better:

 

"The song does not exist until it is sung, or recreated, by a human voice. Every incarnation is different, and no one sound is the only right one. This is a paradox. A page of music seems to present a finished product, yet it contains no sound. (Hold it up to your ear: can you hear it?) The song doesn't live until it comes off the page and resumes its natural state as sound. The page can no more substitute for living sound than a recipe can for edible food."

 

So, now, go sing your favorite carol as you light your candle of “hope” and see how this prayer practice and posture causes hope to leap and stir and sit within you.

 

How does singing help hope to come to life in new ways for you today? 

 

As always, I welcome your comments and our connection together as companions on this Advent journey this year.