Music

​By now you know that I’m a life-long lover of rock music—even worked in the radio or music business for 20 years. It’s never very far away. There’s almost always a song playing in my head. It’s a gift and a curse. I live to my own little soundtrack.
 
Maybe you do too, sometimes. Songs can take us right back to our times and places, to the people we love—to the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly too. 
 
Songs and real rock stars used to speak truth to power. They used to speak into our culture, into our lives, and into our issues holding a mirror up to us. They helped us see ourselves. And music flows out of us in all ways if we’re just listening.
 
Listen to the voices. Listen to the stories. Listen for the tension between fear and courage. Listen to the music of the stories, even as you may hear them in a justice or political key.
 
While I was away on vacation, Dave Loth preached on the story of Esther. Go read the book—it won’t take long. It’s in the Old Testament. Open any Bible right at the middle and chances are pretty good you’ll land in the Psalms (a songbook of music). Flip backwards a few pages beyond Job and you will find the story of Ester.
 
Listen to her music. It’s the story of a young, orphaned woman who finds her voice. Ester speaks truth to power in a place and time where women had virtually nothing. No standing. No cred. Nothing. She saves an entire nation! And the holiday of Purim is to keep her memory alive. To keep her music alive. 
 
I’ve been watching this docu-drama on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I’ve been reading about her, listening to podcasts with her, and watching other documentaries on shaming. Her life was nearly destroyed by it. 
 
I’m listening to her music. Her story is amazing and fascinating and heartbreaking. She has overcome. She has found her footing. She has found her voice. And she’s making music.
 
She’s another voice in the chorus of today’s women in #MeToo, #TimesUp, #EnoughisEnough. They’re hearing a drumbeat—a rhythm of freedom and empowerment to share their song, to share their pain, to keep time together. There’s safety in numbers. There’s power in numbers. There’s power in the music.
 
It’s a heartbreaking song.
Listen to the music.
 
I read a poem some time ago in Richard Rohr’s devotional (Google is your friend here) in a piece that wasn’t really to do with this. But I hear it in my head. I keep hearing its music.
 
In Exodus, Moses asks God “Who shall I tell the people who sent me? What’s your name?” God’s answer: “I AM WHO I AM…you shall say, I AM has sent me.” 
The great I AM.
 
So, this poem is inspired by this power of God in us—the I AM in each one of us. The I AM that gives us our music.

I am
a hole in a flute
that the Christ’s breath moves through--
listen to this
music.*

​This poem sings to me in a major key in the midst of so many—too many—heartbreaking songs that make me angry. But it’s empowering, it’s emboldening, it’s encouraging. 
 
Listen for the beat in the tension between fear and courage. 
Listen to the music.
Be the music.
 
Grace and Peace,
Scott
 
*Daniel Ladinsky, inspired by Hafiz, “The Christ’s Breath,” Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (Penguin Compass: 2002)