A healing

I participated with my friend, Marsha, in the Sacred Singers group in Cincinnati, OH. The intention of the group is to bring emotional and spiritual soothing and healing to those in suffering. While the group was in session, a homeless mother of three children briefly participated. As the facilitator welcomed each singer by standing in front of each and keeping the lovely musical tones of a singing bowl floating on the air, the mother seemed wary. But I then observed her closing her eyes, willing to receive the gift of music. Her children were in the church nursery downstairs, and she was summoned to leave group to attend to them. While she was gone, her nine-year-old daughter entered our group. She asked if she could play the hand-drum while we sang; which was granted. When our facilitator asked if anyone present had a birthday this month for us to recognize with song, the girl called out each month of the year, hoping someone would stand in circle to be sung to. She said that her birthday had been in March, so we asked if she wanted to have happy birthday sung to her. She stood in the center of our cirlce and we sang the group's version of happy birthday, different than the usual. We then asked her permission to sing the ending which goes like this: (person's name) you are beautiful, (name) you are fine; you're a unique and special woman; you've been perfect all along, (name) hear our loving song. The child rubbed her eyes,trying to contain her tears of newly found self-respect. We told her that the song moves everyone to tears. She wept quietly. A group member held the child close while she cried. After she gained composure, her face appeared relaxed and radiant. Her reaction was deeply profound. We supposed that, like most of us growing up, the girl never knew what a beautiful creation she is; or perhaps she had been told, or it was implied by society, as it has for many of us, that she was ugly and unintelligent. And due to the circumstances of her family, she may have felt spiritually homeless as well. It seems that through our song she rediscovered the true, beautiful self she was in her mother's womb and at birth.

The girl's mother came back into the group with her two other children. She joined us in more of our songs and chants and then she and the girl taught us, through call and response, their beloved songs about Jesus. Yet without verbal language, her infant son rocked his body and arms in time to the music, her youngest daughter danced.

Through sharing love without judgment, in song, we all, the Sacred Singers, the nine-year-old girl, her mother and siblings found a new home.