Out of the Silence, Song
Nov 9th, 2008 by Liz Bennefeld
Listening to the music at 12th Gate, last night, and then going on to listen to more spirituals and some music from Louis Armstrong (I played french horn, cornet and trumpet in various school and community bands, and have always loved brass instruments in jazz, even more than tenor sax), I was reminded again of how much I used to like composing music. Nothing fancy, but song lyrics for worship and some songs with my own melodies. One of them, “Share the Gift,” taken pretty much from the Gospel of John, has been a joy to me ever since I wrote it, back in 1991. I find myself singing it a lot.
As I worshiped, this morning, the fourth verse kept coming to mind. It starts out, “I’m leaving you a gift: peace of heart and of mind.” It is sometimes difficult to stay grounded in that peace, because I am sensitive, perhaps too much so, to antagonism and argumentation. I lean more toward the “Come now and let us reason together” environment. [I think that maybe I also have a compulsion to try to end the bickering, but I cannot, and it drags on me and I cannot let it go.]
I have been called out. I have been given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and specifically, the gifts that Jesus promised: faith, hope, love, joy, and peace of heart and mind that is not fragile like the world’s peace, which rests on a different basis. Learning to persevere in that peace is not easy.
My ego–my natural self–wants to make everything in the world better–to make the world perfect. But what has the Holy Spirit called me to do? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.
And to make a joyful noise to the Lord.
To that purpose, here is another of my favorites, “Swing Down, Chariot,” in blues style:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xniKAv7GmvQ]
And another performed by the same fellow, “Soon One Mornin’,” which is new to me:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQdDLj6znvA]
Liz -
thanks for sharing these two videos - I enjoyed them immensely. there was something soothing about them (which I needed this afternoon, with a cranky and tired 3 year old!)
peace,
lorna
You’re welcome, Lorna. Sympathies on the 3-year-old. I have often suspected that I learned how to read early just because my mother wanted us kids to be able to entertain ourselves–give her some time off. We also did improv dancing to Swan Lake and the Nutcracker Suite. She had a thing for Tchaikovsky’s music.