The Power of Music & Memory



Each month, I have the privilege of facilitating two devotional chapels at local senior care centers.  I’m not the only one.  Several of Galesburg’s local pastors volunteer and minister each month in nursing homes.  One of the items in my “ministry toolbox” is a substantial knowledge of hymns and the ability to play the piano.  This month, for a change, I read a psalm, prayed, and spent the rest of the time playing favorites from the special hymnal that all of the nursing homes use.  It was a good time and the residents were very grateful to sing songs that mean so much to them. 

Music has the unique ability to transport our memory back to a strongly impressionable moment.  Couples will sometimes identify a particular tune as “our song” because it may have been the number one hit when they fell in love. Perhaps it was the song that was played the first time they danced together.  That powerful dynamic of music is called its “associative power.”  When we sing the song or hear it sung, it is as if we experience that impressionable moment all over again.  The effect is very powerful. 

Remembering is an essential practice for people of faith.  The observance of Jewish Feasts brings modern celebrants into historical solidarity and experience with their forebearers.  Of course, for the Christian, we are united with Christ through remembering his death and resurrection at the Lord’s Table or Eucharist.  Certain songs or hymns that we sing have the associative power to bring a past formative spiritual event to the present for us to re-experience.  This is not just nostalgia.  It is an important spiritual exercise.  One of my previous mentors told me his very personal story about a classic hymn that meant a lot to him.  Early in his marriage, his wife suffered from depression and a nervous breakdown.  She had to be hospitalized.  Of course, for any spouse, such an experience is heart-wrenching and confusing as you helplessly watch your loved one suffer.  While she was hospitalized, he happened to sing these words in corporate worship: “Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer, who makes the woeful heart to sing.”  The words to the hymn gave him hope and restored his faith in a moment of deep spiritual crisis.  Ever since then, whenever he sang “Fairest Lord Jesus” he was transported back to the moment when God strengthened his spirit through the hymn.  He remembered and his faith was encouraged. 

I have a song like that.  Perhaps you do, too.  Remember, it’s not just the words and the melody that make it so special to you.  It was God’s goodness and action on your behalf which you recognized when you sang the song years ago that makes it so meaningful to you today.  Remember and relive that experience.  You’ll find your faith renewed as your spirit soars in song.   

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