Thank You For The Music

For those of you who know my mom, there's no surprise in what I'm about to impart. For those of you that are not fortunate to know her, let me just tell you one of the ways she has taught me without ever having to say a thing.

As a kid, I sat in a moment of tension when we'd stand to sing a hymn during the worship service. Not because I was worried about sounding well, or hitting the notes, but because more often than not I'd look over at my mom in the pew and I'd see her crying.

It wasn't every week, or the same pew, or even the same steady flow of tears that she'd seemed to master in times she was meant to be quiet. But it was often enough that I took notice. As the eldest daughter, I was heavily invested in the emotional temperature of my family, especially my mom. So when she'd start sniffling and her eyes turned glassy, I would stare at the hymnal like it had betrayed me by being the reason my mom was upset

I didn't understand it well enough as a child. I was often more embarrassed by the emotion because in my mind, church was a place where you worshipped God, and I wasn't about to make it all about me by getting worked up. I lived by the routine of the bulletin and what it told me: stand up, sit down, repeat the creed, pray the prayer. That felt easy and attainable. But when I saw my mom undone by a song in public, I didn't have the words or experience to understand what was happening when the music of a hymn landed on her soul with the gentleness of a butterfly, but the emotional impact of a hurricane.

I didn't know either the extent to which my mom and my dad struggled in their own ways with grief or longing or gratitude as we all sat in a line straight down the wooden backed pew. I just knew I didn't want it happening to me.

It took me longer than I'd like to admit for me to become comfortable in my own emotions to let it become a public expression. But every time I saw her tear up and pull a tissue from her purse or my dad pulled out a cloth hankie to offer her like a lifeline as the tune swam around us, I struggled to keep my own composure locked down tight. I worked my face to keep it still, neutral. I told myself to admire the choir, the melody, the understanding that the words I was attempting to sing were written by saints through the ages, just trying to make sense of God's greatness.

Whatever moved me during a hymn, I filed it away before I would let it reach my eyes. I thought that was being mature. That I had my feelings under control and was setting an example for my sisters on how to behave in church.

Once I started college, I remember hearing a gospel choir that came to perform for us at the BSU (BCM at Arkansas State) and I sat in those padded chairs and couldn't not feel my entire body respond to what I was hearing. It was like a gust of wind that passed over my skin and left the little goosebumps that a good song always pulled from me, but instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed, I felt free.

One of my friends at the time leaned over to me and whispered, "I think this is what heaven will sound like." And I didn't disagree. The more I grew in my faith, the more I sought to make sense of that feeling. It took years of me challenging my own perceptions about the reason why we gather to worship before I finally realized that my emotions weren't a hindrance to worship, but almost like a realness-seeking missile aiming right towards the heart of it.

As I grew older, I became more understanding of my mother's tears as an adult and what a gift it was to let the emotions land where they bubbled up. Because when it comes to what we carry in our hearts, our tears don’t just ease the pain. They let others know we are hurting. They let others know that we don't go through this life unscathed and it is necessary and right to share in the hurts of others, like Christ shared in both the joys and sorrows even as one who had been there from the very beginning.

When I became a mother though?

The shift was seismic.

Motherhood is a messy, beautiful thing. The sleep deprivation, the anxieties about caring for this helpless little person you made, and the wonder and terror of loving a child so much that it shatters your defenses — all of that led me to drop the filing system entirely. I started leaning into the music and let the song do what it was gonna do. And I was gonna let my face show it from now on.

Which is how I ended up leaning towards my mom and asked her for a tissue in church last Sunday. The hymn was "He Will Hold Me Fast." The first time I had heard the song was in the context of Rachael's passing. It was one of those hymns that had been penned ages ago by Ada R. Habershon, who was a song lyricist who had many hymns already under her belt by 1906. The hymn fell out of fashion, but had a resurgence in recent years when other stanzas were added and it was covered by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

I had heard it as a hymn of comfort, but because it was so linked to that time, I felt my eyes get watery, I felt my voice fade out into a silent mouthing of words and I had to grip the pew back in front of me a bit tighter. It wasn't just the whole song that wrecked me, but the fact that all I could think about was my dearest friend being held safe against a rushing flood of trouble and sorrow in this life, even when it took her away from those who loved her.

Each line struck past whatever mask I tried to wear and suddenly I was overwhelmed myself. I was thinking about Rachael. (And these days, just like the others before–she never strayed far from my mind.)

I remember specifically one day, sitting on her couch with a Diet Coke (obviously) and talking about the creation of the world and the things in it that made it beautiful. She told me that she believed God sang creation into being. I had heard the literary analogies of Aslan singing Narnia into creation and I know she did, too. So the idea was already fully formed in my understanding of how I saw God. But hearing it from Rachael, who had a voice that was truly a gift to all who heard her, I knew that we both saw the world beginning with a melody before a command, something God breathed out with his might; the first song ever with rhythm and joy behind it.

I believed her and understood her instantly when she said that. And while the idea wasn't new to me, the way Rachael said it so emphatically and without a doubt made me feel like hearing the truth that finally reached my ears.

Job, in the midst of his trials and suffering and unfairness, heard God speak to him about just how little he and all humankind know about the nature of God — where He was when the earth was founded, who set its measurements, who laid its cornerstone. And then, right in the middle of that litany of things Job could never have witnessed, God tells him what the moment actually sounded like: the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. To hear the recap told by the person who experienced it? Job for all his suffering, had to have felt some kind of special to have the Creator of all tell him what it was like firsthand.

Rachael would have loved that she wasn't the first one to feel the very same. I think she'd have found comfort in it, just the way I did when I heard her say it to me on her couch while our kiddos went bonkers in the other room.

The hymn undid me on Sunday because if God sang the world into being, then singing was never just decoration for our worship services or the icing on top of our faith that makes us feel good. It's us participating in the same act as our creator. Every hymn is a small echo of that first song, I believe. And when we sing, whether it's with genuine talent (like Rachael) or badly, off-key, and half paying attention (like me), it's not performing devotion to an uncaring or uninterested God. It feels like answering a call that's been reverberating around the universe before there were any ears to hear it.

When I see my mom's tears, I don't see her performing. I see her answering that call. It wasn't falling apart like I foolishly thought, but her answer back. One of joy and gratitude and hope.

He will hold me fast. He sang the world into being. He's still singing out and calling us back to remember the start of things, and every time we open our mouths in a pew, eking out the sound, cracked voice, wet eyes and all, we're just saying: "I hear you."

ABBA said it better than I ever could — that there's something about a song and a melody that we simply can't live without, that we owe a debt of thanks for the way music carries us. I think Rachael would agree. I think my mom already knows and has been waiting for me to catch up for some time. Per usual.