On Sunday, August 18 the male choir will sing at the cathedral. In preparation for this liturgy we'll have one rehearsal on Wednesday, August 14 after Great Vespers. So, male singers, please make note of this! Female singers, enjoy the Sunday off.
Below is a reflection on the potential positive effects of music on people who struggle with stress, addiction, mental instability, and music's benefits on contemporary society at large. Maria Sheehan from St. Tikhon's Seminary really raises some interesting points and it's worth reading.
We live in a VERY unusual time, in terms of the human experience.
For millennia, even as civilized humans,
we were hungry, and we were naked, and we were oppressed (or imprisoned). But for most modern societies
those are no longer our major obstacles. Materially, modern societies are extremely wealthy. Even the poorest
Americans are radically more privileged than any other
humans at any other time in human history. Things we take for
granted—clean water, sanitation,
indoor climate control, basic medical care, basic human rights, a
steady (even indulgent) food supply, refrigeration, agricultural and manufacturing machinery, comfortable and fast
transportation, sufficient artificial lighting, even window
screens and glass—all would be unimaginable luxuries to
humans from any other age, even as recently as the nineteenth century. Of course, poverty and homelessness are
still present and as terrible as they ever were, the changes
in the practical lifestyle of the average westerner in the
past two hundred years have been dramatically for the
better. And that means that those historical problems of
humanity aren’t, in a sense, our problems. So what actually are our problems?
Depression affects more than one in ten adults in the
United States in any given year and is the primary reason
why someone dies of suicide about every 13 minutes—
over 41,000 people annually.
Isolation is statistically as significant a risk factor for
early death as obesity and smoking. Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health in adulthood. If
you’re isolated, you’re twice as likely to die prematurely
than someone with an active social life.
One in every 10 Americans over the age of 12 suffers
addiction to alcohol or drugs (that’s roughly equal to the
entire population of Texas). Drug overdose deaths have
more than tripled since 1990. For nearly all drug addicts,
their addictions began before they were 18 years old. This
is to say nothing of the more “benign” kinds of addictions, such as screen addiction, pornography, gambling,
and countless others.
Anxiety disorders are the most common kinds of mental
illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults—that’s nearly one out of every 5 Americans in any given year. Panic attacks,
PTSD, phobias, social anxiety, and OCD are so common that most
of us have someone in our lives who we know suffers from one (or
several) of these disorders.
Purposelessness—Power,
pleasure, and pride are the assumed motivating forces behind all
advertising and all political and economic
movements. Advertising and political discourse tend to get the most
media airtime in western culture, and most of us are influenced
pretty heavily by those messages. But they pit us against one another,
leaving us isolated, suspicious, and dissatisfied. So what can we
Christians possibly do to minister to these afflictions?
It’s
interesting that so much of Orthodox Christian worship
involves singing. We have to sing in church in order to do our services.
But, as is so often true of God’s commandments, it’s not an
arbitrary order that we are expected to obey for the sake of obedience.
Obeying the commandment serves to actually HEAL us. Music making—and
singing in particular—is actually physically, mentally and socially
healing.
The scientific data supporting the
powerful physical therapeutic
effectiveness of music is compelling. Music stimulates parts of the
brain responsible for memory. Music can reduce blood pressure and
slow heart rate. Singers’ heartbeats physically align as they sing
together. Music can calm the parts of the brain that
manage anxiety and stress, and significantly lower anxiety levels. Music
making is a highly effective treatment for depression, and is able to
improve a patient’s condition without the nearly universal side effects
experienced with medications.
Music triggers the brain to release dopamine (the same feel-good
chemical that opiates, alcohol, nicotine, amphetamines,
and cocaine stimulate the brain to produce). And as a psychological and
social medicine, music turns out to be a powerhouse as well. Singing
triggers the release of oxytocin in the brain, the hormone associated
with intimate bonding and
affection, and creates a powerful sense of intimacy between musicians.
Musicians
often (and often easily) experience flow state, and ensemble
music-making triggers a social flow state in
which many people can share the same ecstatic flow experience, and a
subsequently deep connection. Ensemble music
making requires a level of cooperation that serves to build social bonds
and trust, characteristics essential to a stable society. Listening to
music increases empathy and strengthens the social skill of imagining
what someone else is thinking.
Even just listening to music together—let alone making music
together—increases social cohesion in families and peer
groups.
Singing can strengthen, inspire, and give meaning to people in even the darkest of circumstances. (Just consider how
my friend wanted to stay in prison, of all places, so that he could sing in a choir.) It can actually heal the body at the same
time as it heals the soul. I have to admit that I chose a career in music because I need this medicine as often as I can get
it. And all of us suffer, to some degree, from these modern afflictions, even if we’re not carrying the cross of a chronic
diagnosis. I think we all need this medicine.
What if we started offering to the world our singing, our music—the actual medium of our worship— as a carefully
crafted medicine for the ills that millions and millions are suffering? What if we realized that God made us able to be
addicted not by some cosmic mistake, but so that we would want to come back again and again to this medicine, to this
beauty? What heights of joy might we create for the world—and for ourselves, who need it, too—if we determined to
make our music as good as it could be, to learn as much as we could, to improve as much as possible, and to keep doing
it, to the Glory of God and to comfort His people—all people? And what if everyone began to know that the Orthodox
Church was a source for this healing, and that beyond it lies an even greater healing? What then?
(to be continued)
- Talia Maria Sheehan
blogs.ancientfaith.com/