May
21, 2006
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THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY:
THE SOUND OF MERRIMENT
This morning we continue with our theme of joy for this series
The Merry Month of May with The Sound of Merriment.
So what does joy sound like? Of course we all know the sound
of laughter. And that’s a great sound. In fact, it’s
a contagious sound. It’s pretty hard to hear someone laugh
and not be drawn into laughing right along with them.
But are there other sounds of merriment? As I thought about this
question, I found myself noticing the sounds around me. My awareness
of sound was heightened, and I found myself asking, “Is
that a joyous sound?”
And you know what I discovered, at least for myself anyway?
I came to the conclusion that the sound of merriment is the Sound
of God. It’s God as the sound of our breath going in and
out; as the birds’s singing; as the wind or the waves at
the ocean—the wonderment of nature; as the still small
voice within revealing to us what we need to know; as the sound
of a loved one’s voice or a friend when we answer the phone;
as the sound of our own voice saying “I love you” as
we look at our self in the mirror; or saying “I forgive
you” to one who has hurt us, or to our self for the way
we perceived the hurt; it’s the sound of a child; it’s
the voice, any voice, of anyone, because every voice is the voice
of God speaking; it’s the sound of music, the universal
language.
In his message known as The Sermon by the Sea, his last words
given at Asilomar, our founder Dr. Ernest Holmes said:
“
It would be wonderful indeed if a group of persons should arrive
on earth who were for something and against nothing. This would
be the summum bonum of human organization, wouldn’t it?
It is, in the life of the individual.
. . . Find me one person who is for something and against nothing,
who is redeemed enough not to condemn others out of the burden
of his soul, and I will find another savior, another Jesus
and an exalted human being.
. . . Find me someone who is no longer sad, whose memory has
been redeemed from morbidity, and I shall hear laughter.
Find me someone whose song is really celestial, because it
is the outburst of the cosmic urge to sing, and I shall hear
the
music of the spheres.” (The Essential Ernest Holmes, p.
226-227)
Notice he didn’t say the song was celestial because the
person had a great singing voice, but because the song came from
a cosmic urge to sing.
We need to turn off the cell phone and listen to a higher calling.
God’s got our number.
When we come right down to it, the sound of merriment, or anything
else, is the sound, the content, of our thoughts and perceptions.
What is the song of our life? Is it a joyful song, or a mournful
song? What are we singing day after day? Is it a love song
or a hateful, guilt-ridden ditty that undermines everything
we do?
What’s your lullaby, the song you sing yourself to
sleep to? Is it peaceful and comforting? Or is it filled
with worry,
anxiety and dis-ease?
Scott and Shannon Peck tell us in their book Liberating Your
Magnificence, “Let Love reveal your divine song of Magnificence.” (
p. 27) “Thoughts of incompleteness truly are attacks—assaults
on your identity! They are as damaging as if a rocket exploded
in your house—but the rocket, in this case, is constant
mental bombardment, and the house is your consciousness.” (
p. 73)
Did you ever notice in the Psalms, how many begin with
instructions to sing? “Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful
noise unto the God of Jacob.” (Psalm 81) “I will
sing the mercies of the Lord for ever; with my mouth will I make
known thy faithfulness to all generations.” (Psalm 89) “O
come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation.” (Psalm 95) “O sing unto
the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing
unto the Lord, bless his name; show forth his salvation from
day to day.” (Psalm 96) “O sing unto the Lord a new
song; for he hath done marvelous things. (Psalm 98) “Make
a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with
gladness; come before his presence with singing.” (Psalm
100) “I will sing of mercy and judgment; unto thee, O Lord,
will I sing.” (Psalm 101)
Music is a means of expressing the deepest wisdom, that
which defies categorical expression. Music is an expression
of
the deepest relation with the visible
and invisible world which the soul is capable of experiencing. That relationship,
inexpressible in more concrete manifestations, is expressible in music.
Music tells us the deepest truths of human life. Music
opens our hearts.
We sing quite a lot here at The Maine Beacon. We’ll probably sing more
once we have a musician. Singing in a group is an expression of unity—voices
raised together in one song.
But voices aren’t the only things that sing. Hearts sing. What makes
your heart sing? And what kind of music is it?
I remember when I was going through the experience of divorce I would
find myself singing “Deck the halls with boughs of holly.” It wasn’t
Christmastime, and I was singing it in a minor key. So it sounded
like (demonstrate). Can you hear the pain?
I’d find myself singing that over and over, day after day, month after
month. And it didn’t stop until my heart was no longer in
despair. We need to pay attention to what our hearts are singing,
because it can be a clue
to what belief might be operating.
One way I’ve used music is with affirmations. I call them musical affirmations.
I’ll write an affirmation, then begin to sing it in whatever tune comes
up. It works really great if you’re walking to a beat. Just keep repeating
the affirmation as you walk. After a while you’ll find
a rhythm will develop, then a tune will appear. Try it.
But the song of the heart isn’t always an audible melody.
And two of the greatest songs we can ever sing are the songs
of forgiveness and of love.
And who do we have the greatest need to forgive? Ourselves.
And who do we have the greatest need to love? Ourselves.
And when we can truly forgive, really let go of our attachment
to the past, our guilt, and our beliefs of unworthiness,
we can be healed.
When we truly
love, unconditionally, really let go of our beliefs in separateness
and competition, we can be healed.
Because in reality there is no thing to heal but our own
thinking. We have never been hurt, harmed or endangered.
We are not separate
from
God. Everything
we need is available and resides in the Soul. We have every
tool necessary to transform the circumstances of our life.
We just
need to open to
our soul’s
song and let ourselves heal from our knowing we are whole.
Then the miracle can occur. We can be free from the chains
that bind us, those ropes of sand that will be washed away,
even as
the waves
wash away
the sand
castles on the beach.
And once we’ve healed ourselves, we can forgive and love others. Then
we’ll be doing the work we came here to do.
I believe in miracles. And I believe miracles are another
sound of merriment. We hear it every week when someone
shares a demonstration
of the principles
we teach and live by. Do we not feel the joy within us,
hear the joy of gratitude that exudes from our hearts?
Miracles
remind us
in a very
big
way that we
are not of this world of effects, but we are of the world
of Cause, First Cause,
God, our Source.
I close with this true healing story by G. Cody Johnson.
He writes:
One day while working in a distant location, I received
a call from my brother Michael who told me that our mother
had fallen
and broken
her
hip, and when
taken to the hospital in Monterey, California, was found
to have cancer throughout her entire bones and blood.
The doctors
said
that she was
so seriously filled
with the cancer that they only gave her a few days to
live and that the family should immediately be notified
about
her impending
death.
I got the first available plane home and arrived two
days later and rushed to the hospital. I talked to the
doctors
who explained
Mom’s critical
condition and then went on to find her in the intensive care unit. After hugging
her shrunken body and feeling deep love and sorrow for the impending loss,
she said to me, “Don’t be sad. Two angels came to me last night
and told me that I am not going to die. They stood by the bed and talked to
me, so don’t be so sad.”
Michael, Dad and I waited at the hospital, and two days
later while sitting in the waiting room, one of the doctors
came
rushing up
to us with a
puzzled expression on her face, and told us that they
were running more tests on
Mom, but in the new tests they had run thus far, they
were not able to find any
cancer whatsoever in Mom’s body. The doctors were
searching for explanations, but were actually blown away.
A few days later Mom was released from the hospital with
no sign of cancer. In Mom’s view of reality she was visited by angels. This explanation
fit her. But her preparation for acceptance of the miraculous could also be
clearly understood by her avid interest in The Science of Mind textbook by
Ernest Holmes, in which you find words such as:
By some inner mystic Presence,
I was told to live and to love, to laugh and to be glad.
I was told to be still and know of the One Almighty Power,
in and through all.
I was told to let that Power work through and in me.
I believed that voice and I received my Good.
I am healed——The joy of Life.
Einstein said, “There are two ways to live one’s life—as
if nothing is a miracle, or as if everything is.”
We are part of the Divine Choir singing Alleluia throughout
all of eternity! Let’s make that joyful noise, the sound of merriment.
