When we sing good theology we feel God’s thoughts about ultimate reality.
It’s a joy to think God’s thoughts, and we get to do that when we read the Scriptures. If you’re reading the Bible and you’re not moved to pray, pause, and go back. You missed it. Go back there and sit and listen. That will lead you to feeling His thoughts too. What if
I’m not much of a music snob. Pretty much find a few songs from a few artists and run with them. Literally, I run with the same mix in my ear over and over, miles and miles. There’s something that happens in your soul when while emptying exerting yourself at the same time you’re being filled. These voices are companions up steep hills and through the rainy runs. During that time I am a worshiper. (Actually, we’re all worshipers all the time, but that’s the topic of another post.)
Even when disciplining my body through exercise and work, I’m free. I could constantly compare my pace to what it was a decade ago (a lot faster back then), or just sit mired in the thoughts of how things used to be. As a pastor I talk to people all the time who long for the “days of old” (a couple decades ago) when music was “good” and told a Gospel story. It’s true that songs these days are often repetitive and sometimes shallow. They long for the hymns of old. What we forget is that we can come boldly and confidently before the throne of Jesus and sing His praises 1, no matter if we liked the “song set” on Sunday.
There’s a band that has done the hard work of bringing songs written long before the “days of old,” with historic theology meeting future hope and sweet melodies. Page CXVI is a project started with the idea of making hymns accessible and known again. They are some of the richest, most meaningful, and moving pieces of music ever written.
Page CXVI is giving away their entire 74-song catalog of music.
Their entire catalog of music is free for a limited time. Their music is good enough to buy too 😉
What’s in the name Page CXVI?
The name comes from a reference to page 116 in our copy of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. It is a poignant passage where Aslan begins to sing Narnia into creation out of a black void.
It starts, “In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.”
~C.S. Lewis
