Music to my ears

As you leave church on Sunday, I wonder how many conversations you will have about faith during the week.

Somehow, I don’t find Christianity is a natural part of everyday exchanges and it can feel quite hard to introduce it. The default assumption seems to be that you aren’t a Christian, not that you are.

Today we all seem a bit wary about what we say (unless you’re called Trump), incase it offends or is unacceptable in some way. So faith, personal beliefs, don’t tend to arisespontaneously as part of the day-to-day dialogue unless they are the ‘official’ subject of focus, especially not on broadcast media. So imagine my surprise and delight when, driving to Exeter recently, I came across a music game on the radio which brought up Jesus! The game was to introduce a treasured track or piece of music and link it to the preceding piece of music. It started with Otis Redding’s “Sitting on the dock of the bay”.

Nothing religious mentioned there, though great to listen to! And interesting to learn that the version we all know was a demo because he died in a plane crash shortly after recording it.

The link to the next piece was chosen by Maya Youssef. “On the waves of the sea” is a Syrian folk song and the link was the chilled vibe Otis sang about, but this time it was about walking by the sea. And here is where the first surprise came. The artist who sang it was a classmate of Maya, called Lana Chamamyan. Maya talked about her hauntingly beautiful music but what she didn’t know was that Lana had sung in church as a young girl and was a Syrian Christian. No reason to mention it but one of the other presenters felt it important to do so. Interesting that Lana’s close friend didn’t know. Even more interesting that he felt we should all know.

It was Lana’s heritage that led to the big surprise though. Lana was born in Damascus. And the presenter chose Damascus as his link. The music he introduced to us was Mendelssohn’s oratorio St Paul. About Saul’s life changing conversion on the road to Damascus. And what was wonderful about this was how they were all so moved by the music as an experience of God. They talked of its expression of the mystical life. The long road in Damascus that Saul (as he was then) travelled down. How the music is so overwhelmingly beautiful that you can’t help but feel God is everywhere, all around you, that you have to surrender to God.

It was a wonderful 30 minutes of spontaneous witness, and reminded me that there are many different ways to share our delight in the wonder the God.

If you'd like to hear the full programme which is called "Add to Playlist" just click this link  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028l3c

God bless

Vicki

P.S.  And some more good news. According to Nielsen Book Data, sales of the Bible have increased by 87% between 2019 and 2024, from £2.69 million to £5.02 million. And The Bible Society said that its 2018 volume; Good News Bible - The Youth Edition was by far their most popular. (The Times, Saturday March 15 2025)