Ah, Music

There’s something very life-giving about singing. Even those who think they “can’t sing” will often sing along with a favorite country tune on the radio. Shower singing is a terrific way to spend one’s time. The truth is that music lifts the spirit unlike anything else. It brings up a range of emotions from great happiness to a melancholy sorrow. Music whispers a kind of deep truth that we seldom experience. Music expresses what we cannot put into words. It breaks silence with magnificence. Aldous Huxley wrote, “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

I can remember a deeply hurtful time in my life that was so difficult my tears literally dried up. I was filled up with emotional pain, but could not shed a single tear. It was during that time that I learned the power of music. One day, I heard a particular song, the music came into my heart, overwhelmed my soul, filled me up with singing, and the tears spilled out from a place I thought was completely hardened.

It was the song of my soul, sung when every other part of me was silenced in grief. The transformation in me was almost magical, an experience I will never forget. J.K. Rowling wrote of the magic of music in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone:

Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!”