{"id":2957,"date":"2014-03-07T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/?p=2957"},"modified":"2014-03-07T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T00:11:00","slug":"when-we-cant-sing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/2014\/03\/when-we-cant-sing\/","title":{"rendered":"When We Can’t Sing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fotor0307160823\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Karen Lichlyter-Klein<\/em><\/p>\n

I love music. I grew up as a musician and continue to sing as much as I can, though it is harder and harder to find places to do so. My mother is a composer, and she immersed all of us in music from an early age- piano, guitar, harp, violin, flute, voice lessons, choirs, ensembles, casts in musicals- she pressed music into us\u2026 hard.<\/p>\n

My church growing up loved music too. At least hymns. This was back when they had Sunday night worship as well as Sunday morning. So after a whole morning at church, we would have a few hours to finish homework and eat soup for dinner before heading back to church. I usually did not like going to the Sunday evening service, except once a month they would have a hymn sing instead of a sermon. This I liked. We would get to call out our favorite hymns and I would always try to pick \u201cWonderful Grace of Jesus\u201d because I liked to hit the high notes: \u201cOh magnify the pre-cious name of Jeeee-sus, PRAAAAISE (usually a high G) his naaaame!\u201d It was great fun for me, and it meant not having to listen to someone talk for 30 minutes. (Little did I know God would end up calling me to be\u00a0one of those people who preaches now. He\u2019s got a weird sense of humor.)<\/p>\n

Inevitably, for a young girl, the hymn sings would lose their glamour. And as I became a pre-teen, I would find myself bored by singing in church. That\u2019s when my mother intervened. On a rare day when she wasn\u2019t eyeing us with a stern look from the choir loft as we four children sat alone wiggling our way through the church service, she stood next to me as we sang that Sunday morning. I always loved listening to my mother sing. From as young as I can remember her voice mesmerized me. Some of my favorite memories are of lying in bed with the lights out, drifting to sleep to the sound of her voice and the piano as she wrote another piece of music.<\/p>\n

Normally, as a pre-teen girl, I would rather be dead than sitting next to my mother in worship, but if it meant hearing her alto voice on the harmony and trying with all my might to match her tone with my soprano, I was willing to make a sacrifice of my ego for that hour. But despite my love of her voice, I was going through a hymns-are-boring-and-I-hate-them-with-the-fires-of-a-thousand-hells phase. (Did I mention pre-teen girls are quite dramatic at times?) I complained to her as I dragged my body to stand up, \u201cThese hymns are so boring!\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother turned and looked at me, and rather than\u00a0the expected scolding, she said, \u201cThat\u2019s ok. Sometimes they are. Maybe that\u2019s the time you start listening to the words. You don\u2019t have to sing, just listen to the words.\u201d So I did. And it transformed my worship experience. I found myself wondering what \u201cwert\u201d was in Holy, Holy, Holy. I had to look up the meaning of \u201chere I raise an Ebenezer, daily by thy help I\u2019m come.\u201d I worked hard to translate the strange grammar and words and rhyme to understand what the hymns were saying. Without knowing it, my mother had turned me into a theologian at a young age.<\/p>\n

This appreciation for hymns then expanded into other forms of sacred worship. Eventually, I went on to seminary and studied under professors who also saw the theology of music and worship, and who helped me articulate the narrative of God\u2019s work in songs. Those same professors gave me tools to use as a pastor to evaluate music in all its various forms in order to understand what I was causing others to sing- to profess or confess in song- and how to, as a pastor, offer music responsibly to my congregation.<\/p>\n

And music continued to be a healing to my soul. God spoke to me in lyrics. He still does. I find my spirit singing a song that I didn\u2019t think of\u2026 it just floods up from somewhere without notice or warning, and I usually know it\u2019s the Holy Spirit\u2019s voice speaking something to me, driving me back to the theology of whatever song I am singing\u2026 and from there to the scripture from which that theology is born. Singing was a way of breathing for me. A way of understanding and interpreting the world. Various songs, hymns, and spiritual songs marked my pathway through life.<\/p>\n

Until the day came when I couldn\u2019t sing.<\/p>\n

Back in the darkest time of my life- those 18 months of loss- after so many traumas and griefs and stresses and fears, I found one day that I couldn\u2019t sing. The music in worship was either too disconnected from my experience- it\u2019s incredibly difficult to sing a celebration song when lamenting- or it was too raw and personal to sing. I felt like I had already given up my child, my health, my future\u2026 the last thing I wanted to sing was about giving myself even more to a God I wasn\u2019t too sure about. The words mattered too much to me to sing them blithely. I knew that God would hear what I said in those words, and I wasn\u2019t sure I wanted that sort of responsibility.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I couldn\u2019t sing because singing could open a place deep inside- a place that usually stays locked, that place where we are most vulnerable and most moved. Some Sundays as I participated in worship waiting for my time to preach, I knew that if I opened my mouth to sing what would come out would be loud sobs that would cripple my ability to do what I was called to do that day.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I couldn\u2019t sing because I was so angry\u2026 so incredibly angry at a God who at the same time seemed so deeply present and shockingly absent.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I couldn\u2019t sing because grief has no song\u2026 deep grief that is. That sort of grief has only the agonizing silence that requires a Spirit to speak on our behalf\u2026 and the Bible says that even that Spirit groans with no words of his own.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t sing. This piece of me, this piece so central to my engagement with God, was gone too. Another loss.<\/p>\n

And in the silence of that loss, I learned something. I learned that while there may be many reasons we as a Christian community sing, one reason is often overlooked. That overlooked reason is this: we sing as a community because there will always be someone who can\u2019t sing and must borrow our songs until he or she finds a voice again. When I couldn\u2019t sing, I knew my people could. I knew that \u00a0this person could vocalize the faith we shared when I had nothing to share. I knew that that person could sing the words I dared not say because I knew I would not mean them, but he could. I knew that my friend would be scouring the theology of every song on my behalf. And I knew the worship leader would be attentive to the pain of others in the way he chose songs.<\/p>\n

When I couldn\u2019t sing, my community could. And that mattered. A lot. Because they let me lean onto their faith for those few moments week after week. My voice couldn\u2019t support the weight I carried at the time. But collectively theirs could.<\/p>\n

There are many reasons why I despise worship wars and worship critics. But this is one of the main reasons for me. \u00a0When we are so focused on what we don\u2019t like about worship (and in this instance I mean music, though worship is far from just music), we forget that we may be singing\u00a0for<\/em>\u00a0the person who can\u2019t sing at that moment. In their pain, that person may\u00a0need<\/em>\u00a0you to sing that song- the one that is so incredibly painful, too painful for them to articulate. When others are too racked with loss to do so, the community steps in as if to say, \u201cWe know you are struggling\u2026 so you can borrow our faith for the moment and we will speak what you cannot speak yet.\u201d If we make music in worship about ourselves, who do we fail to care for in those sacred moments? Who do we overlook? Who leaves our communities feeling more burdened down because another worship experience stole from them the chance to lighten their load even for a just a few moments?<\/p>\n

Eventually, my song returned. I don\u2019t experience music in worship the same way I did before. Indeed, I don\u2019t experience much the same as I did before! But I sing. I sing the songs of my people. I sing the songs that are difficult. I sing the songs that call me to greater responsibility, and I sing the songs that someone else might need to hear. I also pray for worship that creates spaces for people who, like me, just need the silence, the moment, the space to grieve, along with the community that will lift their burden for a short time\u2026 all the while singing God\u2019s grace over them when they require it most.<\/p>\n

\"pk-headshot\"<\/p>\n

Karen Lichlyter-Klein\u00a0is a pastor, mother, wife, aspiring writer, leadership coach, sister, daughter, gardener, musician, worship planner, house cleaner, cook, friend, colleague, theologian, and preacher. She has served churches in Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado, and many pastors and leadership teams in transition or in need of growth and development. She is\u00a0Ordained to Word and Sacrament in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has an M.Div. from North Park Theological Seminary. She blogs at<\/em> Ordinary Sacred<\/a>. This post was originally published in September 2013 and is republished with the permission of the author.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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