Morning Music

Most mornings find me on my narrow front porch as I wait for the day to wake up. My senses awaken when I open the door and the sounds of the morning greet me.  Cloudy, unsettled skies may occasionally block the sunrise, but nothing stops the dawning symphony. This morning’s orchestra is a mix of sounds human and animal.  I easily identify the distinctive sound of the cardinals, perched on the tip-top branches of the towering live oaks as they declare their territory.  They take first chair in the woodsy wind section.  Not far away a lone turkey gobbles with his descending call that reminds me of the sound of a xylophonist’s glissando.  The phoebe that nests in the eaves joins in with her two-note oboe-like call. She flutters nearby, disturbed by my invading presence.  Like clockwork, just before 7am, I hear the crunch of gravel and the percussive rumble of a diesel truck as the driver guns the engine and heads off to work, I imagine.  The whirr and whine draws my attention to the sky, and flashing in and out among the scudding clouds an airplane heads north, likely the morning flight from Waco to Dallas. I’m glad some people are still travelling and perhaps making connections to other more far-flung destinations.  An early morning freight train blares its long, mournful whistle, the sound carries over the miles to my hillside perch and joins the orchestra. The sounds of my fellow human beings going about their everyday activities are comforting and I welcome their additions to the musical score.

Even the raucous cries of the murder of crows down in the river valley signals energy and community as one by one they add their voices and the volume increases.  Their strident caws clash with the low-pitched mournful lowing of the cattle grazing in the pasture just beyond the barbed wire fence. Dove coo, a road runner calls, and the woodpecker tattoos his snare drum. A dog barks. Today there is a new call I can’t quite identify, a small bird by the sound of it, but my ornithological knowledge is weak.   I think of my friend Rocky who knows the calls of dozens of birds.  One afternoon a couple of Augusts ago we sat out on my deck in Maine as she taught me to recognize the ovenbird’s song and the jungle-like cry of the pileated woodpecker. I recall that phoebes also greeted us there.  I hope today she is sipping coffee and savoring the music of a New England morning.

The talented contemporary musician Dr. Joseph Martin perfectly captures the music of this early summer morning with his glorious new composition, Music in the Morning. The melody and words lilt through my mind, as just a few months ago, I was part of a group who performed this song in a concert finale.  It is a modern-day paean, a sacred song of praise. The lovely melody reminds me of an Appalachian folk tune, but it is the words that capture the essence of this rather ordinary morning and set my spirit humming.

There is music in the morning at the coming of the dawn…

All creation starts rejoicing with a shout of grateful praise

And my spirit finds its purpose singing grace.¹

This is what I’ve been hearing! This is why my morning concert hums and deeply resonates within.  This is why my soul delights in the odd assortment of sounds, a cacophony that somehow molds and melds into a joyful noise.  The music of this morning is singing grace to me, and like that mysterious thing called grace, the music of the morning is freely given.  I wonder, as the noisy world began to awaken, did Martin feel the melody forming, and the words crystallizing just so?  Could he hear the underlying beat of the hallelujahs complemented by the flutes, strings and voices as all coalesced into a grace-filled offering?  I like to think so, for that is what this morning’s music does for me.  Unlike Martin’s carefully crafted work, my morning music is rather messy and uncoordinated.  It stops and starts in unpredictable ways. It sometimes falls flat.  The music clashes and crashes in divine dissonance.  Today’s morning music mixes the totally ordinary and the exquisitely lyrical.  It harmonizes unexpectedly or not at all. The time signature is nonexistent in a free-verse sort of way.  The familiar blends with the unfamiliar, the loud with the soft, as the human and animal performers add their featured parts and then recede into the background.  Morning music joins me to the world in ways that transcend the isolation and loneliness of these times.  Somehow, all of these disparate parts meld and prepare me for the upcoming day, a day of purpose, a day of grace, a day of new beginnings¹ when the heavens rejoice and sing.

In tune or dissonant, steady or peripatetic, I enter into this morning’s music, welcoming the grace, unwrapping and studying the score, sharing the musical phrases with pick-up trucks, trains, aggressive crows and warbling songbirds. This particular concert never quite wraps up or concludes with a crash and a satisfying musical resolution.  It undergirds the day and fills it with joy.  Tap, Tap, tap.  Each day conductor lifts the baton, and music fills the sky and permeates the earth below.  Just as I turn and begin the daily routine, the source of that mysterious avian song hops down from the Bradford pear tree. A tiny wren begins to sing, its tremolo as pure as the sweetest sound any flautist ever made. The steady humming of my neighbor’s lawn mower begins. Music in the morning. Grace abounds.

My heart is steadfast, O God. I will sing and make music with all my soul.  Awake, harp and lyre!  I will awaken the dawn.  Psalm 108: 1-2.

¹ Music in the Morning (2020) by Joseph Martin is protected by copyright. To fully enjoy this marvelous piece, download and purchase from Shawnee Press at https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/music-in-the-morning-digital-sheet-music/21692779  You can also hear a recent performance of this song at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoog7Ewt80w

Question for Reflection:

The music in our souls takes many forms and sounds and shapes. In what ways does music influence your spiritual journey?  

 Photo by Ryk Naves on Unsplash