Music Sunday Reflections
Music Sunday Reflection
Psalms 40 and 150, Colossians 3:16
June 21, 2026
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
What music moves you? What do you listen to? on the radio? What kind of concerts do you like to go to? What cd's do you have? Albums? What songs are on your playlist iTunes or Spotify?
Music can be a source of comfort, joy, courage, fun, a feeling of belonging.
Mention two illustrations of music.
One comes from World Cup Soccer. I confess I rarely watch soccer games on TV, but I have tuned in for a few. When the US played Australia in Seattle, I heard something that surprised me.
John Denver’s classic Country Roads Take Me Home has been belted out during US matches at this tournament. It is part of the American Songbook and those in control of the music played chose it probably because they thought people could sing it well. A World Cup has the rare power to get people of diverse backgrounds to unite.
Which is where the simplicity of Country Roads becomes quite clever, distilling that complex and cosmopolitan worldview to its briefest mission statement in unapologetic crescendo: Take me home to the place I belong. That is a theological and spiritual statement.
As Country Roads blared throughout “Seattle Stadium” on Friday, players took their time leaving the field. Many joined in the song, singing and clapping every time the chorus came around. There are few more positive experiences than belting Take me home/to the place I belooooooong with tens of thousands of others.
People singing together for their team. Singing about take me home.. a place to belong. Singing can unite people.
Music often takes us where words alone can never quite go. Music is part of our emotional selves and spiritual selves.
The world feels endlessly chaotic right now.
The United States administration released a memorandum of understanding with Iran this week but it is unclear if the ceasefire is holding. Communities that once trusted now fracture along lines of ideology, race, religion, and power. Christian nationalism continues to be a threat to the common good and ways our democracy is supposed to function that protects each person’s rights and dignity, upholds freedom of religion, and makes it possible for cooperation and collaboration for interfaith efforts.
I was thinking about these realities and music when I went to the Juneteenth celebration at Christ Presbyterian Church yesterday. Our friend Chaplain Chitoka Webb was the organizer of the event. Historically called "Freedom Day" or "Emancipation Day," the holiday is recognized not just as a historical milestone and acknowledgment of our country’s sin of enslaving African American people, but as an opportunity to celebrate African American resilience.
In our moments of exhaustion around the realities of the deeper ethical and theological issues, an old question rises again: How do we stay human in the middle of the storm?
I was reminded of a hymn written more than 150 years ago. How Can I Keep from Singing? first appeared in the late 1860s, just after the Civil War had torn the United States apart. The war left over 600,000 people dead. Families were divided. Cities were burned. The nation was trying to find its footing again after unimaginable loss.
In that moment, Baptist minister Robert Lowry wrote a song about an inner calm that no storm could shake. The hymn does not pretend the storm is small. It was written for a people who had seen devastation up close. They understood grief. They knew what it meant to live in a time when the future felt uncertain.
But they also believed something else.
They believed that beneath the chaos of history runs a deeper current, God’s presence, a steady river of courage and compassion that no empire, no war, and no tyrant can fully silence.
The song took on a new meaning. It became more than a private expression of faith. It became a declaration that even in the presence of injustice, the human spirit can refuse to surrender its center. In the twentieth century, the song surfaced again during the civil rights movement and the peace movement.
No storm can shake my inmost calm…
Notice what the song does not say. It does not say the storm will stop. Storms are part of history. Institutions we trust falter. Nations make destructive choices. Violence erupts where we hoped wisdom would prevail.
The hymn asks a different question: Where is your center when the storm rages?
The mystics across many traditions speak of a deeper current running beneath the turbulence of the world. Beneath the shouting and fear and political spectacle flows something more enduring.
When the author of this hymn spoke of an “inmost calm,” he was not describing denial or naïve optimism. He was describing the practice of rooting one’s life in that deeper current, that mystery of Divine love and grace. From that place, singing becomes resistance.
Every time we refuse to let cynicism define us, we are singing.
Every time we choose compassion when the world rewards cruelty, we are singing.
Every time we stand beside those who are vulnerable or targeted or afraid, we are singing.
The storms of history will come and go. But the deeper music of love and justice continues beneath them. We make this music together. Amen.
Resources
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/20/take-me-home-country-roads-world-cup-usmnt
https://www.pilotingfaith.org/p/the-song-beneath-the-storm?utm_source=publication-search
How Can I Keep From Singing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WllbQEEN9zQ