Come on, belt it out

I am a man who is a singer.  That’s right, and I’m comfortable saying it.  You can pull up next to me at a red light and see me doing it.  I won’t even be embarrassed.  Because I believe in this:  the world needs more of us.  Men who are singers.

One night this past week Natalie and I hosted two pre-teen boys and their chaperone from a touring Haitian children’s choir.  They are in the U.S. for several months, and it’s too expensive for them to stay in motels, or even hostels.  So they find “host families” where they stay over en route from city to city.  We were the stop between Omaha and Louisville.

We had a nice evening, with supper from my grill and desert.  The Haitian boys shot baskets and threw the American fútbol with my same-aged boys.  Natalie got to practice her Haitian Kreyol in preparation for our trip later this month.  (They told her she was doing quite well.)  As circumstances would have it, it was necessary later that evening to drop my pickup at a nearby body shop.  So after supper, we took the boys with us.  It gave the chaperone a short break, and provided us a few more minutes with them on the ride to and from the shop.

That’s when it began.  One of the boys just started singing.  Not at the top of his lungs, just quietly, there in his seat in our mini-van.  His song was in Kreyol, so I don’t know what he sang.  His companion joined him for a while, and we drove along in the dark, listening.  All the cares of the day melted away.

I am not unaware that some guys think singing is uncool.  If you are one of them (like my own youngsters, who were anguishingly embarrassed at the Haitian boys’ “outburst”), think again.  Because just let me ask you, who gets all the cute girls?  That’s right.  Men who sing.  (Exhibit A: my wife.  Do I need to say more, gentlemen?)

Anthropologists believe we sang before we talked.  Sensing a good thing when we heard it, we emulated some of the 5,400 species of the animal kingdom that chirped, croaked, bellowed, or otherwise wailed.  We’d gazed at a member of the opposite sex from beneath our protruding Australopithicine brows and, not having the words yet for “boom chicka wah-wah,” break into Paleolithic song.  Like a peacock fanning his iridescent train, our pre-speech ululations were the Neanderthal equivalent of a pick-up line.  Sung to the tune of Greensleeves: “What’s a nice Cro-magnon like you doing in a cave like this?”

That may all be true, but I think God gave us singing for other reasons.  Chief among them: to kindle joy where it’s in short supply.  Think about this: If you are in the doldrums, does your attitude lift when you hear your favorite song?  Mine does.  Kings and peasants of old knew this with their traveling minstrel shows.  King Saul knew it when he heard David’s voice and brought him as a courtier to cheer his dreariness.  David himself, of course, was said to have a mellifluous voice and may be the world’s premier songwriter.  The world needs more men who sing because singing makes people happy.

There’s another reason: God made us to do it, and He wants us to.  So we probably should.  We were made in His image.  Zephaniah says that He sings over us, His creation.  When we sing back, we praise Him.  Consider the prominence of singing in the Bible.  Its longest book, Psalms, is a compendium of song.  Singing is everywhere in the pages of God’s Word.  Fleeing Egypt, the Israelites: “I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.”  Before he was king in Israel, David would sing all day as he went about his shepherding.  Imprisoned for the Gospel, the Church’s founders would drive their guards nuts singing all night.  “Cut it out!” the guards would shout.  But on the singing would go, chains falling to the ground.

I sing and play bass guitar in my church’s worship band.  I’ve been known to say that we’ve only just started a song of praise that will last… well… forever.  The coolest thing about singing is that we are just warming up.  We’ll spend eternity singing “Holy Holy Holy is the Lamb, the Lord God Almighty” around the brilliant light of His throne.  That choir — of all the saints, the cloud of witnesses who have gone before — will be glorious.  That’s worth practicing here, now.

I know that when I’m stopped at the red light.  Those Haitian boys know that, trundling around a small mid-American suburb in the back of a  mini-van.  Come on, join us.  Belt it out!