Upon returning from school every day, as a young child, I would go sit with two guys in a haggard near our home, as they made lobster pots for my fisherman Dad. What did we talk about? I have no idea but I remember clearly gazing on the neatly piled sally rodds. Simple abundance about to be used to create something magnificent. Right now as I write, what I wouldn’t give to lay my eyes once again on one such lobster pot!!
Seemingly, one afternoon my Dad came to fetch me and not wanting to leave, I ran off to my hiding place close by. I asked the men to please tell my Dad I was not there. My Dad stood for a moment before replying: ‘I know she is here. I can hear her singing’.
In my hiding place that day I completely forgot to stop singing, and thank God, every day since my charming childhood, hail, rain or snow, the song continues on, by the glorious grace of God.
A guy in our Holy Rosary group rarely speaks but always he joins in when we sing. Singing makes him feel happy, he told me once.
I heard a Sister say recently that the practice of virtues such as compassion, kindness, forgiveness, gratitude and patience can actually change the neuro pathways in the brain resulting in healing hope and new life.
I would add ‘singing’ to that life-giving list. I remember reading one time that each activity lights up some part of the brain while music and song light up the whole brain.
Right now my crows are ‘singing’ at the bottom of my garden. How they sound is irrelevant!! They just love to sing and no one is excluded.
All together now……
‘Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music’. (George Eliot)
