My Cup Overflows

In 4th grade, I picked up an oboe for the first time and didn't put it down for 9 years.  The echo of the last chord ringing through an auditorium fills my heart with extreme gladness.  I joined various choirs and to this day you will hear me trying so hard to nail every harmony in an Ingrid Michaelson song.  Over the course of 3 years in highschool, I made a dozen mix tapes for the boy I had a crush on saturated with secret messages of teen angst and unrequited romance.  

When I hear a choir singing a beautiful hymn, I am carried to a place of such deep spirituality.  When that same hymn is contemporized, the comfort swells inside me and I am reminded of expansive ways God is manifest in the world.  A Taizé chant softens my heart to God, to transformation, to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Because of the solace I take in music, I am able to move through the world authentically without fear because a solid chord progression or key change can bring me right back to center instantly.

I get music. Music gets me.

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend told me that she had made a playlist of songs to listen to while making out.  Having never kissed anyone, I made a face kind of like this:

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)

I couldn't understand why that was even a thing. Do you stop kissing someone and say, "oh. hold on. I have a playlist for this"?  What happens when the playlist is done? Do people even kiss that long?  I just didn't get it.. at all.. why did she need to have both of these things at once?

And then I kissed someone.  It felt remarkable, not just physically, but in my spirit.  Because of kissing, I began to understand the world around me so much better because, at last.. finally, I could understand this body in which my spirit dwells.  It tapped into my belief that I can only exist because others exist. I finally knew, tangibly, that someone else existed.

Kissing and music are two elements of what makes my spirit come alive, what makes my heart rejoice and glorify God.  They are part of a myriad of experiences that add up to the way I bear witness to the revealed God in the world.  I can see, now, why my best friend made that playlist.  When you find things that make your spirit come alive, imagine the good it may do to experience both of those things at the same time.