Weekly Blog - Andy Muckle - Singing For The Soul
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Posted on: 30th July 2024

When did Sweet Caroline become the anthem of the England football team? As a rather sad football fan, I am gutted that the song did not get one final outing after the final of Euro 2024 but gloomily our hopes and dreams all crumbled in the face of Spanish team’s silky skills. It is sometimes bizarre how a song can
suddenly come to inhabit our national consciousness, almost like it has been sung from the beginning of time. There is to my mind a particular irony that Neil Diamond’s iconic song has become an English anthem as it was first adopted by the fans of the Northern Ireland football team after defeating England in 2005!

After months of seeking someone to play the piano, our prayers were answered recently at the Crypt when we were pleased to welcome Katie, a student from Leeds School of Music, to lead us in some singing after lunch. It was a delight to belt out together some favourite songs and hymns…including, as you might have guessed…Sweet Caroline. On one level, singing is such a simple pleasure but at the same time, the bellowing out of a familiar and well-loved song (whether or not we are actually in tune!) can markedly improve our mental well-being and make our hearts a little lighter for the rest of the day. 'Singing for the Brain' is a well-known initiative of the Alzheimer’s Society which brings people living with dementia together to improve their well-being through singing, and the same power of lifting hearts and souls was there in our dining room as we belted out Sweet Caroline. Singing for the Soul might be a more apt way of describing what we were doing.

During the tumultuous events of Jesus’ passion, there is a small detail that is recorded in both the Gospels written by Matthew and Mark. After sharing the bread and wine and before heading out onto the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn. They sang something together; it is such a beautiful detail in a narrative that seems to lurch from one seismic event to another. In between the bookends of the conclusion of the sharing of bread and wine and Jesus' agony beginning in Gethsemane, they sang. Was it a song of praise celebrating God’s presence bonding them together as brothers and disciples or a peaceful hymn meditating on what they shared? Or maybe it was a heartfelt anthem of prayer for strength for the road ahead?

We don’t and won’t ever know, but whatever hymn it was, it was sung for a reason, and I believe it united Jesus and the disciples in a way that spoken words often fail to do. On that night, in that place, where body and blood were broken around a table in bread and wine, and in a few hours’ time Jesus’s body would be broken and blood shed on a cross, what they all needed and what brought them together was Singing for the Soul. May that be the same for us all.

By Rev Andy Muckle, St George's Crypt

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