Previous Articles

Apr/May 03:
What Is It About Music?
Dwight Liles

Feb/Mar 03:
Soul Song
James Eugene Robinson

Dec 02/Jan 03:
The Beating Heart: Music and Healing
Randi Israelow

Oct/Nov 02:
The Healing Power
of Poetry
Joy Sawyer

Feature Article

HEART SONGS
by By Doris Sanford

About the author:
Ms. Sanford's diverse background includes being an author of 29 published books including the award winning Hurts of Childhood series; being a registered nurse and an instructor of psychiatric nursing for twenty years; a national trainer for church ministries dealing with abused children; a grief therapist; and owner of her own business, Heart to Heart, Inc. She has trained foster parents in intervention techniques for children with special needs and supervised social work students in mental health agencies. In addition to being sought out as a lecturer Doris has served on the Board of Directors of Child Share Oregon, served as a consultant to Kids Link (an international organization working with children at risk), as chairman on the Adult Committee for Young Life of Multnomah County, and as an adjunct faculty member at Western Evangelical Seminary. She has an M.A. in Social Science with a major in Psychology and recently received her doctorate.

Music mattered in my growing up family. We lived in northern China where our parents were missionaries and that meant that we were too poor for songbooks. Our parents taught us to memorize all five verses of the hymns they knew. I'd like to say they knew hundreds, but that might be a stretch. Later, after we came to live in the United States, my brothers and sister and I all played instruments, not well, but loudly at least. Mother was the church organist and we were all needed in the 12 - member choir. Having musical talent was not part of the screening process for admission to the choir. Our living room upright didn't need dusting because we sang around it regularly and even at a family reunion 40 years later, the four of us siblings sang, "It is Well With My Soul" in four part harmony for the kin. Rehearsing wouldn't have improved the quality much, so we didn't bother.

Music followed me when I left home and marked the important events. It was a journal that included weddings and funerals, of course. My nephew Ralph, two weeks on the job as a new missionary in Kenya, was 25 when he was killed. The music at Ralph's service was a triumphant -

Sun of my soul Thou Savior dear
It is not night if Thou be near
O may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes
- written by J. Keble.

Ralph would have approved.

My niece Darlene died at the age of 27 from leukemia and left three pre-schoolers orphaned. The choir sang Darlene's choice, "Let All Who Come Behind Me Find Me Faithful." They took turns singing when the other choir members were too choked up to produce music. Funny I can't remember much about the rest of the service.

Then there was the day I drove my loved foster boy, Jeremy to his new adoptive home after he had lived with me for five years. It was a lot like having surgery without anesthetic. I turned the radio on to distract us from reality and the station was playing:

Gentle Shepherd, come and lead us, for we need You to help us find our way
Gentle Shepherd come and feed us, for we need Your strength from day to day
There's no other we can turn to who can help us face another day
Gentle Shepherd, come and lead us, for we need you to help us find our way

The song was written by Bill Gaither. We pulled over to avoid a head-on while we both sobbed.

The Sunday after my husband left to be with his mistress, I sat alone in the church balcony. I didn't stand up when the others did because the possibility of falling over the ledge seemed likely. I will never forget singing -

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living just because He lives

The song was written by Bill Gaither. The possibilities looked pretty dim that morning, but there was a glimmer of hope in the music that I heard more easily than the reassuring clichŽs that came from friends.

In looking back, much of the music in my life has been songs in the night. Music birthed in or around the struggle. Sometimes I have sung music alone, but mostly there have been others humming with me, carrying the melody for me when I could not do it for myself. It makes me think of Ronan.

Ronan Tynan, born in Dublin in 1960, was in my hometown last week for a concert. A double amputee, Tynan walks with the aid of prosthetic limbs, yet when he takes to the stage to sing, this accomplished horseman, athlete, and doctor proves why he has earned his reputation as one of the world-renowned Irish tenors.

Ronan tells about an experience that happened at the Paralympics World Championship in 1986. Just before it was his turn to participate in an event at which he hoped to set a new world record, one of his prosthetic feet broke across the middle. His first thought was that he would have to forfeit, but he looked around at the other athletes to see if someone had a foot similar to his. He spotted someone and asked a question you wouldn't hear anywhere else. "Could I borrow your foot?" He promised to return the appendage after his throw. The Canadian athlete to whom he had directed his question gave Tynan his foot.

Ronan could not borrow a foot made of flesh and bones from someone who was not an amputee. He had to borrow what he needed from someone who had been injured in the same way he was. Singing the night songs with others who have lived the lyrics, has sustained me.

During happier times I remember standing on the dock at Malibu, a Young Life camp in Canada where I was a counselor along with 300 High School kids, arms locked and swaying as we sang to John Denver who came in on a yacht, belting out -

Do you see Jesus my Lord?
He's here in plain view

He was crying. So were we.

For a while I took naps with my young grandson and sang to him, as we both got sleepy - "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know!" written by Anna Warner. The naps stopped when I needed more sleep than he did, but the music has remained in my gut or soul, wherever music memories are stored.

My adult children don't like to hear my funeral plans. They think that talking about it will make it happen, I guess. It won't. I have the songs all planned; "My First Day in Heaven" will be perfect, sung by a barbershop quartet, of course. I'd like a bugle, but that would probably put my children over the edge.

Every occasion of importance in my life is tagged with a melody. You hum a few bars and I can tell you the story about what happened. I know this isn't unique to me. Music has always said what words alone fail to say.

I think about heaven. More now than in my youth. I'm glad it is a place filled with music.

I'll be singing, "It is Well With My Soul," there too, but this time it will be in tune.