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Important Singing: essay by Isabel Chenot

Updated: Jun 11, 2022





















mother with child, art by Isabel Chenot



Important Singing


From Genesis to Revelation, one of the archetypes that broods over scripture

is the woman with her child. She towers over our sacred consciousness,

cradling life—in the figure of Eve, “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20);

of Sarah, mother of promise, full of laughter; of Mary “full of grace;” of the

woman in Revelation 12 with the moon under her feet, who carries her child

into the wilderness pursued by the dragon, who is helped by the earth.


History plays out from the first murder in a welter of lust, lies, oppression,

disaster, wars. Nations divide and strengthen, butcher and enslave and totter

to dust. And over it all is a woman humming and rocking her child.


What is she singing? We pay so much attention to the current swell and tumble,

the towering and slipping thrones. But what if the lift and lull of her voice, stilling

her child, is more significant?


What if she is singing, over the clash of confused powers, to us?


“Because the struggle for us is not against blood and flesh, but

against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-powers

of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil…” (Ephesians 6:12)

The real war is not “out there,” but within each one of us. The hardest struggle

is our struggle of spirit.


In my re-readings of the epistles this year, I have been underlining phrases

about living as “children,” “beloved children,” “children of light.” In Philippians

2:15, becoming more childlike is how we send up a flare in a dark world:


“Become blameless and innocent children of God, without blemish,

amidst a crooked and perverse generation among whom you are

shining as lights in the world.”


Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Armenia, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar.

Wherever there are wars (and there are many more wars than these in our

world as you read this), children are not exempt from suffering. We know too

well that, in our struggle against spiritual darkness, even children must fight.


What I have been apprehending is that we are being called, by that timeless,

ineffable hum above the throes of history, to fight like children. With innocence.

With given smallness. With wonder, and gentleness, and trust. With hope and

forgiveness. With stories, like children do, and songs.


It's contrary to my ideas of winning. But this is what the woman rocking her child

means: eternal light came to win the world by becoming a child.


“We love little children. They draw out of us the best that is in us. This is

parallel to the mystery of God coming to us as a child. We are so defenseless

before him in terms of the aspirations of the human heart.” (Edward Farrell)

We are so defenseless before him. Captivated. Disarmed. The given smallness

of God dethrones our inner darkness. And we are told that the songs of little ones

are stronger than God's enemies.


“Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

You have ordained strength,

Because of Your enemies,

That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.”

(Psalm 8:2)


My thoughts about this have been sweetened and deepened by those of

my pen-friends. One shared a lullaby in which I could hear the echo of that

ineffable song: "Lullaby in a mad world" by Kilby Austin. Another friend, Carrie L.,

shared this observation:


“I was very tickled in Ephesians this morning by how it seems like

‘singing and making melody with your heart’ comes out as a direct

development on the idea of ‘how to make the best use of time during

evil days.’ . . . It is like he is saying, ‘Don’t lie around idling and drinking!

Can’t you see that there is a war going on? Get up and help! There is

important SINGING to do!’”




_______________________________________


Isabel Chenot’s work has appeared before in Spirit Fire Review, as well as in

Indiana Voice Journal, Assisi, Avocet, and Blue Unicorn, among other journals.

For a preview of West of Moonlight, East of Dawn, her retelling of an old fairy tale,

visit westofmoonlight.art. And her book The Joseph Tree (published in January,

2022) is available through Wiseblood Books, and on Amazon.




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