Songs that speak
“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.”
― Kahlil Gibran
I have precisely zero chill when it comes to a song I like. When I fixate on a song, I will play it on repeat all day, for weeks. (My teens LOVE this….not really) Kyrie by Mr. Mister is one of those songs that, once it comes up on my playlist, I’ll play it on repeat daily for weeks. It’s a song that I can’t get enough of.
Listen Here: Mr. Mister - Kyrie (Official Video)
It’s the chorus that I love.
Kyrie Eleison down the road that I must travel
Kyrie Eleison through the darkness of the night
Kyrie Eleison, where I'm going, will you follow?
Kyrie Eleison on a highway in the night
Kyrie Eleison is Greek for Lord, Have Mercy, and is a part of the Compline prayers from the Book of Common Prayer (Compline is the last set of prayers before bed)
Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, have mercy
So the meaning of the words in the chorus is:
Lord, have mercy down the road that I must travel
Lord, have mercy through the darkness of the night
Lord, have mercy where I'm going, will you follow?
Lord, have mercy on a highway in the night.
The invitation of these lyrics is to remember that we don't ever walk alone. The very first line of the chorus gets me every time. Kyrie Eleison down the road that I must travel. That word must. The road that I must travel. It's a surrender to life's circumstances, pulls, and challenges. There are things that happen to us in life that we must face. However, we walk in mercy in all things.
Kyrie Eleison down the road I must travel
Lord, have mercy down the road I must travel.
Kyrie Eleison through the darkness of the night.
In her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor defines darkness as "shorthand for anything that scares me that I want no part of—either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive it or because I do not want to find out."
Lord, have mercy as I walk through things that scare me and I want to have no part in.
Thinking about writing this piece, I realized that the two lines, Kyrie Eleison down the road I must travel and Kyrie Eleison through the darkness of the night, are the two lines that shape the entire song for me. They are the lines that provide depth, structure, and meaning. The message and the invitation are in those two powerful lines. Don't get me wrong, I love the entire song. But upon further reflection, it's two small lines that invite me into this song. These two lines keep me coming back to listen over and over again.
The invitations to smaller and deeper are everywhere, hidden in 80s songs, lines of poetry, and hummingbirds.
A Blessing for Listening To Music:
When, in the course of your day, the lines of a pop song, country song, 70s, 80s, or 90s song sparkle, may you pause, and listen again, with your heart, mind, spirit, and ears in alignment. May you find meaning, insight, grace, and the direction you need right now.
Is there a song that holds your invitation to smaller and deeper? Put it on repeat. Listen with earphones. Look up the lyrics. Let the invitation sing deep in your soul.
Ideas, poems, quotes, and songs that sparkled
I try to notice words or phrases that stand out in my reading and listening. A spiritual practice called Florliledgium collects short, interesting pieces that “sparkle” and combines them to form something new. This is kind of like that: watching (or listening) for things that sparkle, gathering them, and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
"How glibly and thoughtlessly that phrase 'make us grow' slides off our tongues. As if growth were always a happy, shapely matter: leaves unfurling, blossoms opening, hearts and minds joyously stretching toward more light. Whereas the fact of the matter was, when we asked for growth, we were asking for a mess. Exploding tempers privately nursed little Petri dishes of resentments, insecure stumblings into dangerous new places."
― Gail Godwin, Evensong
"We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light. —Hildegard of Bingen"
"What if I could learn to trust my feelings instead of asking to be delivered from them? What if I could follow one of my great fears all the way to the edge of the abyss, take a breath, and keep going? Isn't there a chance of being surprised by what happens next? Better than that, what if I could learn how to stay in the present instead of letting my anxieties run on fast-forward?"
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark
"We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy."
― Pema Chödrön
"Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."
― Maya Angelou
“Pema Chödrön did not become one of my teachers until I had almost finished writing, but she diagnosed the problem so well that I can no longer say it without her help. We are all so busy constructing zones of safety that keep breaking down, she says, that we hardly notice where all the suffering is coming from. We keep thinking that the problem is out there, in the things that scare us: dark nights, dark thoughts, dark guests, dark emotions. If we could just defend ourselves better against those things, we think, then surely we would feel more solid and secure. But of course we are wrong about that, as experience proves again and again. The real problem has far less to do with what is really out there than it does with our resistance to finding out what is really out there. The suffering comes from our reluctance to learn to walk in the dark.1”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night
I love this so much !