Primal Verbalization - Susan Watkins

(Reflection on Topic of Choice)

I've had a really neat experience of transformation over the last few weeks in my perception of some of the worship done in my church. One of the reasons I really love our worship team is that they try to mix up the genres of music and draw from all kinds of different cultures. We sing songs in all kinds of different tempos, time signatures, arrangements, and even songs in different languages. Our music ranges from traditional European hymns to Native American chant-based pieces to Hawaiian indigenous themes. It's a really neat thing to experience, but for the longest time I felt kind of lost.

I am extremely analytical person and so when listening to lyrical music, the words themselves are definitely the focus of my attention and a huge determinant in how much I like the music. Because of this, for a long time songs in languages I didn't understand would throw me off because while I could enjoy them from a purely aesthetic point of view, I could never personally relate to them or experience the sacred through them. Even when I knew the English translations, the strange syllables were just nonsense to me. I usually didn't sing them because I felt fake.

However, a few weeks ago this began to change. It's funny, because the change started with an English song which I clearly understand. The song is neat because the chorus repeats, "You are the way, You are the truth, You are the light Jesus" with all of the singers together. Then this one lady with a round, throaty mezzo voice starts calling out in long tones over the top "You are the way, the truth, the life!" It's really a great mix of sound and I just found myself swept up into it. Ironically, as I listened I just got this image in my head of this woman or a woman like her sitting on top of a mountain somewhere calling out this repeated chant to the spirits. When I stopped to really think about it, I realized the sounds did actually remind me of tribal calls and chants in that her voice just soared up and the words she sang seemed to have a real and present power in that room.

I closed my eyes and let that image return, and for the next few weeks there were songs which really brought the image back strongly. I began to understand that sometimes, there are words and phrases which just resonate with power all to themselves. That calling out at the top of your lungs is a unique form of communication and really affects us emotionally somehow. There is something about committing your heart to a long, loud call which really makes it special in that moment.

Today in church, we sang a song that used some words from another language. I'm not sure which language (it sounded Hawaiian to me) but in the moment, as I listened, for the first time I felt the power of that word even though its abstract counterpart was completely absent from my mind. I sang it, every repetition getting louder and by the end of the song just calling it out with all my might and really getting into the experience. It was so freeing, and so deep to feel that word of power roll off my tongue and know that the truth is there even outside of my intellect. I couldn't grasp it or analyze it, but it was there more clearly than many things I do in fact analyze.