They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. – Psalm 145:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 21, 2019): Psalm 145

Friedrich Nietzsche writes in his “Twilight of the Idols” that “without music, life would be a mistake.” I like the quote. For me, and I realize that this might not be true for everyone, music soothes the trials of life. There are few things that I enjoy more than being able to get outside and go for a walk with music playing through earbuds placed carefully in my ear. Admittedly, I listen to a lot of seventies and eighties rock; it is the language that speaks to the core of my being. I understand the words; they mean something to me.

But I also grew up in a musical family. I remember evenings when people actually gathered around the piano singing songs that meant something to them. In my family, the song was part of the process of celebrating God and everything that he had done. It was also part of the way that the message about God was passed from one generation to the next.

I am also a survivor of what has been called the “Worship Wars” in the Christians church. The term has been affectionately applied to the transitional period between the music of one generation and the next. I remember one bassist warning me not to “Gaitherize” the modern songs. I understood the comment. Music is complex, and it involves more than just the music and lyrics; it consists of the way that the song is played and transmitted to the worshippers who have gathered. Sometimes I am asked why we don’t play more country. And my reply is that “every time we try to play country, it comes out as rock. It is just the way that we know how to transmit the message.”

And I am afraid that the Worship Wars are here to stay. My sense is that ever since Bill and Gloria Gaither and their community began writing songs for the worshipping church, every generation since has attempted to make the music their own. There are some songs of the next generation that I don’t like, it is not my language, but I think that that is the way that it is supposed to be in our contemporary world.

And so I sing my songs, transmitting the message of God that I know, in the language that I know, to the next generation. But the process continues, and I don’t think that communication is successful until the next generation translates my song into their language. Every generation has to make the song its own so that they can continue to sing it, and transfer the message to those who will follow them.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 42