♪ Carried Away ♫

I was thinking this morning when I was helping my wife to get up for the day, of how much music has influenced our lives over the years.  I was raised in an atmosphere of singing, piano playing and music styles ranging from classical Mario Alonzo, to famous Broadway musicals, to the crooners like Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett, Perry Como and of course, my Mom’s high school heart-throb Frank Sinatra to the Big Bands from the 1940’s all the way to the Beatles!  My Mom loved to sing and sang in the acclaimed St Eugene’s Cathedral Choir for many years.  In high school she also sang in a popular trio.  I have many precious memories of her sitting at her piano playing older tunes, Christmas Carols, or music that their Choir was going to perform.

Piper, on the other hand, grew up in the world of church hymns and contemporary Christian folk music.  Her Mom had a beautiful voice and sang solos at church on Sunday’s and at special church functions.  She also sang for groups around town and at times added drama productions to her presentations.  As our kids were growing up she even recorded a children’s album with many songs that she had personally written.

Piper’s family were also regulars, along with her maternal grandmother in the First Baptist Church Choir.  If I remember the story right, Piper’s paternal grandmother was the real instigator and force behind Piper’s and her sister’s years of piano lessons which started for Piper when she was around six.  Piper would have me in stitches as she would regale me with wild stories of her grandmother driving them to lessons in a nearby town in her huge  Pontiac Bonneville wagon, speeding around the sharp turns on the back-country roads that she took, bumping over things in the roadway and barely missing wildlife (and other vehicles…) that had strayed into her path!

One of Piper’s most coveted possessions has been the beautiful Baldwin Acrosonic piano that her Dad’s mother had given to her through her will after she passed one week before our wedding.  And as you can imagine, that piano played an integral part of our family’s life!  Piper taught all our kids how to play piano on it, would sit down on various occasions and play music ranging from the old church hymns, to the contemporary worship songs we sang in church to the classical music in which she was originally trained.  I’ve mentioned in many posts of how she would surprise me on some of my birthdays by playing a new classical piece that she learned and practiced while I was off at work.

So yeah, music and singing has been a central part of Piper’s and my lives that we’ve joyfully passed on to our kids.  In fact, I was again reminded of this when Face-timing with our youngest son yesterday afternoon.  He was telling me of the old pipe organ that is built into the structure of the smaller chapel building at the new church in Oklahoma City that they are now calling home.  As he was describing its unique details that had caught his attention, I found myself going back in time when Piper and I produced a Rock Opera at her Baptist church in the early 1970’s.

We had put together a band with friends from our high school days (and the band I had been a part of since junior high) with lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums and Piper on the piano… except for one of the old hymns we sang when Piper stood up and switched over to the beautiful organ the church had.  After the first performance, many different individuals who had known Piper for years came up to us expressing surprise and delight that Piper could also play the organ!

Music has been shown to play a strong role in the treatment of many diseases including mind altering sicknesses like Alzheimer’s.  Over the last ten years I have seen Piper become more alert and animate when she became aware of certain songs or musical styles playing in our home or car.  One time while driving in the car and listening to the local Classical radio station, she suddenly raised her hands at the crescendo of the song and moved her arms in perfect cadence to the music and acted as through she was directing the orchestra!

While studying my Bible this morning I came across a different translation of Psalm 40:3 that really seemed to hit just the right spot for what I had been thinking about earlier when helping Piper.  While the God’s Word © version follows the more traditional translation of the verse saying: “He placed a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see this and worship. They will trust the LORD,” The Message modern paraphrase paints a vivid landscape in one’s mind by declaring: “He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to GOD.”

The thought of one entering into praise and worship in song to the Lord and in doing so abandon themselves to Him said it all!  And as I meditated on those artistic words, I nodded my head in agreement thinking that sacred music has always carried Piper and I away into another world… the world of His presence!  For us it has consistently been a place where the troubles and tribulations of life seem to melt away.  When singing unto Him the worst happening to us at any given moment pales under the glow of His presence and the power of His Word that we are offering up to Him.  When I sing simple praise and worship songs unto Him as I begin Piper’s day, I no longer see how the symptoms of this awful disease have devastated her once strong, fit and beautiful body.  

When I am lost in abandonment within His Presence I only see her as God and His Word see her, whole and complete and lacking nothing! (See Matthew 9:22 and I Peter 2:24)  When in His presence in song, I am filled with a strong sense of God’s best for my wife and I.  While lost in His presence in song, I am filled to overflowing with His expectations, His strength, His joy and most of all His peace.  When lost in abandonment within His presence in musical praise and worship unto Him, I hear His plans and directions for Piper and I and feel the personal confidence building up in me to press forward against the worldly hopelessness that continually bombards us and fulfil His will for us.

When lost in abandonment in song unto to Him, I become a living and breathing embodiment to everyone around me that “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26 KJV)

So yeah… that’s why His songs of praise and worship have always been a central part of who Piper Kaye Berruto and James Joseph Berruto are!  You know what they say… “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it"  So, we’ll keep up the foundation of that which was instilled in each of us since our childhoods. 

We’ve passed that foundation on to our kids and now… We’re passing it on to you!  So, what do you say?  Ready to be carried away? ♫

Have a great week ahead, and as you do, keep asking yourself… “Am I really expecting to allow myself to be carried away in abandonment into His presence?