The Power of Music

Curious, how children coming from the same womb and raised in the same home can be so different. Mine each walked and talked at different ages.  They each had a favorite thing to carry, favorite book favorite past time.. One thing, however, was the same with all my children. I seemed to lost my authority and influence over them once they got their own 'boom boxes' Now it is i-pod; then it was the boom-box, a great big ungainly black machine that plugged into the wall and  out of which came the offerings or lures of various radio stations.

I had been careful with what my children ate (no sugary cereals, plenty of fruit, no soda with meals). I chose their friends by befriending their parents. TV was carefully screened. I was a stay-at- home mom so I had control over what they ate, saw, read.

However, each of them at one time or other requested and received a boom box. That meant that in their rooms they could turn on whatever stations they wanted.

And what they wanted was unacceptable to me. But I had lost them. Nothing was the same after each one got his or her own music. It was as if SUDDENLY their brains were reprogrammed. Their countenances changed as did their vocabulary and posture.

I just started reading a book called Why I Left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement by Dan Lucarini. At first I thought, "Oh come on. Everything was contemporary once. Even who we now call classical composers often scandalized their first audiences with their creations to the point that some walked out in mass.

But then I started to feel Dan's heart. And I started to remember the boom box and the effect it had on each of my children. As I am typing this I'm listening to Hillsong. It's contemporary. But as I am listening to it, I am worshipful on the inside.

However what my children heard did not make them worshipful on the inside. It turned them ito creatures I didn't recognize.

 I had worship music in the house, plenty of it and played it in the car so often they memorized the words to entire tapes! Is the answer to keep children from access to a free choice of music?   I do know this: music is mysterious in its lure, its ability to transcend and transform. It invades hearts and moves feelings.

A click on PLAY and a room changes from a cave of loneliness  to an oasis of peace; it changes from NOW  to memories of being with my father as he held me as a child; it changes from light to dark, from dark to light, from complacency to determination, from smugness to remorse. 

When my son was an older teen and was listening to 'his' music in his car I made a decision to listen to it. What I found out was that there was a message in it, and it was thought-provoking. I decided I liked his music. My liking his music opened his heart toward me. My older daughter has become a huge fan of country music.  My younger daughter loves The Grateful Dead. I had to smile when I saw her sticking her prayer request into the wailing wall in Jerusalem. I could just see the back of her t-shirt which read "Ask Someone Who Cares".

So does music change us? or do we choose music that reflects our present feelings? It was a question asked by a literature professor at Indiana University: does literature influence our opinions or do we write literature to reflect what society feels?

Music. Is there anything else with such a strong influence?