'Music is a language which can communicate where words fail and has a deep power to heal' |
My thought for the day is on The Healing Of Music.
For me music is an inborn part of our humanity and speaks to us in so many different ways. It is a language which can communicate where words fail and has a deep power to heal. Music has carried me through many crises in my life and has helped me through the melting pot of life's struggles. I believe that there is an innate rhythmic vitality and music deep within each human being which enables us to dance, to play and to sing together creating community and friendship which is so important in today's culture. I have found it can bring love and compassion to people who are starved of emotional outlets and, for people who are going through physical difficulties, it can bring peace and comfort. I've also been blest to have been involved with many out-reach projects taking music to people in hospices, inner-city schools, prisons, hospitals and the like. I have seen the power of the healing of music in so many different contexts which I have found so moving and encouraging. Listening to a chant can have a wonderful effect of getting off the fast track and into the slow lane. I find that the repetition of the musical phrase has a quietening effect on the mind which gradually dissolves the distractions and the worries which we all have and it seems that they are transformed into something enriching and peaceful. The repetition always reminds me of a cow chewing its cud over and over again. And this is what we do in singing or listening to a chant - it begins the longest journey in the world - that is from head to heart. Music also enables me to look below the surface of the everyday ordinary things which we are all involved in and to become aware of the deeper joys, the fears, the frailties of life, the hopes and the anxieties of our world today and to be aware of the great treasure which Jesus tells us about which is buried in the field - and this is the journey we make to this great treasure which is deep within each one of us. So the Thought for the Day is the wonderful gift that God has given to us all - the Gift of Music. |