Here's something you probably didn't know, or didn't want to know, about me. I'm a bit of a Swiftie.
Taylor Swift wasn't on my radar screen during her early career. But I do try to pay attention to what my students are listening to. So in 2014, our student office worker was listening to Swift's recently released album 1989. If you know Taylor Swift you know 1989 was the album where she stepped away from her country roots to fully embrace pop. My student played me some of the songs on 1989 and I thought Jana would like the album. Jana likes upbeat pop. So on a road trip, I played the album and Jana fell in love. We've been Taylor Swift fans ever since. It's something we share together. We listen to the albums when they come out. I've taken Jana to both the Reputation and The Eras tour concerts.
As you might know, Taylor Swift released another album this week--she's a very busy and hardworking girl--entitled The Tortured Poets Department. Keeping with tradition, Jana and I listened to the album together.
My love of Taylor Swift is really about my love for Jana. Jana loves Taylor Swift and I want to share in what Jana loves. So when an album or concert comes out I want to experience that with her. The same way she watches football and basketball games with me. She does struggle, however, whenever I try to play Bob Dylan. Which I understand. Some pleasures just can't be shared. :-)
Anyway, if you've been to The Eras concert you'll have witnessed what I witnessed, young girls (and old!), standing for three hours straight and singing every single verse and chorus. Non-stop singing, never missing a line. The Eras tour is a three hour singalong.
Jana and I didn't stand for three hours. We're getting pretty old for that sort of exertion. Plus, while we love Taylor Swift's music, we aren't obsessed with Taylor Swift the person. I can't name you her past boyfriends. We don't wait up for her albums to drop or chase Easter eggs she puts out on social media. Basically, we like Taylor Swift's music, but we're normal, adult people with day jobs.
But back to the three hour singalong of The Eras tour...
Watching the young girl to my left at the concert stand and passionately sing for three hours, I was struck by the power of music. Music is intoxicating. It creates an emotional connection. Music connected this young person to the artist and the music connected everyone in the stadium. As you're aware, music concerts are religious experiences for attendees. Sporting events create similar experiences of transcendence. To be sure, religious people detect a threat here. As we move deeper and deeper into a post-Christian culture, people will grow hungry for transcendence. And they will seek out those experiences at concerts and sporting events. That, or they'll experiment with psychedelics.
Which brings me to Psalm 47's "sing praise."
I've always been struck that ours is a singing faith. Singing is at the heart of our spiritual practices. And I believe that is due to the psychophysiology of singing. We are embodied and emotional creatures. And our spirituality has to penetrate and shape us affectively and physiologically. Music does this. Singing praise connects us to each other and to God. Singing creates the neurological and social scaffolding for an experience of transcendence. And I don't see why secular artists like Taylor Swift should be the only beneficiary of this aspect of human psychology.
Affectivity is often disparaged in many religious circles and in the spiritual formation literature. But I've been reading Jonathan Edwards' The Religious Affections, and Edwards is clear: Emotions are the motor of human psychology. You see it right there in the Latin root movere, which means "to move," in the words move, motor, motivation, and emotion. Emotions move us. Emotions motivate us. Emotions are our motor.
And what is something that gets that motor engaged and running? Singing! Singing does this, perhaps more than any other spiritual practice we do.
You might not like Taylor Swift. (And let's admit that the discourse about her online is getting very tired.) You'll have your own music to listen to and concerts to attend. But let's not forget the exhortation of Psalm 47.
In all your singing, make space to sing praise.
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