鈥淢usic gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.鈥澛� Plato
Have you ever thought about what makes a hit song?聽 How some songs just connect with a lot of people. How somewhere in the music or lyrics a connection is made deep within not just a few people, but a lot of people. Some songs take a while to become a hit whereas others become one overnight. Some songs last forever while others are only popular for a short time. In all of them there is a connection that touches people and moves them.
鈥淢usic can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.鈥澛� Leonard Bernstein
Is there a connection between what we experience in music and our spirituality? Are there times when there are experiences that make a connection deep within us? Music reflects our joy or sadness, our pain and our healing. It reflects the full gamut of our emotional life. We use music in worship to move us to a place deep within and without, to give us an experience of the divine. When have you been moved or lifted to a new reality by a song or a piece of music? When have you made a connection to another person through a piece of music?
Music has both a positive and a negative component, like everything in life. A piece of music can bring people into situations of love or romance. Likewise a piece of music can rally a people to war or acts of violence. Nationalistic fervor flows through songs and anthems. Romance and love shape, deepen and touch the heart of lovers, poets and composers.
鈥淭his will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.鈥澛� Leonard Bernstein
Is it possible for music to reach deep within us as humans and bring us to discover our humanity? In his book , Steven Galloway tells the story of how one day a sniper had Vedran Smailovic, a local cellist, in his sights but did not not fire because he was listening to the music as well, and was moved by his heroism.
The connection of music deep within each of us is something quite profound. It touches something eternal that no other experience can: something deep inside us that takes us back to our primeval roots; a connection from our past that still connects us today as human beings.
On BBC TV there used to be a program called Top of the Pops. It played the charts each week counting down the top ten to number one. I was always amazed that along with the popular groups that had hits the list could also include anything from Opera to Bagpipes. It was the songs that touched the nation at any given time. That program reflected how a piece of music could across age, culture and religion, proving that music can draw and touch us all.
鈥淢usic is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.鈥澛犅�
As Dean of Columbia and rector of Christ Church Cathedral, Logan McMenamie fulfils roles in both the parish (the congregation) and the diocese (the wider Anglican community spanning Vancouver Island).
You can read more posts from our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking
