I wrote this piece a few years back, while out in the village in Mali, but it seemed like something appropriate for this new year as Ive been meditating on Psalm 84.
I decided to listen to music this morning while busy with some mundane tasks. As much as I love music – being a musician myself who plays, sings, and occasionally writes – I don’t have a playlist always rolling in the background while I work, do house chores or drive in the car. I like silence too, and it doesn’t always need to be filled. Sometimes intermittent birdsong and wind are enough, or when I’m in Africa, cows lowing and chickens clucking. Actually, sometimes I wish the chickens would just stop.
But this morning I listened to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. It’s been a while, and I’d forgotten just how spectacular, how beautiful and complex this masterwork really is. I cranked up the volume to better appreciate the soft, beguiling melodies and didn’t bother to turn it down to soften the thunderous crescendos, during which the entire orchestra seems to be surging with some kind of high-voltage power. As I am someone who often leads worship in churches, you may be wondering why I wasn’t listening to worship music as I worked. Why some classical mumbo-jumbo? Am I that unspiritual? Am I being a music snob? After all, there’s a lot of fresh, inspiring material out there in the worshipping community (as well as a lot of banal, formulaic pop drivel). And of course, there are all those classic hymns that have instructed, comforted and encouraged believers for generations. What’s wrong with those?
Nothing is wrong with them, and there is a lot right with them. I can sing my lungs out, vamp on the keys, and repeat the same two lines based on the same four chords with a worshiping congregation, and be overwhelmed with joy and gratitude as we celebrate God’s goodness and love. However – for me this has to do with theology – I believe music is one of those God-given creative drives that reflect His image in Man, so I can’t believe it needs to be limited to three or four basic chords repeated over and over and over again, in various iterations. And the truth is, whether it’s old hymns, country music, pop, or contemporary worship, that’s what you get. There’s a legitimate reason for it: hymns and worship songs need to be simple (which doesn’t mean they can’t be deep and beautiful, too) so we can all sing along and have a corporate experience. It’s hard to do that with music that is overly complex.
When I go to the symphony, on the other hand, I’m not trying to sing along (and no one would appreciate it in that context, believe me!). I’m taking in, marveling, and being moved by something amazing and beautiful and artfully woven together – and that too is worship as I fill my lungs and then exhale deep sighs of thankfulness and appreciation at what someone has created, because they were fashioned for this by THE Creator. I like a wide variety of music: Jazz, classical, folk, some rock, meditative Malian music played on the kora (a many-stringed instrument which is Africa’s answer to the harp), and sunny Congolese music whose rhythms urge you to forget your cares – just get up and dance! By the way, dancing, like singing or making music, or laughing or crying, is just in us as those made in God’s image, animated by His breath – unless social constraint, or religion or some other nonsense has hammered it out of you. If you know the story of King David bringing the Ark of God’s covenant into Jerusalem, you’ll remember he danced so hard and with such abandon he had a wardrobe malfunction. His wife Michal, daughter of Saul the former king (who was all about respectability and appearance management) hated it and tried to shame him into being dignified. David would have none of it. He basically said, “It was worship, it was to the Lord, and you’d better watch out, because I’m not worried about how I look and I might be even more wild next time!). Okay, I digressed a little bit there, but it’s not totally irrelevant to my point – which I am getting to…
We humans are terribly prone to getting ourselves into ruts in most any aspect of life, and one doesn’t just ‘fall into a rut’ as if it was accidental. We dig them for ourselves through our resistance to change and our automatic suspicion of new things – things, that is, outside the realm of our experience. Whether it’s music outside the scope of our usual playlist, or people outside of our usual clique, or reading outside of our preferred genre, or earnest discussion with someone who thinks differently than we do, or food that is unfamiliar, we are inclined to stick doggedly to the limited number of things we know as opposed to venturing into things we have never heard, or tasted, or learned, or done before. We love the comfort of the familiar. Our lives (as well as our church gatherings) end up being reduced to a repetitive strumming on the same three chords, figuratively speaking. To clarify, I am not referring to the repetition of life-giving disciplines and daily habits that keep us on the path, like prayer, meditation and the study of God’s word. Nor am I talking about contentment with the simple necessities of life. Contentment with simplicity, when it comes to material things and creature comforts, actually sets us free to experience the complexity of real life with less distraction and greater appreciation. Many modern-day ruts, on the other hand, are lined with shiny electronics, reclining armchairs and the most chic decor.
Ruts are usually comfortable. The problem is that if you’re in a rut, you are no longer on the Path … or if you’re still on it, you’ve stopped moving forward. There is a reason the Scriptures talk so much about the path of life, a reason the newly-alive believers in the book of Acts referred to their life in Jesus as the Way… We are pilgrims on a journey towards a destination: the new heavens and the new earth, and God is even now in the process of making all things new. The Creator is still creating, and we’ve been invited into that infinitely diverse, divine activity. Staying in a rut hinders our participation in what God is doing. The pilgrim – one who keeps forging ahead, embracing the present rather than always looking back and longing for the good old days – will know the privilege of experiencing God’s presence, hearing His voice, and seeing His hand in places he has never been before, in ways he has never known before. His heart, his perspective, his very ability to create and to bless others will be enlarged. He will have a new song! As we continue the journey, our life ‘playlist’ must change and expand and become more diverse, as we learn to receive more and to share more of the many-faceted grace of God.
To wrap up, I need to return to the Scheherazade, that musical work that sparked these reflections. One of the things I love about this piece is that it is not elevator music – that soothing, unremarkable background noise that is meant to lull people into a mindless calm. That’s fine for elevators, and the dentist’s office too, where you desperately hope to be lulled into a mindless (and painless) calm, but it makes a terrible soundtrack for life. Rimsky-Korsakov’s masterwork, on the other hand, might woo you and draw you in with its exotic sounding melodies, but if you start to drift, it will also shock you awake with trumpets sounding an alarm and with cymbals crashing. It is telling a story, and the music demands one’s full attention. Our individual lives and our faith communities also have songs to sing and a story to tell, and it shouldn’t sound like elevator music. It shouldn’t be homogenous and unremarkable. It should be coming out of us with such honesty, diversity and creativity – in all the stages of our journey and even in the most unexpected places – that it will be impossible to ignore, so that all those with ears to hear will be compelled to listen.
Know This Love 