Americans Mysticism and Music

I am a music lover. I love music more than many of my friends. For example, If I had to choose between keeping some friends over my U2 collection, the U2 collection would win.

Why do I and many others love music so much? I feel a connection that I don't get from everyday people. I feel something. It moves my heart. It connects on some primative emotional level. I hear the words sung in a certain way and I feel in that moment that the songwriter or singer understood me for a second. And for me, that is rare--to be understood.

So I love it. The feeling of being understood and connected is vital. It helps me go through hard times. It helps me feel like I am not alone in feeling the way that I do. I am always impressed by the amazing efforts to keep time and harmony so efficiently as musicians do. The more complicated the effort, the more amazing. The simple purity also reaches me in places I haven't explored.

Churches have played on this for as long as I can remember. If you sing long enough and emotionally enough, it seems, the presence of the Holy Spirit will come into a room full of people who are worked up into an emotional frenzy. A church that doesnt work its people out this way s considered to be spiritually dead because people can't feel the presence of God working. We all know what a reliable litmus feelings are!

We get going and we jam and we dance and clap and raise our hands, hoping for a prayer that God will connect with us somewhere and give us our emotional orgasm. Pick us up. Get us High on Jesus for a few minutes. Give us our fix for a week or so.

Don't get me wrong. Jesus is way cool. The Holy Spirit is a spirit, and that is so cool. But God does not serve us. He is not our pusher our dealer or pharmacist. He isnt our pimp. Church is not a way for us to legitimize getting off. Nothing wrong with getting off, but lets remember what getting off is for--marriage, not church.

Music is great. Its one of my favorite things in the world. But just as mistaken are the people that believe that demons inhabit the music of the world, the Holy Spirit isnt compelled to arrive at the beat of a righteous musician. There is no spiritual power in music. None. It is simple repetition and melody that the human brain and heartbeats identify with. It stimulates the brain to create a mood. It connects with your physical and chemical composition to help aid you in your meditation. But spirits are not controlled by musical beats or notes. Good or Bad.

Whether you felt it or not, whether you knew it or not, whether you got off or not, or whether it felt dead or not, the Spirit of God is always with you. Even in a room full of Satan-worshippers beating their chests and cutting themselves, the Spirit of God is there (e.g. Elijah, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego).

That is why you can never ever tell me that there is such a thing as a dead church. Just churches with different ways of expressing life, mistaken or correct. But death is up to God.