CONNECT

60,000 people standing in the rain, together wailing a string of notes echoing David's psalm: "How long?  How long must we sing this song?"  A sparse remnant standing in a stone sanctuary, arms crossed, lips unmoving, as an organist limps her way through "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee."

The human heart knows things.  It is a wordless knowing, and it communicates itself like a puzzle: laying itself against ridges and canyons until its own shape proves a perfect complement.  The heart's knowing imparts a kind of completeness, a sense of wholeness when it finds its fit, and a sense of longing and loss while it is still searching.

To sing with power, you have to sing the heart.  You cannot sing what the head thinks.  You cannot sing what the state imposes.  You cannot sing doctrine.  You cannot sing repertoire.  Not with power, anyway.  Not with conviction.  Not with truth.

This is because the heart connects.  It fits, or it doesn't fit.  It is plugged in, or it isn't.  What's more, the heart is particularly immune to falsehood.  Where the mind may try to fit a feeling into a pattern it believes in, the heart knows what it knows, despite our best intent.  Where self-preservation will map an appropriate course, the heart leaps and leans in risky directions.  Where the eye tries to impose a universal standard of beauty, the heart is transfixed by a certain slant of light.  The heart doesn't know its own mind.  It does not pay much attention to its own best interest, and is often blind to the merits of perfection.  It is what it is-whole, broken, searching, found.

When a singer sings the heart, the listener's heart responds.  If the two have points and curves that match, the two connect.  60,000 connect.   Instantly.  Without effort, and without regard to any of the day's troubles or expectations; beyond all the worn distinctions that otherwise separate person from person.

The singer with that gift is truly blessed for we keep our hearts hidden for good reasons.  It is hard to bleed for other people.  It hurts to share our treasures and is terrifying to open our throats.  So much safer to rely on the genius of others to carry that burden.  It is, however, a curious fact that we simply cannot fake the heart.  Pretty soon the power has leaked from our voices.  The conviction has fled our psalms, and our children become convinced that we are liars-singing "Joyful, Joyful" when we truly mean "How long?  How long must we sing this song?"

May you hear the voice of your heart.  May you find the courage to share it.  May its songs find other hearts with which to connect.