Music has always moved me. When I was a child I would sing on command for anyone silly enough to listen to me. Not that I was good. I just liked it. My grandparents thought I was fantastic, so why wouldn’t I think I was fantastic? It is the reason I am such an amazing shower-singer today. Give me a bar of soap and 10 gallons of hot water and I can give Bette Midler a run for her money.
I also grew up in a household of deep religious convictions and faith. It was the glue of my family’s existence. It anchored us. It anchored me. It kept me out of a holotta trouble and gave me a strong heritage to which I suppose I will always be tethered. And you better believe I’m gonna need something to feel tethered to when 
I’m traipsing around the world for three months. My father was Catholic and my mother Lutheran, and after they married they morphed into Pentecostal people. Go figure. Additionally, my family migrated slowly from Minnesota to the south. The Bible Belt. The land where everyone knows that you can tack-on “Well, bless your heart” just before or after saying anything to anybody and it is an instant get-out-of-jail-free card. Religion is definitely the “social norm” of the south. I was in a church every time the door was open. I thought everybody grew up like I did, but I have since been corrected.
The songs that tether me to my past are hymns of faith. Old church favorites sung with closed eyes and somber faces. During the Pentecostal years, we sped them up, added drums, and shouted “Amen” from time to time. My father was the preacher and I loved to hear him orate. He talked with his hands, so I would anxiously watch his arms flailing around the podium. As much as I loved my daddy’s preaching (he really was good), I always looked forward to the compulsory music that set the tone. Mellowed out the crowd. Put the screaming babies to sleep.
I must admit. I haven’t been to church in quite some time. I haven’t thought of these songs in eons. My views have changed quite a bit and I am allowing the shift to complete itself before I assess the damage. Or improvement, depending on your perspective. I am not currently residing in the south so that particular social norm no longer nudges me (Although the folks here in DC think they are in the south. “South of the Mason Dixon line,” that is. Whatever. So not the south. Thanks for playing.) I have been a little angry with God, if you must know. I haven’t given him up, and he hasn’t given me up…we are just at a stalemate for the time being. It feels like a bad chess game, and I am horrible at chess. I can never remember the rules. The unfortunate events of my life in recent years have made me a little resistant to the idea of “I Surrender All” given how that turned out for me. I’m just being honest, here. But I still believe in God. Oh yes I do. In the past I believed in him because I was told to. Because that was just what we did. I believe in God now because I want to. I choose to. Because, Honeychild, if there isn’t anything bigger than me out there…bigger than you, we are all in a mess of trouble. But that’s just my opinion.
This is Udid. He sings almost as good as he drives...
I was in India this past March and strangely, the songs of my heritage bubbled to the surface. For the two weeks I was in Delhi, I had a driver named Udid. We grew fond of each other during the hours of sitting in traffic. As fond as you can be of someone whom you can barely communicate with. I became my father, waving my hands around frantically in order to be better understood. One day Udid was humming in the car. I asked if he would sing for me, and surprisingly, he did. When I asked what the song was, he told me it was a religious song of the Hindu religion that he had grown up singing. Humph. He asked me to sing a traditional religious song for him, and surprisingly, I did. “Amazing Grace” followed by an encore performance of “It is Well With My Soul.” We were both pretty quiet the remainder of the drive. Both in our little heads. Perhaps thinking of the choices we had made for ourselves, and how our respective religions influenced those choices.
I had a traditional Indian massage at a local treatment center a few days following my exchange with Udid. The massage therapist asked me to sit in a chair, butt naked, with my feet soaking in a bowl of warm water teeming with flower petals. After instructing me to close my eyes and open my heart, she waved her hands around my head (I was peeking) and then she sang a lovely “chant” over me. When I asked her about its origin, she told me that it was a traditional religious song of her youth. Her song set the tone for the next 90 minutes. As ridiculous as this sounds, it was a religious experience (Yes, there is such a thing as a religious experience while being pummeled with little burlap sacks filled with herbs and sopping with oil. I’ll tell you about it later, but just trust me on that.).
This man loves Curry and Cher
A few days later I took a cooking class in the home of a local chef. Wouldn’t you know it…that man asked if I would sing for him. I asked what he would like to hear. Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings,” perhaps? Gimme a bar of soap and you’re on, mister! No, he wanted to hear a religious song. Really? How about a little Lady GaGa? Nope. So there I was, singing those songs yet again. Naturally, I made him sing for me. It was starting to feel a bit like that movie Ground Hog Day where I kept doing the same thing over and over, every time improving just a smidge.
Life is funny. It seems that when you think you are all alone, someone finds you. When you think you don’t have one more ounce of strength, you find just a little bit more. When you think you’ve given up on something or someone (other human beings, God, yourself, whatever), you stumble across a little reminder that you can never give up (on other human beings, God, yourself, whatever).
I have never held my own baby while the doctors told me he would most likely die, like my sister has. I have never had to watch the building where my husband worked collapse while the world watched, like my dear friend has. No…but I have had my share of crappola. We all have. Just when you think you’ve got nothing left to lose, you realize that yep…there’s just a little more that can be stripped away. (God bless those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about. Seriously. May harm never find you. Let’s do lunch.)
But hope always surfaces. Eventually. And there is usually a catalyst for that hope. A person that lends a hand or simply says the “right thing.” An extra 20 bucks that survived the washer and the dryer cycle. A new bar of soap that doesn’t slip out of your hand while you’re singing in the shower. Sometimes that’s all it takes to pull you back to the side of joy. Sometimes you find that you need to be tethered to something. Sometimes you forget that you are tethered to something.
So what is it that tethers you? What pulls you back to your place of safety? Of familiar sanctuary? Whatever it is, I hope you are reminded of it. I hope you are encouraged by it. And may you never have to travel all the way to India to find it….