Ps 92: music? life flashing by? wrong end of the funnel

Men's Bible study this week included the 92nd Psalm which opens with the subject of music. So what exactly is music in the interplay of people in fellowship and in relating to God? Surely it is something expressive, although it can be produced in rote, literal ways, lacking the warmth and presence of inspired and purposeful sounds. Sort of like the all-purpose word 'love' in English (where the Greek language of the NT distinguished 4 separate words, depending on emphasis: affection, loyatly, belonging, etc), so also for 'music' there is one vast word to include sounds organized for lyrics and tunes without words. Some songs have delicate and complicated texts, while others are simple and repetitive to lead one into meditative release or congregational unity. Some music engages the verbal part of the mind; others engage the heart or physical part of one's self with percussive, syncopated or boisterous expression. And so is this semi-linguistic or sometimes non-verbal form of worship (as well as other times in recreation, meditation, comfort or protest) a channel of communication mainly - a way to reach others; to reach out and other times to reach in? The harmonies, rhythms and textures do something; they transact something; they form a flash-flood: a powerful and possibly dangerous current that sweeps along everyone to a happy place or sad place for the short time that it flows.

In the psalm there is the imagery of those ignoring or distracted from God who are like grass in the morning - prolific and short lived. By contrast there is the image of the palms trees, persistent, fruitful and suited to harsh conditions. These are meant to illustrate the righteous seekers after God. Elsewhere in the Bible we read that all God's creatures are loved; but that some seek him and others don't accept the love he gives them. But sinners big and small, those coming to him early or late are loved equally. So even a deathbed repentance is valuable. By extension and knowing God's equal force of presence over long scales of time and microseconds, perhaps the near-death-experience (NDE) and those whose demise is final who report a rapid replay of the important experiences along life's way in the blink of an eye, but which feels like slow-motion, is yet another window of opportunity for the unbeliever to repent and to seek salvation in God, right up to the final heartbeat. To an outsider unable to see that final replay of the person's life, all comes to an end. But in God's time --frozen, speeded up, or experienced at a waking human pace --there is time enough to transact the relationship between creature and creator one final time.

As the men's group conversation went from tangent to tangent the image of a funnel came up: so many novices, newly exploring God's word and the significance of one's life in view of Jesus' lessons, tend to look at God through the wrong end of the funnel. The wide end points to the self, making that part the most important, while the narrow end points to God, allowing only a narrow field of view and blocking out the many other surrounding distractions and temptations. However, a truer relationship to God follows and flows from the other direction of the funnel: the wide end points to all of creation in which God's presence can be seen and felt, while the narrow end points to the self.