Soul Music

Bluegrass music is an amazing thing. Of all the music forms out there, bluegrass music is the only one that I have found that can consistently overcome a bad mood (for me). I can be contemplating the general rottenness of mankind after reading the daily news and be ready to take the place of Divine Avenger, and listen to some bluegrass music, and (for a while anyway) all is right with the world.

I am perplexed as to why this is. The lyrics to some of my favorite bluegrass songs are just plain tragic - I mean listen to Hank Williams music, drink yourself silly, and step out in front of a bus tragic - but somehow the overall effect is (to me) instead positive. This simply doesn't make sense to me. Other people would say that the twanginess of the singers ought to contribute to a general desire to leave this present life as quickly as possible, but it just doesn't work this way for me.

I have a couple of possible hypotheses as to why this is. One possibility is that there is something with the instrumentation or mode of the music that jangles the happy places in my psyche. Plato wrote about a discussion that Sophocles led regarding various modes of music. Perhaps he was on to something. This would explain why Pink Floyd's music (even some of their more upbeat, positive lyrical content) could take a good mood and throw me into a depressed tailspin. There is just something inherently joyful sounding about a mandolin and a banjo. There is something about the sound of a doghouse bass that resonates in my heart.

Another possibility is that I associate the music with a place that I love dearly - the Appalachian Mountains. (And I don't care how they say it where you come from! Around here we say it "Ap-puh-latch-an," and we are right so don't even try to convince me otherwise!) The mountains around Boone are the closest thing that I have found to Heaven on Earth and are the home to most of my fondest childhood memories. (We may be getting at something there.)

I must say, however, that there is another kind of music that really takes care of my soul. It isn't too surprising, though, that this form of music would have this effect, because the music of which I am speaking is hymns. Now, granted, I have seen people take a perfectly good hymn and kill it deader than a hammer. I'm not talking about that, but I can't tell you how many times I have taken an old hymnbook and flipped through the pages singing those songs to the Lord. I may cry. I may be encouraged. I may be strengthened. I may be emboldened. Whatever the emotional response, it is always the right one. Thank God for our hymn writers. I hope that it is a musical form that never ceases to grow and mature.

I think that it is sad that so many churches that are on fire and trying to seek God want to throw the hymns out. That is about as drastic as the destruction of some of the Christian architectural treasures during the Protestant Reformation. As I have grown older and seen different worship styles, I am beginning to discover that all of these forms can have life in them and shouldn’t be discarded as useless. I have experienced the presence of God in worship choruses, responsive reading, read prayers, hymns, liturgy, and a host of other practices throughout Christendom.

I think that a lot of people are going to be surprised when we all get to Heaven. There are going to be people there that we never expected to see, and we’ll do things that we never thought we would do. I look forward to experiencing that. How cool will it be to see the various traditions throughout the church melded together into a beautiful, unified body?! I can hardly wait!