My Life: The Musical

Ever wish your life was a musical? You know, you have something-either very good or catastrophically bad-happen to you and you just want to burst into song with everyone else singing/dancing backup? Or you've just had a somewhat monotonous day and want to liven it up and randomly break into song and dance?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my life.

No seriously. I may not be a music major, but I am insanely passionate about music. Whether I'm singing (in women's chorus, my a cappella group, in musicals, or in youth choir/praise team back home), playing cello in orchestra, or just listening to some John Mayer, Beyonce, Beatles, Earth Wind and Fire, Maroon 5, Relient K, Switchfoot, The Afters, Alicia Keys, etc. on my IPod, there is something very therapeutic about music. For example, I got back from my 8 am Spanish class just totally drained, and all it took was some Relient K while my roommate Robyn was still asleep-no Advil or Ibuprofen required- to get my spirits up. And now, an hour or so later, I started this blog. Like I said in my info, music helps me make sense of my life and of the world around me.

Well it would probably help if I introduced myself. My name is Hillary, I'm 18 and I'm a freshman at Christopher Newport University. I'm currently majoring in journalism, originally because I'm an avid reader of "Vogue" and wanted to be a fashion journalist. However music has always been my first love, so while I'm sticking with my major I'm torn on what I actually want to do with my life. However God has made it clear that I have been given a significant call or purpose for my life and I have all my life to follow it. The hard part is trusting that I will eventually know God's path for me and that His will for my life will be fulfilled. But I fully believe that Jesus Christ os the Savior of all humanity and with Christ, I can do anything (Philippians 4:13).

Anyway, back to my story. For the past month or so I've become obsessed-like most others I know- with the TV show "Glee". Basically this show took Wednesdays and made them awesome, and it's pretty much the most fun hour of the day. Even though I don't want all the drama in my life that the show contains, it wouldn't hurt to just break out into a wide variety of musical numbers- such as "Somebody to Love", "Bust a Move", or what some people call our national anthem, "Don't Stop Believin". (I also would have loved to see our football team dance to "Single Ladies" like the "Glee" football team did in the 4th episode, but I don't think they're up for it. Oh well.)

Really, I'd like to say that this is the kind of joy people need. I'm not saying you should go out and start a musical in some random place at some random time (although that would be pretty awesome), but if a TV show such as "Glee" can make people this happy, then I have a question:

Why don't we live in a 100% happy world?

To answer that question, I'll take you back to my ULLC on music and politics yesterday. Last week we started a case study on the Chilean "Nueva Cancion" (or New Song) movement of the 1960s through 1990s to end poverty and injustice in Chile. Yesterday we discussed the two main founders of the movement: Violetta Parra and Victor Jara. I never thought I would be so inspired by the two, but here I am talking about it on blogspot.

The first, Violeta, started this movement by going back into Chilean folklore and started bringing back and then writing indigenous music that is now mainstream in Chile. Her most famous song is "Gracias a La Vida", which means "Thank you, life" in English. This song isn't really very political; rather she thanks life for all she has and for the little things that usually are taken for granted. We later learned that her song was always associated with the Nueva Cancion movement because it showed how the little precious moments in life became more important as the political and economic inequality continued to exist and the poor were suffering immensely. I later searched Violetta Parra and discovered that ironically, two years after she wrote that famous song, she committed suicide due to her depression over a break up. It saddens me how someone who told others to be grateful for life and not take everything for granted took her own over something so small and temporary. Nevertheless, the song still packs a lot of meaning, so if you're interested, search Violetta Parra/ Gracias a La Vida on youtube.

Then there's Victor Jara. Jara was greatly inspired by Parra and the Chilean folklore. He wrote a song, "Te recuerdo Amanda." My teacher asked us to translate the title and without missing a beat, I responded: "I remember you, Amanda." (I win.) Anyway, Jara tells the story of two working class lovers whose relationship ends because Amanda's lover suffocates in the mines. This song later became a memorial for those who went missing or were killed during the later dictatorship. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean president Jara campaigned for, Salvador Allende, was killed after General Pinochet and his regime overthreww the government. The next day, Jara was performing and military officers stormed in and took Jara along with thousands of others. One of the officers recognized Jara and mocked him. As 5,000 watched in horror, Jara defiantly sang "Venceremos" ("We Will Win") and for four days he was beaten and electrocuted before dying from machine guns. Before his death and during his capture, he wrote a poem known as "Estadio Chile", which depicts the suffering of the 5,000 hostages. One of his lines really struck me:
"O my God, is it for this you created the world?"

That line got me thinking: Why is there so much sorrow in our world?

Basically, God is the only one who's allowed to be perfect. As for us humans, we're all screwed up. We were born in sin. Therefore, life isn't always fair. That's why there's always problems in the world: poverty, war, sickness, you name it. All we can do is trust God and have faith that we can change things, but we can't do it alone. We need a Savior, and if we accept Him, we have our amazing grace.

One verse I like is Romans 8:28: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." However some readers interpret it to mean only good things, which isn't true. It does mean that even the rough times and the unfair aspects of life can be used in God's overall plan for good. As Romans 8:35-39 reads:

"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

There you go. We have issues. We have terrible things going on in our world, and people are persecuted for their beliefs and opinions, but Christ will save us if we let Him.

In the end, I really wish our lives could be musicals. If we allow it, they technically are very musical indeed: musicals can't all be happy songs. There's usually a mix of the good, the bad, and the crazy. And God is the ultimate Music Maker. I'll leave you with a story about a movie I saw in my bible study yesterday called "The Music Box": it's basically a movie with , obviously, good music and bad 70s haircuts. But it has a great message about how God's love can make you all happy and musical and it needs to be shared. My hope is that I don't come off holier-than-thou, because we are all guilty of the same thing. But I do hope I inspire you to look at your life and live in the present. Just take advantage of the little things in your life and find joy and peace in them. And maybe someday soon, you'll find something to sing about.