I have only ever turned down a speaking assignment at Church once. A number of years ago I was approached to give a devotional about healthy living- I was rather large at the time and felt it would be hypocritical to speak about something I don’t live. I feel that in a Gospel sense it is impossible to teach about something you don’t live, any more than you can come back from a place you’ve never been. I am reminded of a carving of an elephant on one of the choir stalls in Chester Cathedral- it is a very weird looking elephant- why? The carver had never seen an elephant- he was working off someone else’s description. Why do I share this? When I was given the topic I was to speak on today, I scoffed. My topic is how we worship through music. I am the least musical person you will meet, I cannot sing, I cannot recognise rhythm, and I’m not the biggest fan of listening to Church music outside of Christmas carols and in certain contexts. In fact, when Ruth and I attended a music festival the other week and I posted about it on social media, it led a friend to comment: “… and this from a guy who doesn’t like music.” How can I speak about something I know so little about?

The thing is: I love music. When I’m not teaching, I’ll either be found at the computer writing or marking, or I’ll be in the car driving to schools- in all of these I will have a constant soundtrack playing in the background. I cannot imagine my life without music, it’s just that the music I listen to tends to be country, 80s, soft rock, show tunes or a whole range of other genres. Although music provides the soundtrack to much of my life, how do I worship through music.

This becomes easier for me to recognise when I understand what I mean by worship. Every aspect of my life: Church, work and family are all acts of worship that could draw me closer to the Savior. Worshipping is a way of living as I live in relationship with the Lord. How does this work? As a father, the way that I treat or speak with my children can exemplify my efforts to develop Christlike characteristics, or not as the case may be. The way that I exert my efforts in the workplace can similarly exemplify my promises to ““to stand as [a witness] of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that [I] may be in” (Mosiah 18: 9). I am reminded of a passage from The Shack:

It’s simple, Mack. It’s all about relationships and simply sharing life. What we are doing right now− just doing this− and being open and available to others around us. My church is all about people and life is all about relationships.  

Sharing life and engaging in relationships wherever they are found are the acts of worship I am striving to develop.

By striving to include all of my life as an act of worship then I can hopefully draw closer to Christ. It does not negate my responsibility to attend Church, the Temple and to study and pray, but if I view every action- whether visiting members of the Church, teaching a University class, or spending time with my family as an opportunity to develop my relationship with the Saviour, as I develop my relationship with others, I may be on the right track. I give a lecture each year about what spirituality means and the definition I settle on is that it is reflected in my relationships with God, with others, with the world and with myself- so any act that helps me understand any or all of those relationships better is developing my own spirituality and helping me worship the Lord. I’m heartened by the example of Elisha who used music as a prelude to revelation:

But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, Thus saith the Lord… (2 Kings 3:15-16).

Let me consider how music has helped me in each of those areas. For me, the most important aspect of most music is the words that are sung, and the way that they are carried to my heart and mind through their emotion and melody. That this is not just limited to so-called ‘Church’ music is highlighted by Bruce R. McConkie:

It is the medium of intelligence that guides inventors, scientists, artists, composers, poets, authors, statesmen, philosophers, generals, leaders, and influential men in general, when they set their hands to do that which is for the benefit and blessing of their fellowmen. By it the Lord guides in the affairs of men and directs the courses of nations and kingdoms. By it the Lord gives ennobling art, the discoveries of science, and music like that sung in the courts above.

Gideon Burton has expressed a similar view when experiencing Mozart: “At the same time, this reflection reveals something back to Latter-day Saints about who they are and how their culture responds to great art: we read The Magic Flute, and The Magic Flute reads us” (2004: 23). We cannot help be changed by engagement with inspired truths and art. The benefits of engagement with truths inspired by the light of Christ, for the Latter-day Saint, are not just a greater understanding of others, and their literature, but also a greater understanding of what it means to be a Latter-day Saint.

Let me share some music that has helped develop my relationship with the Lord. The first is my favourite hymn: A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. As we read through the hymn, we see a man who encounters another who is hungry, thirsty, cold and without a place to stay, beaten and in prison, and in each circumstance the man helps the other. The final reveal reads:

Then in a moment to my view

The stranger started from disguise.

The tokens in his hands I knew;

The Savior stood before mine eyes.

He spake, and my poor name he named,

“Of me thou hast not been ashamed.

These deeds shall thy memorial be;

Fear not, thou didst them unto me.”

This illustrates the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. It’s the way we try and live our lives in seeing no stranger. What does that mean? We live in a world of so much division and hatred, in a world where we might feel justified in withholding our substance and our love. The message of the Saviour is clear: 

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew 25:40).

I often fall short, but if I strive to see the Saviour in all I meet, then I will not withhold of myself and my love. This is how the Lord would have us worship Him.

In the lecture I spoke about earlier I ask the students to think of a song that has helped develop their spirituality- or in terms they might prefer, a song that has helped them understand their relationships with either God, themselves, others or the world. The song I share as my spiritual song is “Dance with my Father” by Luther Vandross. I remember to this day where I was when I first heard this song, and the impact that it had on me. I did learn another thing that day- it’s not the best idea to send it to your widowed mum without some kind of trigger alert. Some of the lyrics are:

If I could steal one final glance

One final step

One final dance with him

I’d play a song that would never ever end

‘Cause I’d love, love, love

To dance with my father again

Sometimes I’d listen outside her door

And I’d hear how mama would cry for him

I’d pray for her even more than me

I’d pray for her even more than me

I know I’m praying for much, too much

But could You send back the only man she loved

I know You don’t do it usually

But dear Lord, she’s dying to dance with my father again

I don’t know if I ever danced with my father, I have exactly two memories of him, but I know how much he loved me, and I know how much my mum loved him. As I reflect on the lyrics of this song, and the emotion that listening to it brings, I realise that I have a hope through the atonement of Christ and the ordinances of the temple that I will dance with him again, but in distinction to the song, it is something that the Lord does usually. The promise of eternal family is available to all and is one of the crowning promises of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Note veery song sparks this kind of thinking, but those that do change the way that we approach life. Another song that has helped me in my worship is ‘Coat of Many Colours’ by Dolly Parton. Some of its lyrics read:

There were rags of many colours, and every piece was small

And I didn’t have a coat and it was way down in the fall

Mama sewed the rags together sewing every piece with love

She made my coat of many colours that I was so proud of

As she sewed, she told a story from the Bible she had read

About a coat of many colours Joseph wore and then she said

“Perhaps this coat will bring you good luck and happiness”

And I just couldn’t wait to wear it and momma blessed it with a kiss…

So with patches on my britches and holes in both my shoes

In my coat of many colors I hurried off to school

Just to find the others laughin’ and a-makin’ fun of me

In my coat of many colors my mama made for me…

But they didn’t understand it and I tried to make them see

That one is only poor only if they choose to be

Now I know we had no money but I was rich as I could be

In my coat of many colours my mama made for me

Made just for me.

Again, this helps me reflect on my childhood and how much my mum sacrificed so that we could have those things that we needed. But it also helps me understand that I am to “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). We do not know where someone is, or what they are experiencing when we make snap judgements about their behaviour. I am guilty of this and have also been a victim of this. We can all look at others and see what is not being done and judge them harshly. But we do not know what is going on in people’s lives; we can choose to treat others with grace and where they are, not where we think they should be. I am reminded of the Saviour’s interactions with the men caught in hypocrisy. They had brought a woman before Him charged with adultery; they were focussed so much on the sin that they did not see the woman. It was easier for them to transfer their own insecurities onto her, than to look themselves in the mirror. I wonder if we are like that sometimes.

On a Sunday morning, I will often listen to the Christian group Casting Crowns and one of their songs has the following lyrics:

Moses had stage fright

And David brought a rock to a sword fight

You picked twelve outsiders nobody would’ve chosen

And You changed the world

Well, the moral of the story is

Everybody’s got a purpose

So when I hear that devil start talking to me, saying

“Who do you think you are?” I say

I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody

All about Somebody who saved my soul

Ever since You rescued me, You gave my heart a song to sing

I’m living for the world to see nobody but Jesus.

There is so much to unpack in this verse; the Lord works with the weak and the imperfect, and this is the miracle of our relationship with God. He shapes us into who we are meant to be, unshackled by our own feelings of limitations or the limitations that the world would place upon us. It’s been said before that while in comparison to the Lord, we’re nothing, to the Lord, we are everything! This gives me hope in understanding not just who I am but whose I am.

Leading onto the final song I’d like to explore. One of the phrases I have used most often in interactions with students in school is “it is not what you say, but how you say it.” I am reminded of a song by the Nashville Tribute Band “What manner of man is this?” about the Saviour. The verses are similar, but the person singing it is either an opponent or a supporter of the Saviour. For example:

What manner of man is this?

Who walks among hypocrites?

He heals on the Sabbath and He feeds five thousand

With five loaves and two fish

He heals on the Sabbath and He feeds five thousand

With five loaves and two fish

What manner of man is this?

This song doesn’t just remind me to think about the way that I speak, it also asks me the most important question in life: Who is Jesus? Is he good? Is he bad? Is he a scoundrel? Is he a prophet? Is he the Son of God? I wish to bear the strong testimony that Martha, the friend of Christ, bore:

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world (John 11:25-27).

I return to the original question that I was asked: “How do I worship through music?” I worship through music by striving to live out the messages that I hear as they help me draw closer to the Saviour. This helps me understand that the music that I listen to must help me develop my spirituality and not dull it.

Music has the power to transform through its inspiration. I just need to allow it to inspire me in my relationships with God, others, the world and even with myself.