What the power of music shows us

Music has helped me immeasurably during the pandemic – inspired me to feel confident in the face of our collective adversity and lifted my spirits so I can help others. Judging by the number of concerts people have been attending online, many are receiving inspiration in this way.

Judging from the four Gospels, I imagine music was important to Jesus as well. He quotes the Hebrew songbook, Psalms, more than any other biblical book. Before his arrest, he and his disciples sing a hymn. On the cross, Jesus quotes the first line of Psalm 22 – a song that starts with anguish and a feeling of persecution and ends with a paean of praise.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, wrote, “Music is the harmony of being;...” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 106). Music can touch our heart because our being is so much more than nerves and bones and eardrums. We are, in our true being, not physical at all but purely spiritual – each of us a reflection of the Divine.

Music connects us to what we are spiritually – to the eternal harmony, rhythm, and beauty of our being and the singing of our heart. Mrs. Eddy also observed, “Being is holiness, harmony, immortality” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” pp. 492).

And the fact that God’s being is all-harmonious not only causes us to feel and respond to harmony in music but has inevitable implications regarding our health. Because all-harmonious God is truly infinite, discord in any form cannot be real in the sense of having been created by or being known to God. This gives us, as expressions of the Divine, authority for identifying discord as illegitimate and powerless to undermine our harmony (including our health).

To the degree that we understand that the law of harmony is supreme and constantly in operation, we experience and can effect healing. “Harmony in man is as beautiful as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal” (Science and Health, p. 304).

The Bible includes many accounts that, to me, illustrate that as harmony and praise to God fill consciousness, there is no room left for fear and discord. One Old Testament leader, King Jehoshaphat, sent out singers to praise God in advance of his army, and the battle was won without his army even needing to fight (see II Chronicles 20:14-23).

In my own case, last year music helped me feel the power of the Christ, God’s ever-present assurance of harmony and wholeness, and experience healing. One evening I felt an extreme pain in my chest, and it seemed to constrict my breathing. Because I have often seen pain quickly healed through prayer, I prayed, knowing that I was, in truth, well and harmonious.

I asked a friend who is a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. I continued to assert vigorously my harmonious status as the reflection of God. I listened to an audio recording of that week’s Bible Lesson from the “Christian Science Quarterly,” and that was helpful. And then, out of a desire to lift my thought off my body, I turned on a classical music radio station.

I listened for about 15 minutes, and then fell asleep! When I awoke a little later, I felt much better. I went back to sleep, and when I awoke the next morning, I felt fine. A day or two later I went for a 10-kilometer run, which involved, as usual, a lot of deep breathing. The problem was gone and hasn’t returned in the year and a half since. I feel that prayer led me to listen to that beautiful music, and that the powerful affirmation of harmony expressed through it contributed significantly to the healing.

Our lives glorify God and “make music” when we live in harmony. Because the divine Being that we reflect is all-harmonious, living harmoniously is the most natural thing in the world. We do this through expressing, for example, selflessness, love, joy, and patience.

We all have the opportunity at every moment to express harmony, whether we’re untying a child’s bootlaces after a walk in the snow, sending an instant message to a friend, or waiting in line to be served in a store. Music reminds us of the harmony of God and helps lift our thought above fear and disease to God’s harmonious government of the universe, which can bring healing for everyone.

Adapted from an article published in the Aug. 16, 2021, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.