Sounds that Stir the Soul
Today I am grateful for a fire in the fireplace on a chilly Easter. I am also grateful for ears that work and a soul I recognize today as my own.
I was raised Catholic. Though I say this with some level of guilt, I would guess I am not alone; Holy Week was drudgery for me when I was young. There were a lot of church services and they all seemed long and sad. The Stations of the Cross were part of Lent too, and I recall them being long and sorrowful as well. Then Easter would arrive. I looked forward to Easter services. In part, I was probably already sugared-up, so that helped. Easter Sunday services were shorter than anything else I had attended since and including Palm Sunday. That helped too. But I also always looked forward to the uplifting hymns that we got to sing after all the mournful ones of Holy Week. Those Easter hymns stirred my soul as a child, and they still stir my soul today.
"I Am the Bread of Life" is one of those common Easter hymns. It is also a song that reminds me of my dad's funeral. Soul-stirring in more ways than one.
We are practicing Episcopalians, so many of our hymns are the same as those I grew up with. I appreciate that. For the past two Easter Sundays, we have also been treated to the sound of bagpipes played by a lone piper standing in our medium-sized sanctuary. I have only heard bagpipes in person a few times in my life, but they have touched me each time. I don't know what it is about the sound, but my soul perks up and takes notice.
So I did a little reading about bagpipes. They are most often tied to the Scottish and the Irish, but have been around for many centuries. They were considered the musical instrument of the common people, and there aren't a lot of historic relics because the bagpipes were made of natural components which wouldn't stand the test of time. I also learned that they were often used to provide music for dancing. Today we don't think of bagpipes and dancing, but I guess they do make the emotions dance.
I appreciate the sounds that stir my soul.
I was raised Catholic. Though I say this with some level of guilt, I would guess I am not alone; Holy Week was drudgery for me when I was young. There were a lot of church services and they all seemed long and sad. The Stations of the Cross were part of Lent too, and I recall them being long and sorrowful as well. Then Easter would arrive. I looked forward to Easter services. In part, I was probably already sugared-up, so that helped. Easter Sunday services were shorter than anything else I had attended since and including Palm Sunday. That helped too. But I also always looked forward to the uplifting hymns that we got to sing after all the mournful ones of Holy Week. Those Easter hymns stirred my soul as a child, and they still stir my soul today.
"I Am the Bread of Life" is one of those common Easter hymns. It is also a song that reminds me of my dad's funeral. Soul-stirring in more ways than one.
We are practicing Episcopalians, so many of our hymns are the same as those I grew up with. I appreciate that. For the past two Easter Sundays, we have also been treated to the sound of bagpipes played by a lone piper standing in our medium-sized sanctuary. I have only heard bagpipes in person a few times in my life, but they have touched me each time. I don't know what it is about the sound, but my soul perks up and takes notice.
So I did a little reading about bagpipes. They are most often tied to the Scottish and the Irish, but have been around for many centuries. They were considered the musical instrument of the common people, and there aren't a lot of historic relics because the bagpipes were made of natural components which wouldn't stand the test of time. I also learned that they were often used to provide music for dancing. Today we don't think of bagpipes and dancing, but I guess they do make the emotions dance.
I appreciate the sounds that stir my soul.
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