Music, religion, and health

Recently, I attended a North Carolina Symphony concert that featured Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” perhaps the best known concerto ever written. Someone inquired, why did Vivaldi begin with spring and end with winter? My answer, without knowing Vivalidi’s motives, was that the pattern of spring to winter mimics life, progressing from birth to death.

Humans seem hard-wired (designed, if one posits a Creator, as I do) to search for meaning in life. The research of Drs. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili reported in their book, Why God Won’t Go Away, supports that conclusion. They write, “After years of careful scientific study, and careful consideration of our results … [we] believe that we saw evidence of a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence and acknowledge and connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves perceived of as an absolute, universal reality that connects us to all that is.” (p. 9)

Humans often express and search for meaning through rituals. Key components of ritual are rhythm, repetition, and distinctive behaviors. Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” is powerful music precisely because its rhythms, repetition of key themes, and distinctive music communicate the pattern of life, from birth to death even when people do not consciously think about the music.

Good worship does the same. Good worship has a rhythm that echoes the Creator’s activity in the cosmos, repeats themes within each service and from one service to another, and invites people to engage in distinctive behaviors. In the Episcopal tradition, for example, the rhythm of worship moves from word to sacrament. The readings follow a three-year cycle keyed to the liturgical year, repeating themes and frequently echoing the themes in multiple readings and the sermon. Worshipers engage in distinctive behaviors, associated primarily with worship in the twenty-first century: group singing, public prayer, gathering in community, kneeling, and sharing in a ritual meal – all generally performed in a space especially designed and reserved for those activities.

People who prefer to disengage from religion would do well to contemplate the potential consequences of that choice. Those consequences have nothing to do with hell. The consequences do have to do with a person’s health and happiness in this life. New berg and D’Aquili cite Dr. Harold Koenig, who teaches at Duke Medical and Divinity Schools, who has said, “Lack of religious involvement has an effect on mortality that is equivalent to forty years of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day.” (pp. 129-130)

Choosing between being part of a religious community and smoking a pack of cigarettes per day for forty years seems like a very easy choice, if one seeks personal eudaimonia. Critics may reply that true religion should spring from love for God rather than self-serving behavior. I agree. But in the absence of love for God, self-serving behavior that promotes life represents a good beginning that, if Newberg and D’Aquili are correct, will often lead to more profound religious experiences.