I have a couple pet peeves. One of them is when I hear someone say, “I’m not a singer.”
We are all singers. We were born to sing.
When I hear, “I’m not a singer,” it reminds me of how many of us live a life disconnected from the life we were created to live. And the disconnection is rooted in being embarrassed and afraid.
I understand the fact that some people struggle to hear and match pitch. I understand some people’s voices are naturally set higher or lower, some are naturally more nasally or throaty, and some are not meant to be heard in solo.
But that has nothing to do with being a singer.
When I’m at mass, sometimes I just like to close my eyes during one of the hymns and listen. Have you ever done that? All those different, unique voices coming together in one hymn supporting you and wrapping around you like a blanket. When I’m lucky, I’ll hear a voice that sticks out and carries me a little bit further and makes me cry.
It’s never the first or second voice I hear. And it’s never the voice of the person who loves to sing and assumes I love to hear them too. You have to listen further and deeper. It’s the voice of the elderly person struggling in health, or the sleep deprived young mother, or the middle aged father, now an empty nester, at mass alone with his wife.
Left alone, these singers might not sing a note, but in this hymn, in this church, in this moment, they use their voice to be a part of something beautiful and wonderful, giving what they have away. And they do so, because it’s not about them or their feelings or if they have a “good” voice. It’s about something deeper.
Those are the voices that make me cry. I think to myself, if I were God, what voice would I love to hear more? The voice of the person who claims to be a singer, or the voice of the “non-singer,” willing to come to me with the voice they were given?
We are all singers. That doesn’t mean we have to start singing solos. But it does mean our voice matters and was created to be heard. Not for ourselves. But for each other and for Him.
We are all singers. We were born to sing.
When I hear, “I’m not a singer,” it reminds me of how many of us live a life disconnected from the life we were created to live. And the disconnection is rooted in being embarrassed and afraid.
I understand the fact that some people struggle to hear and match pitch. I understand some people’s voices are naturally set higher or lower, some are naturally more nasally or throaty, and some are not meant to be heard in solo.
But that has nothing to do with being a singer.
When I’m at mass, sometimes I just like to close my eyes during one of the hymns and listen. Have you ever done that? All those different, unique voices coming together in one hymn supporting you and wrapping around you like a blanket. When I’m lucky, I’ll hear a voice that sticks out and carries me a little bit further and makes me cry.
It’s never the first or second voice I hear. And it’s never the voice of the person who loves to sing and assumes I love to hear them too. You have to listen further and deeper. It’s the voice of the elderly person struggling in health, or the sleep deprived young mother, or the middle aged father, now an empty nester, at mass alone with his wife.
Left alone, these singers might not sing a note, but in this hymn, in this church, in this moment, they use their voice to be a part of something beautiful and wonderful, giving what they have away. And they do so, because it’s not about them or their feelings or if they have a “good” voice. It’s about something deeper.
Those are the voices that make me cry. I think to myself, if I were God, what voice would I love to hear more? The voice of the person who claims to be a singer, or the voice of the “non-singer,” willing to come to me with the voice they were given?
We are all singers. That doesn’t mean we have to start singing solos. But it does mean our voice matters and was created to be heard. Not for ourselves. But for each other and for Him.