Life Should Be a Musical

McFerrin "Plays" an Audience

I saw this Youtube video the other day with the amazing Bobby McFerrin in which he demonstrated how to "play" an audience.  Go ahead and watch it.  I'll wait......

Wasn't that nice?  McFerrin showed how, as humans, our brains are wired up to respond to the pentatonic scale of music.  There is no evolutionary purpose for that. I believe that God has created within us all a shared ability to create art together by giving us shared basic gifts, like natural response to tone and musical organization, color sense, pattern recognition, kinesthetic sense, social perception and rhythm.

It's why, when we hear music in an elevator, we may be scarcely aware of it, but unless we suppress the instinct, we will soon find ourselves beginning to hum the tune, sing the words softly and sway in rhythm to the music. We respond to it quite naturally, as though we are wired up to respond to it in that fashion - to share and participate in the music around us.

I believed that God wired us up in such a way that we can instinctively respond to, create and participate in acts of spontaneous joy. That's why I like the flashmob things people do where choirs and orchestras and bands and dance groups suddenly come together in public spaces and create these wonderful bits of auditory, physical and social art.

I think musicals are a preview of heaven. I think that in the New Earth, we will spontaneously break out in song without any shame about it.  I, personally, don't think that we will sit in chairs to listen to the angel choirs "perform".  What I think is that we will, for sheer joy, break out in song and the angels will rush to our sides in order to be a part of the music.

I think that the music of the spheres will be with us wherever we go. I think we will break out singing and dancing, just from the sheer joy of being alive and for the love of God and each other and the things of all creation. I think we will make musical instruments and carry them everywhere with us, just in case music breaks out. I don't think it's an accident that the "Hallelujah Chorus" is one of the most often performed flashmob pieces on Youtube. It just seems right. The tradition of standing during the Hallelujah chorus began because a queen spontaneously rose in respect during one of the first concert performances of the Messiah.  When the Hallelujah chorus began, she rose to her feet and with her the entire audience. Today, standing up in the Food Court or a shopping mall and singing "Hallelujah" at the top of your lungs seems like utterly like it's the right thing to do.

I think, that in heaven and the new Earth, we will create art, simply because a bunch of us want to express our joy and gratitude to God. I think we will celebrate each other, for after all, is not man and woman also the creation of God. I don't see us all spending eternity sitting around on a cloud with harps. I see us singing and dancing, creating vast spectacles simply because someone goes, "Hey, I bet if we all started jumping up and down and waving towels over our heads while singing this new song I wrote, that it would look all kind of cool!"

And then several thousand of us would all get together and practice it till we had it down, then we'll sneak over to the next town and drift into the town square and do a flashmob kind of thing to make the people there smile.  They'd probably join us.

I am certain that eternal life in the new Earth will be exactly like that.

© 2013 by Tom King

All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir

© 2013 by Tom King

VGA AYA team - I'm in front of the left-most door arch on the back row.

We are defined by our choices, but we are shaped by powerful experiences. Psychologically, for an experience to be life changing there are two critical factors that need to be in place:

My friend Bo Walker & me doing campfire songs.

• Comradeship --  We need, at least sometime in our lives, the comradeship of others. These may not be deep and lasting friendships. After it's all over we may go our separate ways and never speak to those with whom we have shared one of these powerful life experiences again.  But if you ever bump into one of those old comrades again, you will find yourself taking up conversations you left off decades ago as if no time had passed between. This happens between soldiers, survivors of disasters, people who share a common endeavor and even schoolmates.  One of the reasons books like Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia are so riveting is because they tell the tale of friendships forged in common trials. If we've never experienced that, we instinctively know we have missed something important in our growing up.

• Competence -- When it's all over, a life-changing experience makes you feel as if you've accomplished something. You've learned a skill and used it well. You've built something that will last. You've made something better by your collective efforts. You've made something beautiful. It is this knowledge that your experience has been worthwhile, even if only to the quality of your own life that makes it life-altering.

Another camp group effort we were proud of.
Top Row: Glenn Sackett and one of the Crone Boys
Bottom row: Tim Braden, me, Jack Allen
Carol & Steffie in the boat I think.

Two of the most potent shaping influences in my life were my summers at Lone Star Camp and the times I was privileged to be a member of a choir or vocal group. I've had other successes later in life that I'm proud that I was a part of, but all of these experiences share one thing. I was not alone and we all did something good as a result of our collective efforts.

You can, of course, achieve spectacular successes all by yourself with little help from anyone else, but in the end, that happens very seldom.  Every time someone accepts an Oscar, an Olympic gold medal or some public honor, they inevitably thank others for making the success possible. Only the most boorish and clueless take all the credit for themselves. It's why, for some folk, the awards, accolades and money showered upon them to honor their talent is not enough.  Success in isolation always rings hollow and if you cannot see the contribution of your comrades or your push them aside in favor of doing it all yourself, then you cut yourself off from the most powerful rush available to human beings.

Campers learning to rescue a swamped canoe

Recently, the Internet has vastly expanded our capacity to communicate. More and more we reunite with our old friends and make new ones who share out hobbies and interests, our beliefs and tastes. A phenomenon has begun, made possible by camcorders, movie-making software, cell-phone and instant online communication - the flashmob.  It's true that we've seen this type of group activity used for evil, as anything good will inevitably corrupted. The devil is, after all, "...walking about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour."  But the origins of the flashmob concept came from a pure human desire to create art just for the joy of it and to surprise and delight ordinary people who were not at all expecting a Broadway musical to suddenly break out in
the middle of the food court.

These kinds of flashmob events benefit, not only the folks who suddenly experience an orchestra playing Beethoven in the middle of their lunch break, but also to the artists who put together the performance.  The experience of working together with comrades to create a work of physical or auditory art and leaving behind a joyful memory for everyone and a video of the whole thing that they can share with others is a quickie version of that life-changing experience I'm talking about.

Working with troubled kids at Odyssey Harbor.
We all worked together to build a horse trail
and an obstacle course for the rec program.

If you've never had that experience, I highly recommend getting involved in one.  Join a church choir, take a dance class, try out for a community theater group, join a volunteer project or take a summer off and work at camp.  Do something that demands of you every skill you can muster; something that leaves you exhausted, but happy when it's done.  Do something that takes you outside of yourself and gives to others.

Then, when you're an old geezer like me, you'll be able to lean back in your chair and call to mind that leafy summer when..............."

And your wife will ask you what you're grinning about.

Tom King

Do You Ever Break Out in Song Without Warning?

"I know what my people are thinking tonight!"

These words used to send my daughter scurrying to hide in the closet. This "opening line" meant Dad was about to "do" the his complete and emoted version of "I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?" from the musical Camelot.

I admit it.  I like musicals. Not all of them mind you. Some are pretty stupid and some really strain credulity.  Many musicals shameless push a leftist political agenda I find extremely uncomfortable. Many espouse a highly immoral lifestyle.  But there are some (and Camelot is one) that I just absolutely love.

My Dad took off on us when I was five years old or so.  I remember walking back to our apartment on Anglin Street in Cleburne, Texas on day.  We were coming from the courthouse with my Mom, probably from the divorce hearing.  Mom was upset. She was trying not to show it, but she was.  She remarried a short time later, mostly for the sake of us kids I always thought, but as a result of everything, I was never really close to my Dad or Step-Dad.  I looked instead for male role models in the world of literature as I was growing up.

King Arthur was one of my big male role models. I loved the Arthur story, as told in T.H. White's Once and Future King and in the musical and movie based on it. I took my cues on what it means to be a man from Arthur's example. There were other examples as well, but when my sister told me her community theater group was doing Camelot, I decided I'd try out for my dream role as King Arthur.

I admit I was a little ambitious, thinking I'd land the lead role my first time out, but I really really wanted it.  So to prepare, I learned "I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight"  and several passages from the play.  I got the role of Merlin and played one of the knights after Merlin disappears early in the play.  It was hard work, but a lot of fun.  For years afterword, I developed a habit of breaking out with that song in the car, along hiking trails, over dinner and in all sorts of inconvenient places.  My poor kids used to just cringe.

My daughter, however, finally decided I wasn't going to stop.  We were driving along one day in the car and I tentatively started up and to my surprise, she joined me.  We roared through the song and finished with a nice sharp ending.  It was a real kick for me and Meg evidently knew it.  I didn't even know she knew the song.

I've always wanted life to be more like a musical. I've always thought we should break out in song once in a while in public places, just to shake things up. I even found a group called "Improv Everywhere" that were doing just that.  The video above is just one of their flashmob musicals on youtube.  They're fun, but what interests me is the crowd that is watching these production numbers unfold.

You can tell, they really want to join in.  You can see them swaying, doing little dance steps and even joining in on the chorus. I love that human beings come up with stuff like this for no other purpose than to make their fellows smile. I think God gets a kick out of watching people come up with stupidly creative stuff like these shepherds with way too much time on their hands.

I was tempted to think the spontaneous musical number was not at all a natural thing and far too rare in this sad old world.  Then one day as we were washing dishes, I realized that my wife and I were singing an old hymn.  It was spontaneous.  We were singing in harmony.  We did several of them as we washed and dried the dishes, then I kissed her on the cheek and she hugged me back and we went on with our housework in much the same way the action goes on in a musical.

 This one is fun because not everyone who stands is part of the choir.  Many stand because it is traditional to do so during the Hallelujah Chorus. You can see some folk joining in. If I were a choir director, I'd take my kids to food courts all over the land and do this kind of thing.


I think that there is a profound link between that sort of spontaneous music and our connection with our Creator.  When I was a kid, I heard an evangelist say that God puts a song in our hearts. I wonder if that's not literal. I can't tell you how many times I've heard Christians break out in spontaneous song.

I remember two pastors when I was a teenager who used to turn these kinds of singing outbreaks into choral events. They were John Thurber and Bob LeBard. We'd start singing and before we knew it we'd have contrasting parts and harmony.  Both men treated spontaneous singing like a choir rehearsal and in a way it was. It was as if we were preparing to be part of heaven's choir. Sharon Hansen, Brother John's daughter used to sing "Precious Lord"  while John or Bob (depending on who happened to be around to draft her into it at the time, while they led us in a four part harmony backup singing "Lead me" over and over in four part harmony.  It was beautiful and we got to where we could do it acapella on a windy night standing around the campus fountain at Valley Grande Academy or sitting on a log beside Echo Lake at Lone Star Camp and make it sound beautiful.

When I was attending Valley Grande, a Christian boarding academy (I worked my way through),  music seemed to break out everywhere.  We didn't do a lot of dance numbers, but we did sing a lot in circles around fountains, beside lakes and even in our dorm rooms late at night. We had these outpourings of joy in the form of music and it was because our hearts were full and we could not hold it back any more.

We had our pain and the typical teen angst, but people like Brother John, Sharon, Brother Bob and others helped us to find that peace that passes all understanding and that has made all the difference. I rather think that, after all, my life became something of a musical after I found God.  I just didn't notice it was happening. You just sort of fill up and on occasion it overflows. I learned to go ahead and let it from several people I knew back then. Tim Ponder taught me that there is a place for even a poor singer like me out on the boat dock with people who really do know how to make music. Dave Dameron and Steve Urick taught me to sing bass (Brother Bob made me stand between them to keep me on key).  They also taught me not to take anything too seriously or you could go crazy. Bow Walker taught me to love folk music and campfire songs. Jack Allen taught me that I could get away with funny songs even though I didn't have a good voice. Clay Read encouraged me to play weird instruments like the banjo. Mike Gregory taught me that you can make music on all sorts of kitchen appliances and instruments out of leftover packing materials. Nancy Voegele taught me to sing when I felt sad. Mike Maloney taught me the power of music to help lift your spirits when your girlfriend dumps you. Steve Darmody taught me that there are some people I shouldn't try to sing with. Vicki Tucker showed me how much fun it was to sing in a group and taught me that some people with really good voices don't mind you singing along with them.

My wife, Sheila, taught me to step back and let others lead. She also taught me how to find a singing style that was my own and wouldn't make people cringe. She also taught me about how much obsessive practicing lies behind a breath-taking performance and her singing still makes me cry it's so beautiful. My daughter, Meg, who inherited her mothers perfect pitch and incredible voice taught me how much fun it was to let the kids take over the music and run with it. She also taught me what God must feel when His children sing for Him.

Lexa Arante and her brother Dunn showed me that talent and humility are not exclusive qualities. From Blake and Brody Snyder, I learned that perseverance can make you really good at playing an instrument in an incredibly short time. From all the kids at Tyler SDA Church I learned about how powerful is the music of praise.

So, if you love God and are called according to his purpose, life really is a sort of musical. Next time you feel like breaking out in song, go ahead.  There are likely some folks around who will join in and how much fun would that be?

Just one man's opinion....

Tom King