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Started a new calling teaching primary recently. I had a great experience today. Amid the darkness of doubt the Spirit crept up on me while singing, “I know my Father lives” with the children. I don’t know what it is about the primary music but its powerful enough to make a grown man cry. It’s funny how those tender feelings can cause all the fears, anxieties, and doubts to just melt away, if only for a moment. What about you? Do those feelings of the Spirit ever sneak up on you when you hear/sing hymns or primary songs? I think it’s one of the reasons I continue have faith or hope that it’s all or at least part of it’s really true.
We ended with “popcorn popping on the apricot tree”. Just as I thought I was feeling the Spirit again, I got hammered with the line “it wasn’t really so, but it seemed to me”, are we really talking about sweet smelling popcorn here
::think: My brother, who now claims atheist says he still remembers the good feelings he had from church, but that they’re not reliable in terms of discerning whether or not something is true. He also said that he does miss those feelings but hasn’t been able to produce them since. One can certainly feel love and compassion while serving others, in fact there may be no greater joy than that, but there IS something different about the feelings I get when I hear primary songs or think a loving Father in Heaven with a child like innocence.
What do you think?
Quote:“Music is the unifying language of the universe – the harmonic mathematics of the soul.”
I love music, and I don’t care much about the source of how I feel listening to good, uplifting music. I consider it a gift – a pure and simple, elemental gift. Reliable in objectively understanding “Eternal Truth”? No, but being beautiful is enough to eliminate any need to analyze it, except in situations that I feel are intentionally and destructively manipulative – and I absolutely don’t view traditional hymns and Primary songs that way.
I really like music, too, and I do especially like many Primary songs. I do feel something with certain songs and hymns, and some of it is admittedly more than the emotional attachment I may have to a certain hymn (I’ve always liked “How Great Thou Art” for instance). Still, because of my own doubts and experiences I see your brother’s point of view and agree with him that emotion cannot be a reliable measure of truth. I like primary songs too. I also feel no compunctions about changing the words for singing them around my house. One of my favorites is “I feel my savior’s love.” http://www.lds.org/music/library/childrens-songbook/i-feel-my-saviors-love?lang=eng I have had spiritual feelings that I interpret to be Heavenly Father’s message of love towards me. I cannot be sure that this is the case, but I reason that I lose nothing by believing in a loving and benevolent God. Even if He is only a construct of my mind, that makes Him real enough for me and my life. I know that not everybody gets spiritual feelings and some have reported that certain medications disrupt their ability to receive these feelings – so I try to keep an open mind as to where they might be coming from.
Not really. I wasn’t brought up in the church so they don’t resonate with me. SamBee wrote:Not really. I wasn’t brought up in the church so they don’t resonate with me.
I wasn’t raised in the church, either, but I did spend some years in Primary as a teacher. I especially like “I feel my Savior’s Love” (like Roy), “My Heavenly Father Loves Me,” and “Love is Spoken Here.” I think they are as powerful as hymns.
There are some primary songs that bother me as they sound like indoctrination set to music. There are other songs that are beautiful and simple and I love them.
I don’t like “Follow the Prophet”. I don’t mind the generalized message, but I really dislike the way it is presented and beaten to death in that song. :thumbdown: I can’t think of another one, off the top of my head, that I dislike strongly. There are some about which I am ambivalent and, as my children would say, a metric crap ton that I really love.
:thumbup: There’s a bit too much obey and conform in primary music. Members might like that, non-members find it sinister. Also a lot of stuff about families… we get kids in from broken homes, single parents and adopted ones, what does this quite mean to them?
SamBee wrote:There’s a bit too much obey and conform in primary music. Members might like that, non-members find it sinister.
Like I said, I change certain wording when I sing it to my kids at home. I believe that this sets the stage someday for a conversation on “individual adaptation” and how I can still enjoy the song even if I don’t agree with every bit of it.
I also find it troubling that we spend so much time learning the names of the church leaders (also put to song) and articles of faith in primary. As someone who regularly visits other churches, it would really bother me if my kids were made to do this at other churches.
I can see the indoctrination perspective and agree that it exists. Most people who are sending their kids to Primary really don’t mind that, though – it’s kind of why they send them. There is an element of the church that’s all about indoctrination, whether it be children or adults. Because those of us here often have different points of view, some elements about Primary undoubtedly both some of us. There are Primary songs I don’t like, as there is other “church” music I don’t like (“I Heard Him Come” pops into my head). Probably my measure on whether I like or don’t like a song/hymn has much to do with how it fits into and/or supports my definition of the gospel. As a whole I find music in the church to be very uplifting. Most primary songs are delightful in my opinion, as are most hymns in the regular hymnbook when played / sung well. There are always outliers but they don’t bother me much, and we don’t really sing them often. The annual primary program is my favorite Sacrament meeting, mostly because of the music and the funny things the kids do. My kids are teenagers but every week for Family Home Evening we still sing the Oxcart Song – it’s practically required. It’s fun and a little silly but reminds us of some of the positive aspects of LDS culture. I listen to Music and the Spoken Word every Sunday – and find myself uplifted after listening to it, even if I don’t like all the music selections.
I really don’t think the church does “light” music well. When we get into songs with forced jollity, they just don’t work. Other churches do that better. The light songs often become too cheesy – Shoulder to the Wheel, springs to mind. SamBee wrote:I really don’t think the church does “light” music well. When we get into songs with forced jollity, they just don’t work. Other churches do that better. The light songs often become too cheesy – Shoulder to the Wheel, springs to mind.
What’s wrong with cheesy?
It makes me cringe. If you want happy songs, look at the Salvation Army. Much better. And I used to be in their (kids) Sunday School for a while.
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