A Song in Your Heart

Does anyone sing anymore? Kill! Kill! Kill! Is that the only thing left? The United States is at war in Iraq as part of a process to establish world dominance. People are still dying in Afghanistan in an endless war on terror. Palestinian and Israeli children are dying in the name of creating and preserving states. Through the use of capital punishment, some who are innocent die at the hands of a legal system that is supposed to prevent that from happening. Gang members die in drive-by shootings. Little babies die at the hands of their own parents. And so it goes! Death reigns in the craziness of a civilization seemingly gone mad.

How do we react to all of this death? To keep our sanity, we sing. We sing of peace. We sing of love. We sing of life. We sing of death. Throughout the history of mankind, we have lifted our voices in song. Why do we sing? Perhaps to placate an angry god. Perhaps to tame the savage breast. Perhaps to hide a sorrowing heart. But, always to lift our spirits. It is impossible to sing for an hour, and still be depressed. I learned this from forty years of attending choir rehearsals. God has put a song in your heart and in my heart. It is up to us to give it wings that it may fly to the uttermost parts of the earth and beyond.

A delightful little poem entitled “Every One Sang" by Siegfried Sassoon speaks to this wonderful ability of mankind.