Soul Medicine

I love music. Music is one of those things that can capture time, and place the moment in a sort of freeze frame capsule. Years later, with the song or the sound, the memory floats back. This morning I was listening to, and thinking of some of the songs that have frozen time in my mind. One such memory brought me back to a night were I was cuddling with Danelle and looking into the mezmorizing brightness of a fire. Danelle has a beautiful voice and she was softly singing a song by Ginny Owens that says, “I don't want to be a flame, I want to be a raging fire. Tired of my will my way, your calling's higher.” In the slide-show of my mind I like it when that song plays because that memory is one of my favorites.

Sadly not all time capsules are as joyful. In my senior year of high school, when I still felt invincible, one of my friends died in a car crash. My feeling of invincibility was shattered on the spot. Some of my best friends were casket bearers, thinking of them walking down that isle, baring the casket, trying to be strong and hold back the tears, still makes me cry to this day. The song that brings that memory back is, “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me. It is a hopeful song but my memory associated with it replays that moment in my mind.

Many of the greatest songs have been written during the most disparaging of circumstances. The story behind the inspiration of the songs, “It is Well with My Soul” and “Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus” are examples of this. “It is Well with My Soul” is often played at funerals and the words have a profound ability to bring peace and hope to those who are suffering the intense loss of a loved one. Though the music eventually stops, the hope found in the lyrics continues on like effective medicine.

I enjoy musing about music and reflecting upon the memories that connect my life to it. This morning the music offered me an escape from the perpetual “Cockadoodle-doo” of the roosters. Their cocky flamboyance is unwelcome background noise here, but I am sure that upon returning to America, the rooster call will turn into a pleasant reminder of our time in Kemantian.

Another thing that will bring our memory back to these mountains is a song called, “There is a Redeemer.” Even before I understood the words the melody moved me, and the way the Palawono's sing it is powerful. Music is a language that I enjoy communicating in, and listening to. Words by themselves can be meaningful. But when melody is added it becomes music, and a language that can be translated into medicine for the soul.