I don't know if Spirituality is the right place for this post?  If not Moderators please feel free to move it.

But, I must share this, its an experience that out of the blue affected me deeply

Ever had the feeling that joy is missing from your life   not quite a state of depression or dispair, you function sort of normally, can even laugh at things, - but somthing is missing and you feel unbalanced, and don't really react or function properly.  That was me (and may still be me again, but I have an idea what 2 do now   )

I sing in a choir, am sort of good at it (it keeps me sane), and the choir was to take part in "Hymnfest" a celebration of the songs of the Wesley brothers (they started the Methodist church methodists who I always thought were miserable wowserish type of people - goes 2 show I can be a fool   ) 

I know, say hymns & people turn off - immediately make assumptions, even my daughter when I told her
"Wow Dad, that sounds so...........exciting ".   Anyway practicing for the hymns - is not the same as singing them, sections at a time, sopranos, altos, tenors, bases, stopping & starting, told 2 do it again as we got it wrong - even singing the hymns through, was stopping, getting music right etc - hard work.

The festival itself,  singing, some of the hymns were, well like hymns, you sing them in church.
But, came to hymn, "O for a thousand tounges' "
What seemed nothing special in practices, the words & music suddenly took on a different feel and meaning, and a different atmosphere developed.  The choir sang "The Halleulah Chorus" - its somthing you can put your heart and well soul into.  Finally "And can it be" - with this hymn the audience got up and sang we all sang, I noticed the audience could sing AND the men an women were singing parts, beautifully, perfectly, and the choir on the night got it right    I have never experienced anything like this before

I could feel my heart on fire and NOW I understand what they say about music having soul.  It was Joy

Afterwoods was talking with a female choir member & it was just like we were describing truely great lovemaking   (Did you find it good? O, it was do nice,   sort of stuff    )

I feel alive, what I felt has not yet left me

Rana

The essence of spirituality is the realization that I am not the most important thing in the universe, but that there is a wider and deeper source of meaning.  The experience of being together with others who are united in song and creating a beauty that no one of us can created by ourselves is part of this experience.  Making music together is a spiritual experience.

Rana, I feel that music is the purest expression of God.
The voice of God.
The ineffable. But made manifest.
If God has a physicality, there it is. The sound.

The one thing I missed out on, possibly
from my father's experience of religion
was participation in high Mass.
Singing in the choir.
Clearly he took something powerful
and essential away from the experience
and some of that he imparted to me.

Quote from: Rana on June 04, 2006, 05:52:18 AM

I could feel my heart on fire and NOW I understand what they say about music having soul.  It was Joy

Afterwoods was talking with a female choir member & it was just like we were describing truely great lovemaking   (Did you find it good?)

Rana

of course it IS lovemaking. It absolutely is lovemaking.

(one of my whole problems with a lot of the 'churchy' experience, in Western culture -
is the segregation of this impulse from the other impulse, which is the same impulse if you were to ask me. Listen to The Reverend Al Green sometime. My feeling is that I think Jesus (et al) does want us to have some Love and Happiness.)

God as a way of touching us in the most unusual ways & at the most unusual times in our lives.

It's just his way of saying "I love you"

And im sure Jan C agrees with me.
Music is a window to our souls
A very rare thing that Binds ALL of us together.

A part of me feels the joy in which you described thanks for the moment of happiness!

Chynna

Quote from: Chynna on June 05, 2006, 12:22:32 PM
God as a way of touching us in the most unusual ways & at the most unusual times in our lives.

It's just his way of saying "I love you"

This is just SO true!

And I think that by noticing and appreciating those moments, we say it back...

What a wonder-full story Rana! Just think... all that beauty you saw and felt "out there"... was just a mirror of your own soul

Religious music is a beautiful form of music. The closest I ever felt to spiritual was when my choir performed a hymn by a 17th century nun, in a church.

I used to sing in a choir that was populated by politically-correct types who would raise a hue and outcry if the word 'god' was in a song we sang. There was one strict Jewish woman there who could not, in accordance with her religion, sing the word 'god', but even she didn't object, and recognized the beauty of the music (we sang spiritual music from all cultures, not just christian).

I'm glad you had this experience, Rana. It is truly amazing when you feel it.

Dennis

Quote from: Kate on June 05, 2006, 03:29:13 PM
And I think that by noticing and appreciating those moments, we say it back...

Couldn't agree more I think it pisses "God" off when you don't notice things like that. Or when you don't notice a field of flowers when you walk and drive by it.

But then again im only 30
What do I know!
Chynna

Music allows us to expereince emotions that words alone can not reach.

For me, to not sing at church is to not pray.

Chaunte