sing

sitting outside on the porch in a deafening rain storm.  loving it.   right now, i can't hear anything but rain- no one but the sky is talking.  this weather makes it easy to be still and listen, to feel small and vulnerable and somehow irrelevant.  in a good way.

i keep thinking of that line in the sing song.
some words cannot be spoken only sung.
it's such a simple line. but it's true.

the old testament psalms, the poetry and dialogue of them, were meant to be sung in hebrew- not merely spoken- because there is more in there than words can say.   because they are speaking to God, and God is musical- bigger than words- other dimensional. music, even the sounds of this rain and thunder, are deeper and layered, and transcendent.

today in church i was reminded of this during the time of african praise.  it's my favorite time, (although i only can pick out the word mukama, God), because it's poignant and uniting and joyful in a way that words alone can't be. (yet here i write silently).

imagine someone reading the words to amazing grace.
"amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,
i once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now i see."

now imagine hearing amazing grace played only on the harmonica, or bagpipes, no words, just notes. even if there never had been any words, no history to link it with- the music alone would have spoken more than perhaps the words just written. 

music is the language of the gods- the greeks said.  i'm sure.  i think our spirits were meant to sing.  we were meant to take our limited skin and bones and dance.  sometimes i think when our spirits are freed from our bodies, we'll look back and all our years will feel like how it feels in a dream when you are trying to run but you can't move.  that is how free it will feel.

music reaches soul level.  it surpasses all culture and language and time.  it brings us to tears, to heart leaping joy, to stand in pride, to remember, to imagine, to hope, dig deep into ourselves and feel things that we couldn't without it.  music has time in it.  it flies somewhere in the fourth and fifth dimensions.  music always has been and always will be. it moves us, and it makes us move.  music brings us together- it shines on the important things and it covers the things that don't matter. at. all. it can bring light to dark places, speak into hopeless seasons and bridge divisions.

we were meant to sing.  we were meant to dance. to reach and set the spirit free and see our sameness more than our separateness. like small children who sing without reason or place, just because their heart has something to say. so lets just sing.