What Singing Hymns Together Teaches Us
Well, I’d like to suggest we sing hymns for deeper reasons than just because. Hymns matter more than we realize.
First, we sing hymns together. And I think we unconsciously know that its beneficial to our souls. It’s also beneficial to our physical and emotional well-being.
Last year in the Washington Post, there was a story titled, “Singing is good for you. Singing with others may be even better.” That story begins with a choir created by the UK’s National Health System and the London Cancer Alliance. Why? For the purpose of research. The choir was made up of patients recently diagnosed with cancer. The project’s aim was to study the benefits of group singing on overall health. Here were the results:
“A single choir session reduced stress hormones and increased levels of immune proteins in people affected by cancer. The longitudinal aspect of the study showed that singing significantly decreased anxiety and increased wellbeing for carers and improved self-efficacy and self-esteem for those who had been bereaved. Qualitative data explored the mechanisms behind these effects, highlighting building resilience and meeting existential changes as key components of what enabled singing to result in these benefits.”
In other words, group singing foster well-being
While we may not consciously know it, we sing together Sunday mornings because it fosters well-being.
But why hymns? Why not more popular songs? Why not more contemporary praise songs?
We do sometimes sing more contemporary songs, but I’d suggest there’s something especially meaningful about old hymns.
They connect us to our roots. Singing these multiple decades old and even centuries old hymns connects us to our ancestors.
On the 3rd Sunday of the month, on most months anyway, we sing from the Pilgrim Hymnal. I intentionally do this, and for that very reason. The ancestors of this community, standing in this very sanctuary, sang the same hymns we sing today. These walls have taken in the voices of our ancestors and the hymns they sang. When we sing those same hymns, it is as if they join with us, echoing back the beautiful music we sing.
Not only does hymn singing connect us to our ancestors, they connect us to the musicians and poets who composed these hymns.
We sang the words of Immortal Love, Forever Full. We sang the words composed by John Whittier Greenleaf, a man of deep, active faith, an Abolitionist who struggled for the freedom of enslaved people, a Quaker who practiced his faith of igniting the spark of the divine in the human soul, a poet who touched the hearts and minds of those who read his work and of children at school who memorized his words.
We sang Greenleaf’s words to a tune written by William Wallace. We don’t know much of anything about Wallace, but we sang his tune and he hears us from heaven!
We also sang the hymn Be Still My Soul. In so doing, we connected our spirits to the spirit of Katerina von Schlagel, a German Christian from the 1700’s who felt that the personal experience of the divine was just as if not more important than the creeds we quipped or the dogmas we preached.
In singing the English translation of von Schlagel’s poem, we connect our spirits to the spirit of the Scottish hymnist Jane Bothwick. Her translation work of German hymns in the mid-1800’s, done anonymously, gifted the English singing world with gorgeous, spiritually enriching music, music we sing to this very day, Be Still My Soul most notably.
We sing Be Still My Soul to the tune Finlandia, composed by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. His tune taps into the realm of the divine and moves us some 125 years after its debut in 1900. Sibelius wrote the tone-poem composition Finlandia as a tribute to the stunning, soul-stirring landscape of his childhood. If we try hard enough, maybe we can feel the beauty of the landscape that inspired his music.
Finally, we not only connect with the spirits of these poets and musicians, we connect with God whom these artists pointed us to. We sing tunes and words that point us to God and God in Christ. Some of the lyrics we sing are so powerful, so profound, so prescient, reminding us of a God whose love endures forever and of a Christ who’d rather die than see any of us be condemned to a life of emptiness, meaninglessness, and hurt. There’s such spiritual richness and depth to these old hymns. In the words of one of them, “How Can We Keep from Singing.”
Orienting as a hospice chaplain in late 2007, I quickly learned that it helped to have some musical talent. The chaplain that was orienting me played guitar and sang. When he visited nursing homes, especially, he’d bring his guitar and sing to Alzheimer patients or sometimes, with family members gathered around the bed, he would serenade people in the final moments of their lives with Amazing Grace or It is Well With My Soul. Another chaplain didn’t play guitar, but had a beautiful tenor and would sing with and to patients in his work.
I play piano a bit, but don’t play guitar really nor do I have a beautiful voice. I’d also be much too bashful to be on stage like these chaplains were. But because it was 2007 and cell phones were a thing, I discovered a way to incorporate music into my hospice ministry. I created a playlist of hymns that I’d play on my phone in the same way the guitar slinging and singing chaplain orienting me played and sang. I’d quickly learn the power of doing just that.
Among the first patients I was assigned, Rachel was the least cognizant. She was in the end stage of Alzheimer’s like a few of the patients I visited, but she was not only non-verbal, she had such a flat affect, that it seemed she was not there at all. But the family explained to me that she was once very active in church, singing in the choir and playing piano on Sundays, and wanted me to visit to pray with her at least.
Of course, I first visited and did just that after reading scripture, the Psalm 23 and 121, John 14:1-7, etc. I got nothing that first visit. My next visit a couple weeks later, I came in prepared with music. I was satisfied with my playlist and the iPhone had a great speaker.
After a few minutes of praying with Rachel, I got out my phone and began playing hymns and singing along. Maybe you can guess what happened next. Rachel lit up. She soon began singing with me, some of the hymns word for word. I was floored! It was like a mini resurrection right before my eyes! I ended our visit with prayer, finishing that prayer with the Lord’s Prayer. Rachel, still feeling the light created by the music, she recited the Lord’s Prayer with me, mostly anyway.
Why do we sing hymns? Because they enter deep into our minds and souls like nothing else and connect us to God and to who we really are. We worship together for the same reason, to be connected to God and who we really are.
And who are we? We are each a song, one of God’s beloved songs. You, each of you, are a song intimately and lovingly composed by God.
Being a song, you are in turn endowed with song, a song in your heart, a song meant to be sung. You get to sing the song you are. When you sing, especially hymns at church, you sing your own song at the same time.
And one thing is for certain, God is pleased with your song!
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