Singing is a spiritual activity best experienced in community. The documented benefits are as significant as those in yoga, a healthy diet, and prayer. Our culture, however, has commodified singing and turned it into a perfected idol that is performed by the few and limits the participation of the many.

When we are hesitant to sing with others in the name of God because we are not “good singers,” I think we dismiss Jesus’ love for our imperfect selves, and we refuse to open up our full selves to others and to God in yet another vulnerable way.

For me, this is disheartening for we let others sing for us and don’t offer our own voice. Did not Jesus sing a psalm THAT night with the disciples when he was entering a most perilous time (“When in Our Music God is Glorified,” Fred Pratt Green)?

When and wherever you are invited to join in the song next, sing, hum, make a noise, read the words, participate! No one is asking you to be perfect. Instead we are all asked to step out of our fear and into the light of God’s glory and grace forevermore. Do you have the courage to enter?

from And the Things of Earth