We Need Music More Than Ever

We Need Music More Than Ever

By Shelly Niebuhr

And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him—1 Samuel 16:23

I’ve always loved this verse. 

Because I know its true. 

Music heals us.

For twenty years, I worked as a musician in various health care settings, serving through community music programs, ensembles, as a singer-songwriter and as a Certified Music Practitioner. With guitar, percussions, songbooks and flutes in hand, I visited diverse patient populations in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, memory care units and psychiatric facilities.

I saw the healing power of music over and over again. I witnessed an angry, dying man relax and even smile, while listening to a therapeutic musician strum a harp at his bedside. I’ve watched elders’ sing and laugh who hadn’t sung or laughed in years when I played their favorite songs. And perhaps most powerful of all, I’ve witnessed walls of fear and anger crumble between people of different religions, races, orientations and political beliefs—when they drummed, sang and chanted together. 

Flutes, in particular, seemed to impart unique blessings. Irish folk flutes, silver concert flutes, Native American flutes—patients described these instruments as “breath prayers,” and “sounds that moved the deepest part of me” and “tones that healed my inner pain.”   

At a county hospital psychiatric unit, where seventy percent of the patients were escorted in by the police, the gentle notes of the Native American flute were the only sounds the anxious patients could tolerate. 

A woman, who was pacing back and forth while talking to herself, pleaded to me, “keep playing, please, keep playing. I can finally breathe again.” A young man, who had been lying upside down across the back of a vinyl couch uttering obscenities, sat upright, hummed with the flute and gently rocked side to side. During a pause, he said in a low, lucid voice, “thank you.”

At a memory care facility, a middle-aged woman closed her eyes and listened closely while I played the flute. We were in an over-heated room with other residents, who were drinking fruit juice and sporadically crying out. Yet this woman’s expressive face was clear and serene. I paused, leaned towards her and asked, “What do you hear?”

She whispered, “I hear quiet. It’s a quiet feeling coming from the flute.” She placed both hands over her heart, one on top of the other. “I didn’t know it was possible to feel this kind of peace. I don’t remember feeling this way before.”

She opened her eyes. They were shining with reverent wonder. Shining for what was unseen. Shining for what could only be felt.

I knew then I wanted to spend my life learning how to see and trust in things unseen, in things that do not pass away. 

And music would help me do that. 

When I lament and mourn the violence and injustice in our country, indeed in our world, I’ll play my cedar flute and imagine its gentle notes entering my heart, soothing and comforting it. I imagine it’s peaceful tones circling our hurting world, and the people in it. And somehow, I am restored, if only a little. But it’s enough to keep me going, to keep me praying.

When I feel the bone-deep exhaustion of being a caregiver, I’ll put on Mozart’s “Overture,” from The Marriage of Figaro and feel its soaring notes lift me out of myself into a place of renewal, and even faith. 

And when anger threatens to engulf me, I beat my frame drum with all my might, giving the anger an outlet, so it doesn’t poison me inch by inch. 

Music was part of God’s plan to heal Saul. How might God use music in your own healing, to help mend you? 

Ask God. 

And then listen to one of your favorite songs. Or sing, hum, play an instrument, or go to a concert. 

Open yourself to the music, see where it takes you. 

I leave you with lyrics of one of my favorite hymns, “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” 

Sometimes I feel discouraged

And think my work’s in vain

But then the Holy Spirit

Revives my heart again

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