thanks #23

It seems as if my relationship to music is different to that of most people. I enjoy music, I occasionally go to a concert or put a CD on but music never really occupied a high place in my life. I don't relate to family songs or to a tumultuous adolescence made bearable by a particular musician or group. I understand the importance of having a song which is "our song" but have never been privileged to have one.
The music of the church, though, has been a constant in my life. I have sung the same hymns week after week, year after year (some more than others).
I was about eight when my mother declared me old enough to sing with the rest of the congregation and I have sung ever since. First, because it was expected, later because it was less boring than standing mute.
Over many repetitions the songs became important to me because of their beautiful music, because they were part of my history and of my heritage, because they had a comforting familiarity.
A couple of years ago I was finding life harder than ever before and I started to sing hymns to myself. The regulated breathing, the familiarity of the music and the words would calm me in, I suppose, much the same way as a lullaby and it was at that time that I started to truly understand the value of sacred music. It was then that I saw it in it's true divinity.
After singing many, many songs many, many times they had burned their way into my whole being, the addition of melody and rhythm had allowed simple spiritual truths to become part of me. I didn't have to actively remember or think about these things, I just needed to hum or sing and the truth I needed to hear would come to me. Only today I was thinking about a friend in need and the words "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" drifted into my mind.
There is so much to give thanks for in this idea. I am grateful for the writers, whose dedication allowed me to have this gift. I am grateful too, for the musicians who accompany congregations, whose music carries the truth into hearts and minds and I am grateful to the preachers who carefully choose music to reinforce and enhance their words, so that long after their sermons are forgotten their message lives on.