Cybercolumn for 2/23 by Berry D. Simpson: Listen to the music_22304

Posted: 2/19/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
Listen to the music

By Berry D. Simpson

One morning, I was camped in a back booth of my favorite local fast-food joint, and wrote in my journal as the overhead music played “Happy Man” by Chicago—a 30-year-old favorite of mine. It was wonderful. I could literally feel my heartbeat change to match the rhythm of the song as I sat and listened and settled in. It was a pleasant sensation.

“Merely by chance/Very unsuspecting/You caught my heart/Unprotecting me/Now I’ve fallen in love with you.”

And, in fact, just a couple of days before that, I was in a favorite Tex-Mex joint (all my stories begin at restaurants) when they played a Spanish-language version of “Happy Man.” It was unmistakable, regardless of the language. All I had to hear was the opening bass line, and I was a happy man.

I was intrigued about how the music affected me physically. It settled my heart rate, slowed my spirit and quieted the ever-present buzz of thought in my brain. Nothing abstract about it.

Having said that, I realize that someone might sit next to me and not be aware that my heartbeat, even the vibrating frequency of the molecules in my brain, just changed due to a piece of music. They might not even think I was listening unless they saw me smile.

But someone sitting next to Cyndi could not possibly miss the impact of music on her. If she hears a song she likes, she’ll dance in her chair. Sometimes that isn’t enough, so she has to jump up and let the music move her whole body.

Now that I’ve lived with her for almost 25 years, I’ve learned that her responses to music are spontaneous and uncontrollable (after all, no one would react that way by choice). I think the music bypasses the part of her brain that calls for discretion and decorum and goes straight to the part that tells her to get up and move.

Either way, we are both blessed as music lovers.

A long time ago, when we first started teaching adult Bible study classes at First Baptist Church in Midland, our group director was a guy who had absolutely no connection with music. He wanted the class to sing praise songs because he’d observed that most people seemed to enjoy singing, but to him it sounded like we were all speaking Esperanto. He actually told me: “I guess everyone else likes music, but I’ve never cared one way or the other. It’s all noise to me.”

He was a good man with many redeeming qualities, but I’m glad my heart and my ears were different from his. I’m glad God gave me ears tuned to hear music.

And I loved to praise God through music. I’m fortunate to play trombone in my church orchestra, and it is a joy. There have been times when the emotion of a particular piece of music caused me to rise up in my chair, a physical response in the category of Cyndi’s (even if greatly subdued), and I often find it hard to keep playing because of the tears in my eyes.

And when I read back through my journals, I’m reminded how many deep spiritual encounters with God happened because I was ambushed by some song. I was tricked by the music. It’s happened over and over and should no longer surprise me. But it does.

There is a scene from the “Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair,” when the children were told by Aslan to search for a particular clue that would point them on their journey. Yet in their haste and self-pity, struggling to find their way across a series of deep vertical trenches, they missed the clue. Later on, they had a chance to see those same trenches from an elevated position and discovered they were actually the words “under me” carved into the rocky ground. Finally, understanding the clue they had missed, they re-entered the trenches and found the path Aslan had prepared for them.

Music often is the elevation in my life that gives me a better view of the clues God has left for me. I hear a lyric, or I am moved by a melody, and the message of God becomes very clear. The path he has prepared opens up.

I recently read a question in my daily devotional: “Have you noticed that any significant event in Scripture seemingly encourages someone or something to break into song?” God’s call to praise permeates the whole of scripture.

Even C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite writers (a man who did not care for group worship and never appreciated music personally), asked, “Could it be that the music completes the love and serves as the delight of the relationship itself?”

Berry Simpson, a Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland.