Music is an amazing, soulful, living thing… I write this after some hours of reflection about my own experiences in recent days and the way music ministers to my own heart and soul.
Wayfarers & Company were at the Perkasie Patchwork Coffeehouse Saturday night and a man came up to me after thanking us for our “testimony”, then went on to tell me how his wife was a shepherd. He related that she just felt the pulling of God as she searched for meaningful ministry in her own life and that led her to be a shepherd. He was moved to tell this to us by the music (Shepherd’s Wife’s Waltz). I find myself in awe how a tune can inspire sharing like that. But it re-grounds me in the truth that everything has purpose.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege to play for a Mennonite group, Ripple of the Lehigh Valley. In sharing music with them I found myself bonding with the folks in that group and in the discussion that followed I saw how the music stimulated a creative conversation about developing relationship with others in sharing their faith.
Playing at the Oasis Café last week, Wayfarers played for a group of about 15… and the immediate connection to those folks was tangible! One couple just dropped by out of curiosity and stayed because they were “compelled by the music.” We made an immediate connection.
I realize these are feeble attempts to describe something that is very profound to me. Music transcends daily life and at the same time roots me to it. Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the music division of the Boston Conservatory spoke to an incoming freshman class and said, “Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. …Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we cannot with our minds.” I would also add that it enables us to connect with things in the universe that we cannot access except for the access that music provides. At least for me this is true. I guess that’s why I enjoy listening, singing and playing so much.