Posted by Dave on 10/01/06 at 08:50:12 am
Categories: Music Ravings, Sunday Worship

I have been reading A Song to Sing, A Life to Live, by Don and Emily Saliers. Emily is part of the Indigo Girls, while Don is a worship pastor, theologian, and professor. The books takes a look at music as a spiritual practice, and it is a pretty powerful look at the extreme impact that music has on our lives, our actions, and our souls.

But this quote especially stood out to me this week from Emily:

I have felt the intensity of sacred music not only in the hallowed halls of church but also in the smoky bars of Atlanta, where "freaky people" (as musician Michael Franti says) gather night after night to sing together, prop each other up through tragedy and joy, and cry an implicit prayer with their hearts.

Is this not so true?

Too often we place too strong of an emphasis on a church building or a church service. The sacred occurs no matter where we are - it maybe occur at church, but that does not mean that it does not happen at a bar, or at an Indigo Girls concert, or while you are listening to U2 on your iPod. The power of music cannot be ignored. But even more so, the sacred power that music has on each of us cannot be silenced.

So often I hear a song and it moves me closer to God. Not in some cheesy "wrap your arms around me" way, but in a powerful creative way that only a great song can create. The balance of the melody with the rhythm section, the harmonies that blend, and the lyrics that pierce into your heart. This is why each week I have been sharing a song that means something to me. A song that has power, a song that pierces through the pain, the sadness, or maybe even the false happiness that one may feel.

On that note, here is a new song from the Indigo Girls - Pendulum Swinger:

I meet you for coffee
We get together periodically
I got a bad case I can't shake off of me
The fevered walking round wondering how it ought to be
You work in the system
You see possibilities and your glistening
Eyes show the hell you're gonna give 'em
When they back off the mic for once and give it to a woman

I dream like a mad one
Brutal fantasies I catch as catch can
I'm a psychic and a laywoman
I see love and I like to make it happen
What we get from your war walk
Ticker of the nation breaking down like a bad clock
I want the pendulum to swing again
So that all your mighty mandate was just spitting in the wind

It doesn't come by the bullwhip
It's not persuaded with your hands on your hips
Not the company of gunslingers
The epicenter love is the pendulum swinger
She is she is she is

It's fine about the old scroll Sanskrit
Gnostic gospels the da vinci code a smash hit
Aren't we dying just to read it and relate
Too hard just to go by a blind faith
But they left out the sisters
Praying to a father god so long I really missed her
The goddess of benevolence
You should listen to your mama if you have a lick of sense left

Pushed under by the main press, buried under a code of dress
Relegated by the Vatican
But you can't keep a spirit down that wants to get up again

If we're a drop in the bucket
With just enough science to keep from saying fuck it
Until the last drop of sun burns its sweet light
Plenty revolutions left until we get this thing right

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