Wednesday, August 6
- Scripture: Psalm 149:3 – “Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.”
- Reflection: Make music a part of your relaxation and recreation today. As we have discussed before, music has the capacity to activate multiple areas of the brain. Its integration into the day’s rhythms can create multi-valent experiences. Harvard Medicine reflects (full article), “Music also lights up nearly all of the brain — including the hippocampus and amygdala, which activate emotional responses to music through memory; the limbic system, which governs pleasure, motivation, and reward; and the body’s motor system …The brain’s elaborate receptivity to music means that it “ends up being encoded as a rich experience.”
Let your body and voice be instruments that receive and convey music today. Listen to songs. Sing out loud or hum along. Whistle. Let music enter your body and mind, and allow it to leave your body again. Let music inhabit your body and trigger the mind-body-spirit connections. Move to the music. Tap your feet. Nod your head. Wiggle your eyebrows. Drum your fingers. Shimmy your body.
Enjoy the experience! - Spiritual Practice Prompt: Play your favorite upbeat song — pop or sacred or other genres — and dance like no one is watching. Or sing at the top of your lunds. Offer this movement and song as praise.
Song:
- “Joy” by For King & Country: https://youtu.be/lA7n7TwPDmw?si=_leC5_nbmKk-csgA
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. ― Plato
August 6 Daily Devotional