I will sing with my mind

Sophomore year of high school, my English teacher had us put together poetry notebooks.  We were to collect examples of genre, meter, rhyme scheme, figurative language, etc.  One of the poems I chose was "Love is Like Sounds," by Donald Hall.

Late snow fell this early morning of spring.
At dawn I rose from bed, restless, and looked
Out of my window, to wonder if there the snow
Fell outside your bedroom, and you watching.

I played my game of solitaire. The cards
Came out the same the third time through the deck.
The game was stuck. I threw the cards together,
And watched the snow that could not do but fall.

Love is like sounds, whose last reverberations
Hang on the leaves of strange trees, on mountains
As distant as the curving of the earth,
Where snow still hangs in the middle of the air.

My 15-year-old self had trouble with this poem, and my teacher helped me understand that is about how feelings can linger for a long time, frozen and unaffected by time.  

This morning the landscape is dusted with our first winter snow, and I found myself thinking of this poem.  It has stuck with me for almost 20 years.  It wouldn't have if it weren't for two things: the striking imagery, and the fact that someone interpreted it for me.

I was reading 1 Corinthians 14 this morning, which talks about the usage of gifts in the body - particularly speaking in tongues.  The emphasis is upon its value as edification; the message must be intelligible, or else the only person edified is the messenger.  Then when it is interpreted, the listeners are to carefully weigh what was said.  I'm not sure what that means; if they are to judge it, or if they are to think about applying it; assuming it is spirit-led, though, it must be the latter.

Twenty years later I'm involved in writing songs and helping others do the same.  I think there are three important goals to emphasize with songwriting; one is spiritual, one is artistic, and one is in-between.

1) The songs must be intelligible.  This is both an artistic and spiritual concern.  That does not mean that they have to be simple, but they do need to be coherent and consistent.  If the writer is the only one who understands it, it is merely a personal language and communication is lost.

2) The songs must be edifying.  This is a spiritual concern and relates primarily, though not exclusively, to content.  The poem above is not something I would want or expect to be read in a church service.  I suppose it is on the distant horizon of edification, because it is life-affirming to the degree that it recognizes that love and pain are real.  But it is also a bit wallowy.  There are probably more edifying responses to such pain.  I read somewhere the other day that Satan is the enemy of all life.  He says death to creativity, to hope, to the value of personhood, to the soul.  I would say that music that does so, in form or content, is not edifying.  This takes discernment, because songs are complex, but it is still one of the right questions to ask.

3) The songs must be good.  This is an artistic concern.  If Donald Hall were not a good poet, I would not remember his poem 20 years later.  It wouldn't make me slightly sad when I look at snow, and remember my sophomore year of high school.  There are a lot of ways to say "feelings can remain frozen and unaffected by time," but the particular way in which he said it, made me remember it.  Christian lyrics should do the same - strive for artistry so that the song can linger with a person and continue to build them up through the years.

I always find 1 Corinthians 14:15 encouraging,"I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind." The whole chapter and the preceding two are about how God gives many gifts in the body.  I am grateful that in a small way that music can - and must - be used to edify.