“I had been given a cassette of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor–this was the only music I had, and I had been playing it for two weeks almost nonstop. Now suddenly, as I was standing, the concerto started to play itself with intense vividness in my mind. In this moment, the natural rhythm and melody of walking came back to me, and along with this, the feeling of my leg as alive, as part of me once again. I suddenly ‘remembered’ how to walk.”(1) So writes renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks in his book Musicophilia, describing his personal recovery following a serious injury to his leg in a climbing accident.

Sacks perhaps became more popularly known as the real life individual who inspired the character portrayed by Robin Williams in the 1990 film, Awakenings, a film later nominated for an Oscar. But the description The New York Times bestowed upon him as “the poet laureate of medicine” well sums up an impressive biography that includes the story of a physician, scientist, writer, and artist. A fascinating man, a lengthy article could be written in attempt to do yet small justice to a remarkable life story and his pursuit of treatment for those suffering from illnesses like autism, parkinsonism, epilepsy, phantom limb syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome, schizophrenia, and the great pandemic of sleepy sickness following World War I. For today, I want to bring a magnifying glass to his research of music therapy as treatment for the above mentioned conditions, and more.

His writing in Musicophilia explores the power of music to move us, to heal us, and to haunt us. While he often draws from his experience with patients, I like the words one reporter wrote when he described the role of music in Sacks’ own recovery: “his own mind was his best laboratory.” For this is true for all of us, perhaps.

What is it about music that can awake one out of catatonic state and can instantly carry us back to a time and memory etched in our minds long ago? Sacks says that music is processed in multiple centers of the brain, more even than language. Thus, when one or even several centers incur damage, the ability to process music is still alive in the surviving rooms of our mind. “In the senile, music can help recall lost memories; in the speech-impaired, it can bring back words,” the neurologist writes. “Immobile patients may get up and dance or sing.”(2)

Not long ago, I had the privilege of bearing witness to music therapy. I observed children on the spectrum of autism and Asperger’s clench their fists with determination as they focused their energy and desire to press their lips together to form the letter b, in response to the skilled music therapist looking them so sincerely in their eye as she provided a therapeutic answer cloaked in musical notes to help them confront their challenge. I swallowed hard as I glimpsed the ever so slight movement of a wounded veteran paralyzed by a brain injury as he answered her invitation to sing a favorite Blues Brothers song he learned to love long before his accident on the battlefield. It is a fascinating field helping people to override the limitations of the body in favor of the strength and awakening of the mind. It is providing a quality of life, a reminder of the life within.

I have always been one deeply affected by music, and often noticed how the sounds of a familiar tune can take me back to the sights and even smells of a certain time. I might struggle to recall my current zip code, but I can remember each word of a song I have not heard in over 25 years. And recently, I have been exploring the potential for healing found in the gift of music. I am fascinated by its reach, amazed by the depth of its capacity. And oh! Now how I regret my incessant protests to piano practice that eventually wore down my weary mother who finally allowed me to quit in my teenage years!

When the magnificent workings of the human body incur injury and fail us, how incredible is it that God as master artist and designer equipped us with something we carry inside that extends beyond language into that which cannot be fully articulated, and connects us to all of the emotions of life from celebration, to mourning, to laughter, to remorse, to worship.

“I have seen patients weep or shiver as they listen to music they have never heard before,” writes Sacks. “Once one has seen such responses, one knows that there is still a self to be called upon, even if music, and only music, can do the calling.”(3)

For the believer, music is but a marvelous gift and tool for the one who created our innermost being to do the calling and remind us, to awaken, what is locked inside. We marvel at the symphony: how do we begin to marvel at the one who designed each one of its several hundred individual components and the ability to interpret and understand it in the spaces of our mind, to see its reach to the places it can heal?

Naomi Zacharias is Director of Wellspring International.

(1) Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia (New York, Random House: 2008), 255.

(2) Jordan Lite, “Oliver Sacks: Music can heal the brain” Daily News, October 29, 2007.

(3) Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia, 385.

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In ancient cities, sentinels kept vigil on the city walls throughout the night. Long, difficult hours of waiting and watching characterized the sentinel’s evenings. The watcher’s role was well understood as vital for the protection of the city and the welfare of its citizens. Morning, nonetheless, meant great relief, both for the watchmen who kept vigil throughout the darkness and for the city within the walls.

Making use of this laden imagery, biblical writers often juxtaposed the role of watchman waiting for morning and the work of the prophet. Through long, dark hours of slavery and exile, cultural stubbornness and crushing despair, the prophets kept watch, calling out injustices, calling forth awareness, peace, repentance, and the unimaginable love of a God who would not let go. Jeremiah cried out, “This is what the LORD says: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ I appointed watchmen over you and said, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But you said, ‘We will not listen.'” Isaiah expanded the imagery of the sentinel’s watch even further, suggesting watchful eyes throughout the kingdom of God, servants who hold vigil day and night, watching for light even when presently surrounded by darkness. “Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion.”(1)

An old man in Jerusalem named Simeon was one such sentinel. All that is known of him is that he was righteous and devout, and looked forward to the consolation of his broken land. Led by the Spirit one day, he went to the temple to offer the customary sacrifice, when he noticed an infant in the arms of a young, peasant woman. Taking the baby in his arms, he began to sing:

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,

according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles

and for glory to your people Israel.”(2)

A watchman who had kept vigil through long years of darkness, Simeon sees the infant Jesus in plain sight and uses the language of a slave who has been freed. There is a sense of immediacy and relief, as if the light of morning has finally arrived after years of shadow and night, and he is at last free to leave his post.

The feast of Epiphany, the historical Christian day that celebrates the arrival of the magi to the birthplace of Jesus, tells a similar story. Matthew describes a vigilant scene not unlike that of Simeon at the temple or sentinels on the city wall. Astrologers from the east followed a lone star through a great expanse of darkness to come upon a newborn king. Their watchful journey took years. It impelled further darkness as Herod’s jealousy reared an evil demand for the murder of infant boys throughout Bethlehem. It was a solitary journey, disregarded by the masses and wrought with difficulty. But the light was real and relieving. “Nations shall come to your light,” sang the prophet of this child, “and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isaiah 60:3).

With those who first watched and waited for God to step from the heavens and into our darkness, Epiphany is a reminder that ours is still a world straining in shadow, with our glimpses of light, waiting. Like those who first journeyed to set their eyes on the child born to die, we move through long nights, often finding ourselves out of place, in the dark, straining to see more. The Christian story is a declaration that Jesus can transform this watching and waiting, our lives and our deaths, bringing light where death stings, where tears discourage, and darkness haunts. “I wait for the Lord,” sang the psalmist, “my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” The night is surely long, but indeed, what if the light is real?

By Jill Carattini.

(1) cf. Jeremiah 6:16-17, Isaiah 52:8.

(2) Story told in Luke 2:26-32.

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