Lord of the Dance

The writer and speaker Kurt Vonnegut memorably said: “If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: ‘Music was the only proof he needed of the existence of God’”. Spike Milligan said of music that “It’s natural, we can’t help but do it.” Not everyone would claim to be musical, but for me music is, if not an essential to faith and worship, very very important, and a precious gift for us to use.

Listening to the birdsong in the early morning - the dawn chorus is at its very best just now - I’m reminded that we’re surrounded by music; it’s a fact of nature. I’ve met very few folk who aren’t turned on by birdsong, and it features in many a classical composition, such as Beethoven’s great Pastoral Symphony, Vaughan Williams’ haunting ‘The Lark Ascending’,  Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ - plus many more besides. What would spring be without birdsong?

What about the human origins of music? Some classical musicians might well regard birdsong as a higher form of music than the drums and bongos of popular human culture, but the beginnings of human music have more to do with rhythm and beat than with clever melody or complex harmony. Back then, music wouldn’t have been something merely performed and listened to, it was there to be moved to, to be danced to. And those rhythms were already inside us.

Rhythm is vital to us living beings; if my heart were to stop beating or if I no longer remembered to breathe in and out, I’d be in deep trouble. The earliest forms of music began with the rhythms that are already within us, and those we see, hear and feel around us. Music speaks of us, and it speaks to us; that we can enjoy music and make music is surely part of what it means to say that we’re “made in the image of God.” To make music is a fundamental creative impulse. Back in the days of Moody and Sankey, their mission campaigns required and used music to lift hearts, to inspire, to call. As my fridge magnet reminds me, music continues to speak where words fail.

So please don’t think of music as a sideline or an optional extra in our Christian life and worship. For me, it’s a fundamental. The better we do music, the better we do everything, I think. So I thank God for the gift of music and song, and for those - Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons, Handel; Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, John Newton; Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Bell, Stuart Townend (to name a very few out of thousands) - who in Christian song conspire to lift us, challenge us, enthuse us, enable our praise. The more we value music, and the better we learn to use it well, the more effective we’ll be in the mission to which we’re called. I’ve heard God’s creation described as “The Great Dance”, and I enjoy Sidney Carter’s great folk-song hymn that describes Jesus as “the Lord of the Dance”; maybe we should dance a bit more in mission and service, both metaphorically and literally! Music may not be the only way to express and share our faith, but it certainly works for me!