What Song Is In Your Heart?
“There’s within my heart a melody, Jesus whispers sweet and low,
Fear not I am with thee; peace be still, in of life’s ebb & flow…
Jesus…keeps me singing as I go. ”
Hard to find times when some tune is not playing in my head – oldies, hymns, current hits, classics, show tunes, country, commercials, even little ditties that seem my creation. So-called ‘ear worms’ – pesky tunes we can’t get out of our heads – not my problem. Though may be your problem if hanging out with or riding in the car with me.
Earliest music memories: my mother teaching me “Jesus Loves Me”, breaking into “Good Morning To You” and “Where Have You Been Billy Boy?” as I padded out of bed. As a preschooler I endlessly replayed “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window” on the little record player my Aunt Myra Jean gave me. In church between grandparents, that thing about faith caught before taught: “Holy, Holy, Holy”, “Blessed Assurance”, “There’s Within My Heart a Melody” and only God knows how many more.
Boy Grows Up: high school with early Beatles and Supremes, puppylove with the Lettermen. True love at the Beachboys concert with Dianne, “Wouldn’t It Be Great If Were Married”. I knew then…she a bit later.
Ministerial Life: In the late 70’s, an early effort at a preaching based on pop music, Bee Gees, “Saturday Night Fever”. Somewhere there’s a yellowing sermon “Staying Alive”. Since late 80’s, early 90’s, current “Hamilton” is great; “Les Mis” is close; but for me nothing compares to “Phantom of the Opera”. “Wishing Somehow You Were Here Again” has made several appearances in All Saints sermons …is often sung in the car with an inner cranial slide show of an increasing number of faces.
In my Birmingham-Southern introductory music class with Professor Raymond Anderson, there was no digital music player, maybe a reel-to-reel tape on occasion, but mostly Dr. Anderson dropped the needle on the 33 RPM albums…even a few times on an ancient, heavy whirling 78.
We learned about ‘motto themes’ in great pieces of music. A simple phrase tune is stated, all sorts of variations and departures, and then returns having built for a growing, stronger impact. Many of us know the power of Beethoven’s 5th…bum-bum-bum…bah! Often recalled with pictures of Winston Churchill’s V for victory sign. The motto theme of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony has stuck with me: bom…bom-bom…bom-bom-bom.... Better. Listen to it.
Such motto themes can express finding what is dependable and consistent in the melee of life. For many, it’s like being found by the abiding presence of God, even when for a while God seems more absent than present.
Two-years in German prison cells, hung just days before Allied Liberation, theologian-pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote what has become a collection of cherished letters, poems, and reflections about his life and faith to family and friends. As many of you know, the otherwise pacifist but fierce faithed pastor was a part of an unsuccessful plot to depose Hitler.
Bonhoeffer wrote honestly about his times of loneliness, fear, and doubt. Yet woven through his writings are his abiding and authentic faith in the God of Jesus, who gives us courage for living for others now, trusting God for the eternity thing. He uses a term associated with 13th century Gregorian Chants…‘cantus firmus’…Latin for a strong/ stable/recurring song or melody in a multi-tuned piece.
“God wants us to love him eternally with our whole hearts – not in a way to weaken or injure our earthly love – but to provide a kind of ‘cantus firmus’ to which the other melodies of life provide the counter point.”
For him, this means to lean into all the tunes, experiences, joys, loves, tastes, touches of life. But at the heart of it all, we remember the ‘cantus firmus’ of God’s love holding us together when we would otherwise fall apart.
Maybe Dietrich had such in mind, as “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” For me, the ‘cantus firmus’, motto theme, melody in my heart is the Doxology …
'Praise God from whom all blessings flow’
What are the songs of your heart and life? I’d like to know.