REFLECTION by Fr Kevin Bates sm SING A SONG WITH YOUR LIFE! Have you ever thought about your life as a kind of song? If you have you could probably write down some of the verses and choruses right now. If you haven’t, it might be something worth trying. Imagine your life without music. Imagine celebrations without music. Imagine a world where music has disappeared. It’s unthinkable. The human spirit shrivels and dies without a song in its heart. Aristotle, the great philosopher of Ancient Greece once noted that we cannot express our deepest selves without the use of music. Little children have something to say to us here. Just look at how babies and young children respond to music. It reaches a part of them that mere words or gestures cannot. They very quickly show a natural rhythm and dance unselfconsciously whether anyone is looking or not. Aristotle again tells us that music is found in the soul. We can take from this that “soul music” was around long before we labelled it as a particular style of contemporary music. Music that is right for us changes the chemistry of our bodies and enlivens, heals and relaxes our soul. Somewhere in song and music we taste something that other activities can never provide. Music that is right for us can become an expression of our truer less cluttered self. Such music can help us find ourselves and then enable us to share who we are with others with deeper truth. Undeniably there is music that shrivels and numbs the spirit. We experience such music often enough at restaurants, parties and sometimes in church. The “doof doof” noise that passes for music at restaurants and sometimes at weddings, with its heavy bass rhythm and total lack of melody is seemingly designed to be endured when one is drugged or drunk! Sadly this music is evocative of a culture that is losing itself and doesn’t know where to look for a new identity or a saving song. So let’s come back to the song of your own life. The verses of your heart-song can be lilting, melodic, joyful and free. There is also plenty of room in your song for verses that cry out in pain and suffering, verses that explore unanswered longheld questions, verses that seek to open up the mystery of love or the meaning of suffering and failure. However it goes, so long as your life is singing, whether in joy or anguish, there is a harmony and an accompaniment that will support your singing. “I have loved you with an everlasting love”, says God through the prophet Isaiah. Jesus comes along and adds his harmonies and deeper tones to your song and in doing so strengthens your hope that the song of your life does indeed mean something, no matter how difficult some of the verses are that you need to sing. What verse will you be singing this week as you go about your daily activities? Will you be listening out for the harmonies that Jesus brings to your song? They may be harmonies that fill you with delight and thankfulness. They may be the very sounds you need just to survive the current verse you are trying to create. They may help you settle as you head for sleep each evening, knowing that the song of your life has enlivened, comforted, blessed or nourished another heart who needed to share in your song during the day. In God’s economy nothing is wasted. Even the bum notes and scratchy harmonies find their place when the song is completed. Sing well this week and be a blessing of grace wherever the week takes you. Father Kevin
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 08:01:59 +0000
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