Hearing Faith and Love

By -

This week, in particular, I have been thinking a lot about the importance of my faith and hearing God's word. From experience, I believe that to have religion in your life is so important, especially in times of sorrow, doubt, and fear. While reading Rasmussen's book, I thought about how wonderful it is to hear God's word through music. In the Protestant church we have hymns so I can appreciate the musical religious practices. The emotions that surface while hearing music in a religious setting are intense and can bring on powerful memories. Any time I hear the hymn Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord?) I tear up, no matter what. Listening to religious singing is such a wonderful thing to experience in faith.

http://faithisland.org/faith/hearing-the-voice-of-god/

I am currently going through a bit of a rough patch in my personal life and I have been getting a lot of guidance from people. Listening to the advice I am given has been helping so much. My parents, friends, and professors have all been supporting me and telling me exactly what I need to hear. I think the next best thing for me to do is to go to my church, hear my ministers speak, sing the hymns and remember that all will be okay.

Comments

  1. Marissa KanakryMarch 31, 2022 at 10:01 PM

    Your post made me reflect on my own experiences of sound and religion. My home church has both a children's and adult choir, organ/organist, and at the holidays, almost a full band with numerous instruments. However, when my family cannot get to church on Sunday mornings, sometimes we opt to go to another church for mass on Sunday night. This mass is only 25-30 minutes long because there is no music, singing, or instruments which definitely makes for a different experience. Although I am not the best singer, I definitely agree with you that it is wonderful to hear God's word through music, and I appreciate this musical aspect of religious traditions and practices so much. You alluded to how healing music can be, too. Thank you for sharing, Eliza!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amidst the Pandemic

By -
Image
I think having the opportunity to take Smells and Bells and then experiencing a worldwide pandemic came with good timing. Oftentimes, we’re so rushed to get from one one place to another that we miss out on what happens around us. We’re so accustomed to the lifestyle of being busy that it has become the norm for many of us. However, the pandemic has forced us to slow down. We’re now appreciating everything that we had previously taken for granted and noticing things in our surroundings that we have never noticed before.  Take this quarantining/social distancing as an opportunity to be more aware of what you experience through the senses. I don’t think my senses have necessarily heightened over the past 5 weeks, but I am actively making the choice to pay more attention to what I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. I like going on nature/mindfulness walks and basking in the sunshine out in my backyard. This morning, I could hear a faint noise from the wind, hear the birds chirping, f
Read more

Food in the Afterlife

By -
Image
In Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Perez talks of Ashabi and her grandchildren providing food offerings to their ancestors. This immediately reminded me of the practice of food sacrifice in early China. I've taken Chinese language classes for about 7 years now and in one of the lessons, we learned about food as well as the history of food in Chinese culture. Ashabi and her grandchildren would give food offerings to their ancestors every day. This included nine beverages (coffee, liquor, and water mixed with sugar and molasses) and nine square pieces of coconut topped with red palm oil and guinea pepper. The offerings would also include whatever food was dropped on the ground. In their house, food dropping on the floor signified more than it would in common American households. It signified that the ancestors wanted that food and had willingly made it fall to the floor. They also used dishware that had been chipped which was
Read more