Sunday, December 28, 2008

And David Danced Before the Lord...

I'm a musical person. I can't sing on key, I've forgotten how to play the only instrument I ever learned. I come from a family of people who sing and play like they breathe. The gene skipped me. But I am musical in the sense that I love music. I always have music on, somehow. And at work, when there is no music? I hear it in my head, in the rhythm of the people around me.

I belive that music is one of the purest, original forms of worship. It's transcendent, something so beyond just the physical bodies we use, the instruments we create. The angels themselves sing in worship of God, so why shouldn't we? I sing in the Mass, but softly, so as not to bother the poor people standing within earshot.

2 Samuel 6:5 - Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, horns, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.

2 Samuel 6:14-16: And David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouting and the sound of the trumpet. Then it happened as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

Why did Michal despise David for his exuberant, joyous worship of his Lord? She thought it was undignified, beneath him as King. But God, clearly, accepted this worship. The Psalms were meant to be sung, chanted. We've been praising God in music since the beginning, so why stop now? Music is a gift from God, both the ability to create it, and the appreciation of it.

Some links:

Gregorian Chant - Salve Regina on YouTube. There's about a million others linked off of that one, and well, who doesn't love Gregorian Chants?

TransSiberian Orchestra's (and Metallica apparently) instrumental version of Carol of the Bells. Less traditional, more rocky, but I love the Carol of the Bells in all its forms!

Celtic Woman's more traditional version Carol of the Bells. There's an instrumental version out there done just with bells, but I can't find it on YouTube, and I'm still not home, with access to my personal collection.

Rufus Wainwright's Hallelujah - not a religious song, per se, but I love it anyway. It moves me.

4 comments:

  1. I just added Here I Am Lord on my playlist to my blog. I too LOVE singing (I'm a wanna be singer,,lol)I love praising our Lord, and there are times while I'm cooking in the kitchen, some praise music playing in the background, and I stop and end up just bawling into a dish towel, overcome with His amazing love, His forgiveness, and just because of Who He is!!

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  2. Oh, I love that one too. There's so many though, it's impossible to list every song that I love. :)

    I'm not a showy emotional person by nature, it's the German, I tell you. But there have been songs, moments, that bring me to tears. As a matter of fact, I got a bit teary eyed when we sang the Ave Maria at Midnight Mass. It's the first time I've sung it in congregation...

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  3. I'm Italian..LOL..yepper, totally emotional!! I force myself alot of times NOT to cry,lol. I too got very teary eyed at Christmas Eve Mass with the Choir music, and I kept looking at Jesus in the manager, than I would look at the stations of the cross, and the one that was beside me was the one where he was taken off the cross and was being held..oh my,,emotional!!I sit at the back of the pew usually, so I BELT out the singing, (pretending I'm in the choir at the front,lol).

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  4. Heh, Italian, well, that explains it. ;) It's funny, I talk with my hands, to the point where I've accidentally smacked passing people unintentionally, and none of the family can figure out where I picked that up. It's not something anyone else does...

    And see, it takes a lot to get me going, so when I find a song that does it? I grip it like grim death. It's why 'Hallelujah' is on that list, and 'Carol of the Bells'. I have severe emotional connections to both of those songs, and I love them for it!

    I kept glancing, while I was waiting for Mass to begin, from the infant Jesus to the corpus behind Him. It sort of gave me chills...

    *grin* Well, seeing as how you're in the back, you have to raise your voice so the members of the choir know you're there to back 'em up.

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