Sing
Along
“Music
is all around us. Listen for it. Seek it out. Know you’re welcome to join in.
Don’t worry about how well you carry a tune or whether you know all the words.
You’ve been invited to the campfire. Come. Sing along. You’ll have the time of
your life.”
Melody
Beattie (Journey to the Heart, p.147; Harper San Francisco, 1996)
I
hauled my sewing machine to the porch yesterday because it was such a beautiful
day I couldn’t bear to be inside. I had tree-cutters buzzing away with chainsaws
on one side and leaf-blowers, the constant background sound of urban
neighborhoods, across the street. But in between, I heard a man’s voice singing
a little child’s song. When I stood up and looked through the trees, I saw my
next-door neighbor swinging in a hammock and singing to his new baby boy.
My
neighbor, a tall, lanky, long-haired landscaper, is fifty years old, and this
is his first baby. To say he is smitten is a gross understatement. His song,
which was halting, produced squeals and gurgles from the baby, who is now about
five months old. For me, it was sweet music—the kind that makes you cock an ear
to listen. It wasn’t beautiful, it wasn’t melodious, but it was straight from
the heart, and that’s what the baby heard. It reminded me of singing to Missy,
my little sister who had cerebral palsy, when we were both children. My voice
was (and is) no better than my neighbor’s, but Missy loved it.
Music
is a thread that ties us directly to our souls and to the world’s soul. It is one
of the few things that sets us apart from other species on this planet. Birds
sing, and whales sing, but we humans make music. And we dance to that music. Because
music speaks not only to our soul, but to our body as well. When we enter into
a piece of music fully, it receives and encompasses all of us, not just our
ears.
Every
culture, every era, has its own genre. For my parents, that era extended from
big bands to Elvis. For my generation, of course, it was rock. And for the
younger generations, hip-hop, country, and rap are the heartbeat of their age.
As I have gotten older, the categories of music that speak to me have broadened—from
classical to world music and everything in between. I believe this is because
age, if we do our developmental work, opens our receptivity to a broader and
more diverse community. Music connects us and overcomes language
and cultural barriers. As our proximity to an afterlife draws closer, we need
that range of acceptance. Heaven, after all, expects us to come to the campfire
able to sing along.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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