How can I keep from singing...

Tonight I had the privilege to participate in the local Berkshire American Guild of Organists' annual "pastor/musician appreciation" dinner. For the past three years I have attended as the guest of my former Minister of Music. And every year - although often bone tired when I leave the house - I am blessed by the entire experience - so tonight I am a grateful man.

The presenter was Patrick Evans: Associate Professor of Sacred Music as well as Director of Music for the chapel at Yale Divinity School. He was brilliant, engaging and tenderly challenging. Like myself, Patrick is committed to reclaiming the beauty and importance of congregational singing - and in this group of musicians the sound was heavenly. But that is not the real point. Rather, the goal is to empower God's people to sing out their whole experience as communion with the Lord: our fears and our celebrations, our tears and our triumphs, songs where "the intimate and Infinite" become one.

So, he told stories and we sang: sometimes it was an evocative new hymn by Tom Troegger followed by an ancient "Gloria in excelsis" - we sang in Spanish and then American Sacred Harp - with a little gospel and jazz thrown in, too. He told how his grandmother, in her latter days, was unable to speak in full sentences but could still sing the songs of Gershwin she learned while courting - so that sang Gershwin to one another in her final days. It was soul music. It was prayer. And it was healing - a balm in Gilead.

Patrick also emphasized how the Body of Christ has a unique mission in this age of non-stop music in a culture of professionals to help ordinary people find and trust their true voices. It is an act that is counter-cultural, healing and essential in this age of "American Idol"atry.

Springsteen got this right when he did his rolling "revival" show back with the Seeger sessions - but we can do it EVERY week in worship - if we, too, can't keep our hearts from singing.