Article April 9, 2012 Issue

You are God's song

Ruth Geyer

I recently read of a sweet practice in an African village in a book called Wisdom of the Heart by Alan Cohen. When a woman of the Babemba tribe is pregnant, she takes her friends into the wilderness, where they pray until she hears her baby’s unique “song.” She teaches it to her friends, and they go back and teach it to the village. They gather and sing the song when the child is born, when he enters school, when he passes through initiation to adulthood, and when he marries. And when he passes on, the tribe gathers at his bedside, just as at his birth, and sings.

There’s another important occasion when the villagers sing a person’s song. If someone commits a crime or is socially aberrant, the villagers gather at the center of the village, form a circle around him, and sing his song when he seems to have forgotten it himself. They don’t chastise or ostracize him, but gather around him and nestle him back into his true nature. So any detour, darkness, or difficulty becomes an opportunity to reground him and further establish his real, pure, and perfect identity.

This custom parallels how we view spiritual identity in Christian Science, as that which comes directly from God. Our spiritual identity is a kind of “home base” where we’re always safe, authentic, and happy. We may question from time to time if we’ve lost sight of our true identity, but we can be reminded of it because God is always present, no matter how messy or veiled the picture appears.

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