How Can I Keep From Singing?!?

What is the most significant element of worship for you? What is the one thing that, if it was not in the worship service, would make worship lose significant meaning? Pause for a moment and identify the right answer for you before you continue reading. 

The essential elements of worship are the opportunity to confess where we fall short, to hear the word read and proclaimed, to give thanks for God's abundance, and to seek guidance and help. We then respond in service by taking in those elements and using what we have learned to spread God's love in thought, word, and deed. That is worship service. Around that basic framework are: the prayers we say, the little rituals of standing and sitting, giving over our offerings to be brought forward, greeting one another with the peace of Christ, singing, and much more. We each have our favorite element of the worship that speaks to our individual soul, whether it is the sweeping tones of the organ, or the quite pauses when the world is silent; the sound of many voices rising in song or prayer, the simple sound of one person speaking, or meditating on the candle flame as it dances and shifts. 

Have you identified what your essential worship practice is?

I know what mine is, and it is one shared by generations of my family as well - the ability to raise my voice with many others in song. I can certainly have a full worship experience by song alone. Singing and music touch primal parts of our souls that words have difficulty reaching. Secular or sacred, voices joined together for a common purpose of making beautiful, joyful sounds stirs a visceral emotional response that I have difficulty expressing with words. I feel connected to the Great Universal Spirit in such a way that my entire self is part of a chord perfectly plucked. When all else stops, music goes on. 

Little wonder that music is such a deep and abiding part of my faith life - my grandfather was a minister of music, I have many courtesy uncles, and an aunt, who are all ministers of music, and I would often analyze use of music in worship with my mom and sister especially when we were choosing pieces to share during summer services. All this experience taught me from an early age theology behind church music and how through the medium of singing we will process lessons that our ears have difficulty hearing. Through music, the heart learns what the ear cannot know. 

I am certain that you have all heard the news recommending that there be no singing until we have an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Recommendation puts me in mind of a favorite story from my childhood from a cassette tape of Sweet Honey In the Rock: Alunde/Story of Ono. The story is about a peaceful, prosperous city. They had been gifted a special song, and as long as the people knew the song and sung it, there would be peace in the land. I share a link to the story on YouTube that you may hear it for yourself. 

I love you all
Stay Safe and Healthy
Wash Your Hands
Peace be with you
~Rev. Andrea Joy Holroyd