I recently read In Silence: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World by Ruth Sidransky, daughter of two deaf parents. Rarely has a book so so profoundly moved me, or so thoroughly transported me into another realm of understanding and appreciation.
What will surely remain with me forever is Ruth's account of when her parents buy a radio, so that she might receive audio stimulation in a silent home environment. Ruth describes it thus:
"I heard music for the first time. The music made me uncomfortable. I didn't feel that I should listen to music's magnificence. My parents would never hear it. I moved the dial."
Ruth's words move me to tears every time I read them. There are times we are so happy we weep, times we experience something so wonderful it hurts. There is a place in our souls so deep that it can only be reached by something of exquisite beauty and pleasure—a place so sensitive that to touch it produces pain.
It is the place where God dwells. The Creator breathed into man life in the image of God. The life-giving part of God which exists only in humans continually hungers for God. We may attempt to gratify it with pleasure, but it is satisfied by nothing less than Divinity.
God speaks to that place through all of our senses—in creation's grandeur of mountain vista or glorious sunrise, in the taste of wholesome fruit plucked from the earth, in the scent of fragrant blossom or loved one's presence, in the passion of pure love from spouse, in the sound of music that cracks open the window of heaven itself.
Music is the true language of the soul. It can be used for health or harm. It can stir men to battle courageously or languish in desperation. It can evoke pure emotions of sensual beauty or dark emotions perverse and corrupt.
When music praises God, it gives glory to Him and life to man. When it bridges the breach between heaven and earth, it touches that place in our souls where God dwells, arousing us to reach for Him and know His fleeting caress.
God rarely speaks audibly. Those who have heard Him with the ear and not just the heart testify of it in situations so obscure and so desperate that such a thing cannot be sought. When God's Spirit speaks to the heart, His gentle voice is too easily missed. If He speaks with insistence, compelling us to move in the face of fear, it is only the soul which knows His voice.
A day lies in the future when we will no longer be mostly blind and nearly deaf to the sights and sounds of heaven and heaven's God. Music is eternity's gift to us in the meantime, one of the few things we can take with us into the next world.
Feedback invited. Post to BuildingHisBody.com "Comments" or e-mail to BuildingHisBody@gmail.com. Copyright 2009, Anne Lang Bundy
God and His sweet music touch my heart.
ReplyDeleteOh, music...sweet music. :) What a wonderful post today, Anne. Thank you for your eloquent words.
ReplyDeleteSide note...
Research proves that song lyrics, when paired with melody, actually delve more deeply into our brain than almost anything else we consume with our senses and thoughts, which is why those afflicted with dementia can recall songs from 50 years ago even if they have cannot remember the names of their children.
So when we sing praise and worship songs, when we write God's message on our hearts with music, we're also embedding it deeply into our brains. No small wonder that our Glorious Creator urges us to sing His praises...a message not easily lost to us, even in our advanced age!
(PS I love it when research proves, over and over, that the Author of Life knew what He was about when He knit us together in our mothers' wombs. It seems that science and God are not incompatible after all; that to study science is simply to marvel at His creation...which of course includes sound! ;)
Gwen, I wish I understood music as you do. The research on music and the brain is amazing and wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI think it's especially neat that even people in comas respond to audio stimuli. It truly transcends the physical. I marvel indeed at the gift of sound.