On a recent Sunday morning, I set in church and listened to a soloist sing, “Here I am Lord.” My 14-year-old niece was sitting beside me and so I whispered to her, “This song was playing when I felt a call to ministry as a teenager.” As the song continued to play, I felt chills and emotion in my heart space. The song had hearkened me back to this sacred moment and invited me to connect to this memory and to the present moment at hand.
After hearing the song, “Here I am Lord,” it occurred to me that music once occupied a much bigger role in my life. Currently, I play or sing music at church, in yoga class, and for bedtime rituals with my kids, but I rarely listen to it as much as I did in years past. As we age, our work and family obligations, often leave less time to explore new music genres, attend concerts, or even to practice instruments or singing. I also think this new world of artificial intelligence, social media, podcasts, the internet, and other technology invites us to learn new concepts and ideas, but often minimizes how important music can be for our mental, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual health.
It is interesting how one memory can lead to another. After being struck by how important the song, “Here I Am Lord” has been in my life, this song and memory flooded me with other memories of music that had impacted my life. In my childhood and youth, I was blessed to play hand bells at church, go to my grandmother’s piano concerts, watch my cousin sing in several operas, go to many country music concerts with my dad, sing in the children’s church choir my mom taught, perform in choir concerts and musicals, take piano and guitar lessons, and attend both Christian and secular concerts with my youth group and friends.
While concerts and musicals were impactful, music touched my soul in ordinary moments as I listened to my mom harmonize with me in church, when I sang to the oldies with my dad in his car, when my best friend in high school and I belted out Lauryn Hill’s song “Killing Me Softly,” dancing and singing with my niece at the top of our lungs to “Fight Song” when she was in elementary school, and countless other memories of dancing or singing to certain songs with special people in my life.
When was the last time you thought about the importance of music? What role does music currently play in your story? Has it played a more prominent role in your life previously? Do you have a favorite memory of a concert or Broadway musical? It is hard to pick just one, isn’t it? Right now I have memories of hearing so many bands and if I listed the concerts I have attended my eclectic taste would leave you confused, but I think the concert memory that is most prominent is hearing Bono and my fellow concert attendees sing “Amazing Grace” at a U2 concert in Atlanta. This song moved me so much that I had tears in my eyes and chills all over my body.
Writing this article has provoked so many pleasurable music-filled memories. I think of various choir tours that allowed me to make a joyful noise in churches all over Brazil, at the Biltmore, and even at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In my teens, 20s and 30s, I was fortunate to sing in many musicals and perform solos at countless funerals and weddings. I loved playing Rosie in Bye Bye Birdie, “Ave Maria” was my go-to wedding song, and “How Great Thou Art” was my favorite song to sing at funerals. When I served as a minister in England for the British Methodist Church, I was forced to relearn how to play the guitar (albeit very badly), because we did not always have a pianist to play music for the service. I have had many opportunities to sing in various capacities, but I don’t pretend to be a musician. I don’t read music well, I can sing off key at times, and playing instruments does not come naturally to me. Even though I am not as musically adept as many people in my life, I feel extremely grateful for so many unique musical experience.
My husband has played the drums since he was a kid, and he recently decided he wanted to make more space for music in his life and so he recently started taking weekly drum lessons, and this has been invigorating for him. I haven’t touched a guitar in more than 15 years, and while I don’t feel compelled to take guitar lessons or sing in a choir at this stage in my life, I do want to make more space for music in my life.
Research indicates music is good for your physical health. It can regulate your blood pressure and reduce pain. In the important book, The Body Keeps The Score, Bessel Van der Kolk discusses how various types of music can also preserve your mental health and help you heal from trauma, regulate your nervous system, and reduce anxiety.
When I was a hospice chaplain, I often went to the nursing home to visit dying patients. One day, I went to visit a non-verbal client with another chaplain who was transferring the patient into my care. The patient could not speak, but she was able to nod her head to indicate a yes or no. It has been over ten years since I saw this patient and I don’t recall her diagnosis, but I do remember asking her if I could sing for her, and she nodded her head yes. When I sang for her, the other chaplain who had been following this client for many months said he was amazed at how responsive the patient was, and he told me it was the very first time he had ever seen the client smile. I called the patient’s daughter and asked her if she knew what music her mom enjoyed. The patient’s daughter told me particular hymns and musicals her mom liked and for the last 6 months of this patient’s life I would go to the nursing home and sing the music she loved to her.
In my role as a hospice chaplain, I also saw non-verbal dementia patients sing an entire song with me, even though they could no longer say their spouse’s name. Words seem to be stored in our memory, but music is stored in our body and soul.
Recently, my husband and I went to Songbirds to hear the local folk band, Call Me Spinster. The concert was amazing and we have already bought tickets to another upcoming show at Songbirds. This experience reminded me I want to be more intentional to go to music shows or musicals at the Tivoli, the Signal, the Granfalloon, Walker Theatre, The Chattanooga Theatre Center, The UTC Hayes Concert Hall, and at other great venues in this area. In addition to attending more concerts, I want to dance more to upbeat tunes with my kids, sing more during bedtime rituals, and allow the music I hear at church and yoga to penetrate my heart.
Robin Williams once said, “You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, everywhere, even the stars.” Music is inviting us to connect more deeply to your body, soul, heart, and to one another.
A version of this article was published in The Lookout Mountain Mirror.
