Week 36: Songs of the Heart
Dear Loved Ones,
Teaching is slim in my little branch, but there are some definite perks to being in a YSA. Our area is huge, so we get to roadtrip everywhere and see cool old houses in Kansas City on one side and green countryside with huge midwest sunsets on the other side. And the people are chill. I've been given rides by middle aged ladies before who have normal music playing when we get in the car, and then they shut it off or change it to churchy music, as if we're somehow rarified and exalted and need to be untouched by the things of this world. We had a YSA barbecue with music playing from a speaker hooked up to someone's phone, and I told the guy, "Hey, I haven't heard Jasmine's song from the new Aladdin movie." And he blasted it for me.
I lead some really great tours this week. I took this elderly man through the area where I talk about Mary Elizabeth Rollins, and as I finished my little spiel, tears rolled down his face. He said, "She is my three times great-grandmother." I stepped over from my presentation spot at the front to his bench at the back and took his hand. He kept telling me stories about his grandma. It was an honor to have him! I found out that her original diary is in the BYU archives and I'm going to read it when I get back.
Yesterday I toured a woman from the Community of Christ, formerly known as the RLDS. It was weird because I wasn't sure whether to go into member tour mode or non-member tour mode. Our history is shared, but she didn't know it as well as most members of our church. She asked if Parley P. Pratt was one of the Three Witnesses. Some of the videos throughout the tour have hymns and we got on a discussion about what hymns we did and didn't share. I pulled out a hymn book, flipped through all the old ones, and sang them to see what she'd recognize. In the early days of hymns, they weren't paired with tunes, and you could match whatever lyrics with whatever music. There are some lyrics they'd lost, but they'd held onto the tune. So I could start singing a hymn like O My Father and she'd jump in with the lyrics of a completely different song. We have the same foundation, but we've gone different ways with it.
One way we've separated is the Book of Mormon. She said her church doesn't read it much anymore, but after my tour, she would pull it down and give it a look.
Another perk of the visitors' center is getting to serve in close proximity to so many other sisters. I counted out and Independence has 46 missionaries. The total mission count is 185. Everyone blames the visitors' center for the high count, but that's not excuse enough. I think they're blitzing it for the Second Coming. Maybe I'm only seeing what I want to look for, but sometimes I think the mood of apocalypse hangs over Independence. People, non-members, mention every now and then that they feel like the end is nigh. That's fun for me to fantasize about, but so far, every generation has predicted the Second Coming, and so far, every generation has been wrong. So I'll guess no and be pleasantly surprised when it happens.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
Also, I gave a talk about music this week. You can read it if you want.
Only two months after the organization of the restored church, the Lord commanded Emma Smith to get to work compiling a hymn book.
"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." As soon as we had the Book of Mormon and a church, the next thing we needed was songs.
Hymns can encapsulate precious doctrine in a way that even scripture cannot. Sometimes they give us a voice and a clear understanding of topics only touched on in scripture. Only an ordained prophet may write scripture, but anyone can write a song. Three summers ago, I got to help archeologists excavate the caBIN IN Nauvoo where Eliza R. Snow lived while she wrote the hymn O My Father. I never found anything but dirt, but one of my friends found an old key. We started referring to it as the key of knowledge, after the verse that goes,
I had learned to call thee Father,
Thru thy Spirit from on high,
But, until the key of knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heav’ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me I’ve a mother there.
Church history is rampant with statements affirming the existence of a Heavenly Mother, but nowhere in our scripture is She as clearly and perfectly acknowledged. The hymn itself acts as a key of knowledge reminding us of her divine existence.
How many other parts of our doctrine, our history, our culture, are most completely captured in music? We are all familiar enough with our own history to know the pioneer trek west was hard, but where would we be without William Clayton's Come, Come Ye Saints? Shortly after excavating Eliza R. Snow's cabin site, I visited a small museum in either Iowa or Nebraska that had an exhibit on this song. The church does not run this museum, but the museum shows all who visit how this song has swept the world. To those of us who have pioneer heritage, this song stands as an anthem of our ancestors, but it is our song regardless of where our ancestors were in 1865. I've sung it in England in a ward where the people aren't from pioneer stock. In the days before the church could send missionaries to Africa, a man named Joseph William Billy Johnson in Ghana obtained a Book of Mormon in 1964 and soon had a homemade testimony of it. He was strengthened by a dream where his deceased brother appeared to him and told him, "Don't worry. You have chosen the only true church." He said that if he didn't believe him, he would sing a song for him from his church, and proceeded to sing Come, Come Ye Saints. He established a congregation before the church could get to Africa to baptize him (which is how thousands of early African members came to the church before the church could send missionaries there) and sang this song with his little flock. He felt inspired the early pioneers and named that song as his favorite.
Even before they could be baptized, this song let the people of Ghana claim a place in our common heritage.
Music doesn't have to be hymns to be uplifting.
Last summer, I worked for a book editing company. One of my clients was an atheist writing a book trying to disprove religion. I didn't want to take on the project, but nobody else at the company was available to do it and I didn't have any other projects to choose from. So it became mine. THe project was painful, not only because the author was trying to bring down religion, but because his arguments were just bad. My job was to make them better. "Dear Sir, spending an entire page explaining that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and is covered with red rocks is not, in fact, disprovig religion with science." I had a thousand tiny battles to choose. Sometimes I let his terrible arguments stand without fixing them in hopes that this book wouldn't persuade anyone to turn away from Christ. But I was being paid seven hundred dollars to fix this book, so I also had to do my job with integrity and fix up most of the awfulness. It was so painful. I always listen to music while I work, usually musical soundtracks, but at that time, I knew blasting Hamilton wouldn't be able to get me through that project. Every hundred pages or so, he'd actually come up with a good argument and my testimony would twitch a bit. I needed something to keep the Spirit around. I thought back to a soundtrack I hadn't heard in years, to a musical called Children of Eden. It's based on the book of Genesis and gives Eve a solo called Spark of Creation. That song is the only accurate representation of Eve I've ever come across outside of our own temple portrayal. She is not a temptress of a gullible girl seduced by a snake, she's a woman who seeks knowledge and wants to be creative. My favorite part goes,
"I've got a feeling that the father who made us, when he was kindling the pulse in my veins, he left a tiny spark of a fire that cannot be denied.
I am an echo of the eternal cry of 'let them be."
That song got me through the grueling work of editing my atheist book. I listened to it over and over again. It speaks to me of the creative power of women, from Eve down to Eliza R. Snow, and to me as I was doing the creative work of editing. After I was set apart as a missionary, I wanted to write in my journal to music of a spiritual nature, and that song was the only one I could think to listen to.
Missionaries are primarily exposed to music by hearing other sisters play songs over a car stereo. I spent the first three months of my mission in a bike area, so I didn't have access to a car and couldn't discover new churchy music. So I only had seven songs and had to listen to them over and over again. That was one of them. It took root in my heart. It carries the memory of a time I got through a work situation that tried and failed to undermine my testimony. It was my song of triumph and hope after i overcome many people who tried to hold me back from going on a mission and I could finally celebrate being set apart. The standard by which music must ultimately be judged as uplifting is not genre, volume, tempo, choral vs. solo, or whether the singer is a member of our own church or not, but by how it makes you feel. Can you feel the Spirit?
Some people feel the Spirit through wholesome country or pop. My brother, a missionary in Chicago, fell in love with Nashville Tribute Band and blasts a country song about JOhn the Baptist every time he has a baptism. I read a Tori Kelly's interview a few years ago where she says her song Hollow is actually about Christ, not a boy, and the line "pour out your perfection on me now"is is about his love for us. Also, i only brought up Tori Kelly right now to give Talitha a shoutout for sending me her gospel album.
Two nights ago, my companion and I joined some other sisters for a late-over where we ate ice cream and livestreamed President Nelson's 95th birthday concert. Of all the ways he could've chosen to celebrate, he had a concert with the whole world. If you weren't able to watch it live, I highly recommend watching it now. The concert featured our own church's hymns, yes, but also American folk hymns, President Nelson's Chopin solo, and fun songs like You Raise Me Up or The Prayer from Quest for Camelot. All kind of music can bring the Spirit and unite us as people of faith.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Teaching is slim in my little branch, but there are some definite perks to being in a YSA. Our area is huge, so we get to roadtrip everywhere and see cool old houses in Kansas City on one side and green countryside with huge midwest sunsets on the other side. And the people are chill. I've been given rides by middle aged ladies before who have normal music playing when we get in the car, and then they shut it off or change it to churchy music, as if we're somehow rarified and exalted and need to be untouched by the things of this world. We had a YSA barbecue with music playing from a speaker hooked up to someone's phone, and I told the guy, "Hey, I haven't heard Jasmine's song from the new Aladdin movie." And he blasted it for me.
I lead some really great tours this week. I took this elderly man through the area where I talk about Mary Elizabeth Rollins, and as I finished my little spiel, tears rolled down his face. He said, "She is my three times great-grandmother." I stepped over from my presentation spot at the front to his bench at the back and took his hand. He kept telling me stories about his grandma. It was an honor to have him! I found out that her original diary is in the BYU archives and I'm going to read it when I get back.
Yesterday I toured a woman from the Community of Christ, formerly known as the RLDS. It was weird because I wasn't sure whether to go into member tour mode or non-member tour mode. Our history is shared, but she didn't know it as well as most members of our church. She asked if Parley P. Pratt was one of the Three Witnesses. Some of the videos throughout the tour have hymns and we got on a discussion about what hymns we did and didn't share. I pulled out a hymn book, flipped through all the old ones, and sang them to see what she'd recognize. In the early days of hymns, they weren't paired with tunes, and you could match whatever lyrics with whatever music. There are some lyrics they'd lost, but they'd held onto the tune. So I could start singing a hymn like O My Father and she'd jump in with the lyrics of a completely different song. We have the same foundation, but we've gone different ways with it.
One way we've separated is the Book of Mormon. She said her church doesn't read it much anymore, but after my tour, she would pull it down and give it a look.
Another perk of the visitors' center is getting to serve in close proximity to so many other sisters. I counted out and Independence has 46 missionaries. The total mission count is 185. Everyone blames the visitors' center for the high count, but that's not excuse enough. I think they're blitzing it for the Second Coming. Maybe I'm only seeing what I want to look for, but sometimes I think the mood of apocalypse hangs over Independence. People, non-members, mention every now and then that they feel like the end is nigh. That's fun for me to fantasize about, but so far, every generation has predicted the Second Coming, and so far, every generation has been wrong. So I'll guess no and be pleasantly surprised when it happens.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
Also, I gave a talk about music this week. You can read it if you want.
Only two months after the organization of the restored church, the Lord commanded Emma Smith to get to work compiling a hymn book.
"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." As soon as we had the Book of Mormon and a church, the next thing we needed was songs.
Hymns can encapsulate precious doctrine in a way that even scripture cannot. Sometimes they give us a voice and a clear understanding of topics only touched on in scripture. Only an ordained prophet may write scripture, but anyone can write a song. Three summers ago, I got to help archeologists excavate the caBIN IN Nauvoo where Eliza R. Snow lived while she wrote the hymn O My Father. I never found anything but dirt, but one of my friends found an old key. We started referring to it as the key of knowledge, after the verse that goes,
I had learned to call thee Father,
Thru thy Spirit from on high,
But, until the key of knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heav’ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me I’ve a mother there.
Church history is rampant with statements affirming the existence of a Heavenly Mother, but nowhere in our scripture is She as clearly and perfectly acknowledged. The hymn itself acts as a key of knowledge reminding us of her divine existence.
How many other parts of our doctrine, our history, our culture, are most completely captured in music? We are all familiar enough with our own history to know the pioneer trek west was hard, but where would we be without William Clayton's Come, Come Ye Saints? Shortly after excavating Eliza R. Snow's cabin site, I visited a small museum in either Iowa or Nebraska that had an exhibit on this song. The church does not run this museum, but the museum shows all who visit how this song has swept the world. To those of us who have pioneer heritage, this song stands as an anthem of our ancestors, but it is our song regardless of where our ancestors were in 1865. I've sung it in England in a ward where the people aren't from pioneer stock. In the days before the church could send missionaries to Africa, a man named Joseph William Billy Johnson in Ghana obtained a Book of Mormon in 1964 and soon had a homemade testimony of it. He was strengthened by a dream where his deceased brother appeared to him and told him, "Don't worry. You have chosen the only true church." He said that if he didn't believe him, he would sing a song for him from his church, and proceeded to sing Come, Come Ye Saints. He established a congregation before the church could get to Africa to baptize him (which is how thousands of early African members came to the church before the church could send missionaries there) and sang this song with his little flock. He felt inspired the early pioneers and named that song as his favorite.
Even before they could be baptized, this song let the people of Ghana claim a place in our common heritage.
Music doesn't have to be hymns to be uplifting.
Last summer, I worked for a book editing company. One of my clients was an atheist writing a book trying to disprove religion. I didn't want to take on the project, but nobody else at the company was available to do it and I didn't have any other projects to choose from. So it became mine. THe project was painful, not only because the author was trying to bring down religion, but because his arguments were just bad. My job was to make them better. "Dear Sir, spending an entire page explaining that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and is covered with red rocks is not, in fact, disprovig religion with science." I had a thousand tiny battles to choose. Sometimes I let his terrible arguments stand without fixing them in hopes that this book wouldn't persuade anyone to turn away from Christ. But I was being paid seven hundred dollars to fix this book, so I also had to do my job with integrity and fix up most of the awfulness. It was so painful. I always listen to music while I work, usually musical soundtracks, but at that time, I knew blasting Hamilton wouldn't be able to get me through that project. Every hundred pages or so, he'd actually come up with a good argument and my testimony would twitch a bit. I needed something to keep the Spirit around. I thought back to a soundtrack I hadn't heard in years, to a musical called Children of Eden. It's based on the book of Genesis and gives Eve a solo called Spark of Creation. That song is the only accurate representation of Eve I've ever come across outside of our own temple portrayal. She is not a temptress of a gullible girl seduced by a snake, she's a woman who seeks knowledge and wants to be creative. My favorite part goes,
"I've got a feeling that the father who made us, when he was kindling the pulse in my veins, he left a tiny spark of a fire that cannot be denied.
I am an echo of the eternal cry of 'let them be."
That song got me through the grueling work of editing my atheist book. I listened to it over and over again. It speaks to me of the creative power of women, from Eve down to Eliza R. Snow, and to me as I was doing the creative work of editing. After I was set apart as a missionary, I wanted to write in my journal to music of a spiritual nature, and that song was the only one I could think to listen to.
Missionaries are primarily exposed to music by hearing other sisters play songs over a car stereo. I spent the first three months of my mission in a bike area, so I didn't have access to a car and couldn't discover new churchy music. So I only had seven songs and had to listen to them over and over again. That was one of them. It took root in my heart. It carries the memory of a time I got through a work situation that tried and failed to undermine my testimony. It was my song of triumph and hope after i overcome many people who tried to hold me back from going on a mission and I could finally celebrate being set apart. The standard by which music must ultimately be judged as uplifting is not genre, volume, tempo, choral vs. solo, or whether the singer is a member of our own church or not, but by how it makes you feel. Can you feel the Spirit?
Some people feel the Spirit through wholesome country or pop. My brother, a missionary in Chicago, fell in love with Nashville Tribute Band and blasts a country song about JOhn the Baptist every time he has a baptism. I read a Tori Kelly's interview a few years ago where she says her song Hollow is actually about Christ, not a boy, and the line "pour out your perfection on me now"is is about his love for us. Also, i only brought up Tori Kelly right now to give Talitha a shoutout for sending me her gospel album.
Two nights ago, my companion and I joined some other sisters for a late-over where we ate ice cream and livestreamed President Nelson's 95th birthday concert. Of all the ways he could've chosen to celebrate, he had a concert with the whole world. If you weren't able to watch it live, I highly recommend watching it now. The concert featured our own church's hymns, yes, but also American folk hymns, President Nelson's Chopin solo, and fun songs like You Raise Me Up or The Prayer from Quest for Camelot. All kind of music can bring the Spirit and unite us as people of faith.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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