MUSIC
The first thought that came to mind when I was first asked to speak today was the council of Christ when he instructed the Twelve Apostles to go forth to preach in Matt. 10:19 “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.” Since I have not yet risen to the level of the faith of Christ’s Twelve Apostles to speak really totally by the spirit, my next thought was from D&C 38:30 “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.”
To start off I would like to share with you a discussion that took place between my mom and dad about 21 years ago. It started off with my dad making the following proclamation, “When we have kids, they are all going to learn how to play the piano.” My mom questioned this, asking “What if they don’t want to learn to play the piano?” My dad responded to this by stating, “Well, what if they don’t want to learn how to read?” My mom being a teacher by profession responded, “But they HAVE to learn to read.” To which my dad responded, “Well, they HAVE to learn to play the piano.”
From that conversation stemmed the foundation for the importance of music in our home.
The First Presidency has said, “Music has boundless powers for moving families toward greater spirituality and devotion to the gospel. Latter-day Saints should fill their homes with the sound of worthy music.”
Like cleanliness, order, and decor, music can color the mood in our homes. It is important to note that different kinds of music can affect the home in different ways. Music is used in a variety of ways. It is used in the medical field as a source of research and as a sort of therapy as well. Music has been used as therapy for seizures, to lower blood pressure, treat ADD children, treat mental illness, treat depression, aid in healing, treat stress and insomnia and premature infants.
Musicologist Julius Portnoy found that music can change metabolic rates, increase or decrease blood pressure, effect energy levels, and digestion, positively or negatively, depending on the type of music. Calming music, such as classical music was found to have a very calming effect on the body, and cause the increase of endorphins, thirty minutes of such music was equal to the effect of a dose of valium. Both hemispheres of the brain are involved in processing music. The music in these studies is not the "lyrics", but the music itself, the melody, the tones, the tunes, the rhythm, the chords.
Conversely music has also been documented to cause sickness. The right, or wrong music, rather, can be like a poison to the body. Studies have been done on plants where loud hard rock music, for instance, killed plants and soft classical music, make the plants grow faster. Music is very powerful, like a drug and can even be an addiction. Parents, just as you would not tolerate pornography in your home, do not let unworthy music infiltrate your household.
In the case of Patty Hearst, it was documented that music was used in the aid of brainwashing her. In the book, Elevator Music, by Joseph Lanza, it states that certain types of music over prolonged periods in certain conditions, were shown to cause seizures.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “We … live in a world that is too prone to the tasteless and we need to provide an opportunity to cultivate a taste for the finest music. And likewise, we’re in a world that’s so attuned to the now. We need to permit people to be more attuned to the best music of all the ages.”
Some parents don’t understand why their kids listen to the kind of music they listen to.
If a young person grows up on a steady diet of hamburgers and french fries, he is not likely to become a gourmet. But the fault is not with fine food. He just grew up on something less. Some have grown up on a steady diet of musical french fries. I was blessed in my youth to have been brought up on gourmet music and not grease soaked French fry music.
It is very important that we monitor the kinds of music present in our home. Music can have a large impact on our mood and how we view things. In my family, I have noticed the impact Christmas music has on the family. When secular Christmas music is played, I often find my self in a cheerful upbeat mood, excited for the Christmas season. When religious, Christ centered, Christmas music is played I find myself more likely to reflect on the true purpose of the Christmas holiday, to remember the Savior’s birth and his role in our life.
All of the hymns can have a similar effect as well. We need not limit the hymns to the walls of the Church. With the hymns we can create our own places of sanctuary and peace. The feeling of the spirit after experiencing an inspiring lesson at church can be destroyed in the home if we allow ourselves to be subjected to boisterous music. Hymns in the home can nourish the feelings and presence of the spirit while creating an environment that helps us keep the Sabbath day holy.
Spiritually uplifting music greets us when we enter the chapel for sacrament meeting, it sets the mood, its lyrics enlighten us while its melodies can sooth or invigorate us. Music is a very important part of our worship services here. In fact revelation was given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Harmony, Pennsylvania, July 1830 concerning the Lord’s view of this music. In D&C 25:12 the Lord said: “For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads.” We should not underestimate the importance of music in our religious services. Music is a form of worship, a multipurpose tool which the Lord has blessed us with. Hymns can play an essential role in spirituality, revelation, and conversion.
Hymns Invite Conversion
The hymns of the Restoration carry with them the spirit of conversion. They came as a result of sacrifice. Hymns like “Praise to the Man,” “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” “Ye Elders of Israel,” “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet,” “Redeemer of Israel,” and many others reinforce the great truths of the Restoration—such as the divinity of the Father and the Son, the plan of redemption, revelation, latter-day scriptures, the gathering of Israel, the holy priesthood, and ordinances and covenants. These nourishing hymns create an atmosphere that invites the Spirit, which leads us towards personal conversion.
Hymns are “an essential part of our church meetings. [They] invite the Spirit of the Lord.” They often do this quicker than anything else we may do. President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said, “We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer.” I can testify to the truth of this statement. I feel that I have been blessed to have the opportunity to get to know the hymns better than many people by playing them on the Organ, Piano, and French horn. Playing the hymns on an instrument and being able to sing the lyrics to those uplifting songs has really helped me to gain a better knowledge of many of the concepts which are presented in the hymns. It is important that we acknowledge and understand the concepts presented in our hymns. Just as we should not pray without real intent and understanding we should make sure we strive to sing the hymns with a real understanding of what is being said. I often find that reading the lyrics of the sacrament hymn again while the sacrament is being administered helps me to remember and focus on Christ. How incomplete and empty sacrament meetings would be without hymns of worship. Sacred among all hymns are those that capture the sacrifice and the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement.
Listen to the lyrics of today’s sacrament hymn as I read them back to you:
“In humility, our Savior, Grant thy Spirit here, we pray, As we bless the bread and water In thy name this holy day. Let me not forget, O Savior, Thou didst bleed and die for me When thy heart was stilled and broken on the cross at Calvary. Fill our hearts with sweet forgiving; teach us tolerance and love. Let our prayers find access to thee In thy holy courts above. Then, when we have proven worthy Of thy sacrifice divine, Lord, let us regain thy presence; Let thy glory round us shine.”
If you pay close attention to those lyrics you see that we are singing nothing less than a prayer that directs us to the center of our purpose here in this church house. By singing this song we, the congregation, are bearing our testimony of Christ the Lord and his sacrifice, the atonement for our sins, right before we actually partake of the sacrament. I could not think of a better way to participate in such a service. The sacrament music prepares us both mentally and spiritually for the sacred and saving ordinance to be performed.
There are many ways the hymns can effect us. President Packer taught that a member who softly plays “prelude music from the hymnbook tempers our feelings and causes us to go over in our minds the lyrics which teach the peaceable things of the kingdom. If we will listen, they are teaching the gospel, for the hymns of the Restoration are, in fact, a course in doctrine.” (“Reverence Invites Revelation,” Ensign, Nov. 1991, 22.) In other words, the Hymns provide both spirit for and the content to, learn some of the most important gospel principles. Think about some of the topics of the hymns: faith, forgiveness, duty, enduring to the end, baptism, the atonement, our doctrine can almost be summed up by the hymns we sing each Sabbath day.
Music can help motivate us to choose what is right. The messages in the hymns provide a constant reminder to do what is right, to keep the commandments, and endure until the end. My love and appreciation for music has instilled within me a strong desire to earn a presence in heaven because President Young stated: “There is no music in hell, for all good music belongs to heaven.” In my opinion, it would be punishment enough to go to hell and not hear a note of music for all eternity.
Among many beneficial effects, music has the power to help us control our thoughts. When President Boyd K. Packer addressed this subject he recounted the following story:
(quote) “When I was a boy, we lived in a home surrounded by an orchard. There never seemed to be enough water for the trees. The ditches, always freshly plowed in the spring, would soon fill with weeds. One day, in charge of the irrigation turn, I found myself in trouble. As the water moved down the rows choked with weeds, it would flood in every direction. I worked in the puddles trying to build up the bank. As soon as I had one break patched up, there would be another. A neighbor came through the orchard. He watched for a moment, and then with a few vigorous strokes of the shovel, he cleared the ditch and allowed the water to course through the channel he had made. He said, “If you want the water to stay in its course, you’ll have to make a place for it to go.”
I have come to know that thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. Otherwise, our thoughts follow the course of least resistance, always seeking the lower levels. Probably the greatest challenge and the most difficult thing you will face in mortal life is to learn to control your thoughts. In the Bible it says, as a man “thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Those who can control their thoughts have conquered themselves.”
I realize that in today’s world it is often difficult to keep your mind filled with worthy thoughts. This takes careful control. However, it can be done when you make it a safe place for your thoughts to go. I’ve found a way to make such a place, and I would like to share it with you. It has to do with worthy music. A wise man once said, “Music is one of the most forceful instruments of governing the mind.” Choose a favorite hymn or song, one with words that are uplifting and music that is reverent, and use this song as the course for your thoughts to follow, make it you emergency channel, your mind’s place of refuge. An example of a hymn that can be helpful for this purpose is “I Need Thee Every Hour,” which reminds us that we need the Lord. I have found that this hymn can help in times of temptation and when I am feeling down.
While I was up at Brigham Young University, hundreds of miles away from my home ward and in an unfamiliar area, I found great comfort in the hymns sung in the weekly sacrament meetings held in a class room. It was comforting to find something familiar, a simple hymn, among unfamiliar surroundings. We can find comfort in the hymns, for the hymns will remain a constant in our life, a life that is constantly changing with the world that surrounds it.
While I serve a full time mission in South Carolina, a world away from mild sunny Southern California, I am sure that one of my biggest reassurances will be knowing that the music sung here will be the same as the music I will get to hear as I attend the sacrament meetings on my mission.
The hymns of the Church have helped me gain a testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. Many sacrament meetings I have felt the holy spirit testify to me through music that the principles I am singing about are true. I bear witness of the power of music. I know the teachings of this church are true and that by living my life in harmony with the gospel I can live happier, both now and in the life here after. I know that Jesus Christ lived and atoned for our sins. Through the atonement we can repent return to him again. I know that families can be together forever and I have a testimony of the importance of temples and temple work.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
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