Religion in Daily Life

By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

Sunday, 9 February 2003

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

“I just really love music, and I love singing,” said Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Col. Rick Husband. These words came from a NASA official pre-flight interview. Rick spoke about how he had sung in choirs from elementary school to his college days. He sang in a barbershop quartet for several years and in community choirs. Until his death, Rick sang in the choir of Grace Community Church in Houston, Texas. Rick was one of the seven astronauts who passed on to life’s next stage when the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry on Saturday, February 1.

Singing with others requires teamwork. When Rick was asked why he loved singing, he said, “First of all, I think it gives you a feeling of teamwork with other members of the choir” (Crosswalk.com, Feb. 3, 2003). Evidently, Jesus of Nazareth felt this same sense of teamwork with his chosen companions, the twelve apostles. At the end of their dinner together on the night Jesus was later arrested, the record says: “Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives” (Mark 14:26). Earlier in that meal, Jesus had complimented his team members by saying, “You are the men who have stood by me in all that I have gone through” (Luke 22:28, Phillips).

Singing with others releases emotion. Again, reflecting on his singing, astronaut Rick Husband said, “It also gives you a feeling of almost release, in my particular case, because it’s, I’d say, very relaxing.” Nearly a thousand years before Jesus of Nazareth lived, King Saul of Israel experienced a similar release of emotions when music was played for him in times when he suffered from dark moods. The record says: “And whenever the spirit from God came over Saul, David would take a harp and play; Saul would then be soothed; it would do him good, and the evil spirit would leave him” (1 Samuel 16:23, NJB).

Singing with others intensifies feelings. Rick Husband said in his pre-flight interview, “Just being able to sing a song to tell God how much I love Him, it feels great. It really does. And I think it’s probably almost as good as exercising.” Music not only expresses feelings; it also impresses feelings on us. Both the Hebrew Paul of Tarsus and the Greek Plato recognized the power of music. Paul wrote to friends: “Speak to each other with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19, NCV). Plato said, “Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”

In honor of the astronauts, I pass on these words from a 19 year old American who was serving as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force and who died in December 1941:

“High Flight”

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew –

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.