Shall we sing?

Every Sunday, someone asks: "What are we singing today?" or some variation thereof.  We only seem to sing one song, and the songs are, well, weird.  At least, that's what I thought when I attended my first meeting of the Ethical Society of Austin, and everyone stood up to sing "Circles."  (No, I had never heard of Harry Chapin, and, yes, I know now that that is a major gap in my life.)  I was frankly a tad surprised to find out that we even had a songbook, apparently operating under the impression that humanists didn't have any music (like feminists don't have a sense of humor?).

Since then, my mind has been opened to a new world of music.  I have always loved music, both singing and listening, but I didn't always seem to pay attention to the lyrics (singers do not always enunciate, y'know).  While everyone else was hearing a message, I was hearing tone and rhythm.  Awkward.  Now, as never before, I look at the lyrics to hear the message as well as the melody.  Songs that I had listened to are now songs that I can sing.

It is also clearer to me why a constant thread in Felix Adler's Founding Address was music and its importance as an adjunct to our meetings,  He said that music would serve as "a pleasing and grateful auxiliary" to the lectures and would "elevate the heart and give rest to the feelings."  A little later in the Address, he speaks of the "public teacher," one who would be presenting one or more of these lectures:

And what he fails to express, what no language that was ever spoken on earth can express--those nameless yearnings of the soul for something better and happier far than aught we know of--Music will give them utterance and solve and soothe them.

Yea, verily!

My own musical history is somewhat complicated and probably irrelevant here, but I do need to say that the musical aspects of The Ethical Society of Austin do elevate my heart, do give utterance to my yearning for a better, happier world. When we sing "Ode to Joy," my cup runneth over.  I do think that Adler was personifying Music and thinking in broader terms than simple "messages," but I am content that beauty can also be practical (but doesn't have to be) and that a message can also come with a good tune (just enunciate, for garden seed!).