Music Touches the Soul
Ray and I went into town last evening to meet our friends Garth and Terry for supper. We all enjoyed a rousing game of Nertz at their house with their college-aged daughter and niece before Ray and I had a quiet drive home.
We have a teen friend who stays with Mother when Ray and I have a night out. I’ll call her Anna Faith. After Ray and I got home, I drove Anna Faith to her house ten or fifteen minutes away. I’ve known Anna Faith since she was born and she has been in our daughter Mary Evelyn’s plays since she was little. We always have lots to talk about, which we do all the way to her house.
I always enjoy my late night drives back to our house after dropping her off. Last night was frigid and sparkling clear. As I drove along, I saw a bright light just above the horizon. It was so bright that I wondered if someone had put a security light on top of one of the hills along the road. It stayed mostly in view but sometimes I lost it behind a hill or around a curve or through an avenue of trees.
When I pulled into our driveway, there was the light low in the eastern sky above the hills behind our house. On this night before Epiphany, I thought of what a wonder the star of Bethlehem must have been when the magi saw it.
By then I had figured out that this was no security light and must be a planet. Inside I asked Ray to come outside and tell me what it was. He agreed that it was likely a planet, but neither of us knew which one.
That’s when I left the real world and looked online to see what was shining behind my yard on this fifth night of January. It was Jupiter.
I remembered my childhood days of watching Romper Room and hearing Miss Nancy sing:
Bend and stretch.
Reach for the stars.
There goes Jupiter.
Here comes Mars.
Bend and stretch.
Reach for the stars.
I never have been able to remember the next part, but online I found out it is:
Stand on tip-e-toes,
Oh so high!
Anna Faith is, in her own words, an artsy person — just the person to stay with Mother, who is an artsy person, too. Anna Faith talked last night about her love for music and about how she can still sing the songs she learned many years ago in Kindermusik. She talked about how music touches the soul.
Anna Faith is right. Music does touch the soul. That’s why I could look up in the nighttime sky last night and see those millions of stars — millions of them — and Jupiter low in the eastern sky and sing to myself, “Bend and stretch . . . ” which I learned so long ago from Miss Nancy.
You have a wonderful opportunity to offer your children songs and music, especially the music that deeply touches the soul.
But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength;
Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning,
For You have been my stronghold
And a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my strength, I will sing praises to You;
For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness.
Psalm 59:16-17