sing out loud

Do what you love to do.... a lot.


This is what I sense from You, God, this morning.  


Because You made me to gravitate toward certain lifegiving arts, recreations and adventures-- why would I not engage in what you pull me toward with such joy and vigor?


I'm sitting in a Caribou café, and at the checkout, on a little card, I saw the phrase, Sing out loud.  After I forced myself not to think of it as a marketing slogan, I saw something real and deep in it.


Sing out loud... like... for the sheer joy of it.


Singing (when you're not a professional singer, and if you have no aspiration to be one, and/or it's not all about impressing your friends or wanting to be a rock star) is a sign of inner well being, of a basic happiness.


Remember the old show song from the musical Oklahoma?  Oh what a beautiful morning... sang Curly, the leading man.   He was just grooving, enjoying the cornfields, and the haze on the meadow, and he opened up those vocal cords and let it fly.  The old baritone sang it out and it rang through the cornfields, or...OK... the sound stage.


Why would we not sing out loud for the joy of it, as a gratitude?


Maybe because we're not that happy. Or we're scared, or stressed.  Or we just don't have time to be that free and relaxed in spirit.


Singing, or writing, or playing volleyball, or biking, or board games, or hiking, or playing banjo...exulting in what we can do since we have the ability and health to do it--for the sheer joy of it, brings health to our bones and joy to You, God, who made us, as You take pleasure in our joy, like we take pleasure and delight in the joy in the posture and play of our children or our pets when they are clearly happy and at ease with the world and comfortable in their skin.


But when these pastimes, these natural expressions, become a performance, they can become something less real than when they were done for their own sake, and out of pure gratitude.  And then it becomes about us, and what people think of us, and it's just one more stress-producer.  Defeats the whole purpose.  


Becomes a little idolatry.


It's too easy in this world to go sad;  too easy for healthy people with a good life, to go dark. I'm sure that breaks Your heart.


So... reminder for me for today--
When I can, why would I not breathe and enjoy and make Your heart warm,  and sing out loud-- for You, just for the sake of the ability to do so, for the cornstalks, for the haze on the meadow, for having basic health, and because I'm blessed with people who I love and who love me?