Tag: Music

Christmas Means Love

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This website is about pathways to God. Perhaps the straightest way is the way of love. And that brings me to Joan Osborne. One of my favorite Christmas songs is her singing “Christmas Means Love”.

She sings about the birth of Christ bringing us the message of love. She affirms that Christmas should be a time to share joy and love with our neighbors. The love message of Christmas can compel us to help one another.

Then in the middle of the song, she has a talking part. There she speaks of her desire for one thing–to spend Christmas with the one she loves.

I believe that in our experiences of love with one another whether it is familial love or romantic love or compassionate love we are traveling the way of God. Along this way, every experience may brush up against the glory of the God of Love.

May your Christmas be filled with deepest and sweetest love. Now let’s listen to a bluesy Joan Osborne.

 

Silence and the Way of Taize

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A few years ago, the University of Virginia conducted an experiment. Each participant was given a mild electric shock. They all said that they didn’t like it and would pay money never to experience it again.  Then each of them were put into rooms alone for up to 15 minutes with all distractions, e.g. cellphones, music access, reading material, removed. They did have a shock button. Within those 15 minutes, 66% of the males pushed the button and 25% of the females! I will let you wonder what that might say in terms of spirituality and gender. My point is that many people in the modern world seem allergic of silence. Silence, however, is important in all spiritual traditions.

I don’t remember when I first became aware of the Taize form of worship, but I have been a fan for many years. True confession though: I have never been to the French town of Taize where Brother Roger and his small band of Protestant brothers formed a religious community after World War II.

Taize worship emphasizes Scripture reading, silence, and simple choruses. Brother Roger was not a fan of long sermons! Many of the choruses come from passages of Scripture, mostly of the Gospels or the Psalms. Brother Roger emphasized singing a simple chorus multiple times in order for the song to move from the lips to the heart.

Apart from the music, the service revolves around Scripture reading and silence. The silence is, for many, an opportunity to meditate on the reading or perhaps to pray as the reading has moved you.

I have only found one church in Birmingham that has an occasional Taize service. The music was wonderful and the Scripture readings were meaningful. However, the periods of silence were hardly long enough to get settled. Perhaps they knew their congregation might have started looking for some shock buttons!

I encourage you, if you are not already familiar with Taize, to find some of its music and listen to it. It can be easily found on the Web and, if you are an oldie like me, you can buy some music cds. (I own ten!) Perhaps listening to and singing some of these choruses will put you in the mood to spend a few minutes of silence alone with your God.

Here is an example with Bless the Lord.  Sing along with it–let the words move from your lips to your heart.

Feeling the Spirit

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I recently attended a concert with my wife Pat and our daughter Kari. It may have been my favorite concert of all time. It was Amos Lee and an amazing six piece, multi-talented band. The extended version of Lee’s songs allowed the different musicians to highlight their skills. Amos Lee, himself, was engaging. His singing was moving. My daughter compared him to Otis Redding. I think perhaps a male version of Norah Jones. Though I swear on one song he was channeling a clear-voiced Bob Dylan!

Spirit by Amos Lee

The song that moved me most is entitled Spirit off the cd by the same name. He explained that the song was written in New Orleans. (It begins on Royal Street in the French Quarter.) The repeated chorus is “I just wanna feel the spirit washin’ over me.” The ‘spirit’ in the song is the spirit of singing and music.

I too am a music lover. I know what it means for the spirit to wash over me as I listen to Amos Lee and many others. Music is powerful. Augustine is credited with saying, “To sing is to pray twice.” Of course, he was talking about singing the Psalms with mouth and heart. But all kinds of music, whether strictly religious or not, is powerful to move us.

The spirit of music can move our spirits. And whenever that move generates love, peace or joy, the Spirit of God is also in the mix.

[A reminder: if you like my posts, please repost on your own pages. That way my readership may increase. Thanks.]

Worth Reading Again

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The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J R R Tolkien and Silence by Shusaku Endo have something in common. They are fiction books I have read at least twice. As much as I like to read, to read something more than once indicates serious engagement.

animaatjes-lord-of-the-rings-73676I read the Tolkien fantasy for the first time in the late 60s. I was in my late teens or early twenties. As I finished the last page of the final book, something was playing on my radio. I have no idea what it might have been, but for at least the next 20 years after that day, whenever I would hear a certain chord progression in a song, I was immediately transported back to Middle Earth. What was it about that book that so insinuated it into my psyche? Perhaps it was the heroism of the little faithful hobbits, who, against all odds brought down the seemingly all-powerful evil that threatened to conquer all that lay before it.

Silence is the other work of fiction that I have read more than once.  silence-by-endo

I first read it perhaps 10 years ago. I read it again just recently in anticipation of seeing the film adaptation by Martin Scorsese. Having been a missionary in Asia for 20 years, the book reminded me of the struggles many Christians–both foreign and national–have endured in order to bear witness to Jesus Christ. The heroism of the book is mixed. And there are many other issues worthy of deep meditation. It is a powerful and disturbing book.

Both books deal with what is worth suffering and dying for. Or, in the case of Sebastian Rodriguez, what is worth suffering and living for.

I would love to hear from others about fiction books you just had to read more than once.

Hallelujah

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Leonard Cohen passed away in 2016 at the age of 82. He was perhaps the greatest Canadian songwriter ever. And he might rank among the all time greats of any nationality.

His songs are infused with sexuality and spirituality. This only seems weird to those who have never fully appreciated the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon).

His most famous song is the ubiquitous Hallelujah. It has been performed live by hundreds of artists and many more have posted videos on YouTube. It has been sung at funerals, weddings, in worship services (both Jewish and Christian), and in special events like the opening of the winter Olympics in Canada in 2010.

What I find interesting is that most of the performers do not use some of the original lyrics that Cohen himself sang on the album that introduced the song: Various Positions. After Cohen put out this album, he continued to write more stanzas for the song. It was some of these that replaced some of the lyrics of the original. It is this later version(s) that became popular in renditions by John Cale and Jeff Buckley.

It is the original last stanza that is almost universally omitted in part because the later performers only knew the versions made popular by Cale and Buckley. But it is that last stanza which makes a case that while there are many different kinds of hallelujah, it is the final one, sung in humility and confidence, that is the most important.

I did my best; it wasn’t much. / I couldn’t feel, so I learned to touch. /  I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you. / And even though it all went wrong, / I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / with nothing on my lips but Hallelujah!