Daily Meditation: "What Do You Sing?"

SCRIPTURE

"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." - Acts 16:25-32

REFLECTION

This is the time of year in our family when we go through the rituals of our holiday traditions. Beginning with the weeks before Halloween, we watch all of our favorite “scary” shows. One we always watch is Disney’s animated “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” We just love lanky ‘ol Ichabod Crane. He does something in that piece when he’s scared as he slowly rides along the dark roads of the Hudson Valley - he whistles. Music, it seems, helps to calm our fears.

Poor Paul and Silas are in Philippi to share the Good News about Jesus and find themselves arrested for disturbing the peace, beaten and put in jail. I have to imagine they were frightened, themselves. And yet, while in jail, what do they do? They sing hymns, and the prisoners listened.

There are songs, prayers, people, scriptures...whatever it may be...that we go to when we’re scared, or troubled, or in grief, or just need to escape and be in our “happy place.” They have the ability to transport us from the burdens and worries of the moment and place us, if only for a brief time, in a better place. Those moments of spiritual/emotional/psychological sabbath from the world’s ills are crucial to our very health and survival. In these current times, especially, finding the “songs” that deliver us from the anxiety and worries of a world that is changing almost hourly these days is profoundly important.

They get us through the night of our imprisonment, and even those around us who are imprisoned with us listen, are comforted...maybe even sing along with us.

The dawn will indeed come, and our imprisonment will one day end. Until then, what do you sing?

PRAYER

God Of Comfort, thank you for the songs of life that we sing to calm and comfort our worried hearts and minds.

Amen.

Peace,

Shawn