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Open, Lord, my inward ear, And bid my heart rejoice; Bid my quiet spirit hear Thy comfortable voice;
Never in the whirlwind found Or where earthquakes rock the place,
Still and silent is the sound, The whisper of thy grace.
Charles Wesley
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Rock-the-Cradle Discussion Questions and Genogram Exercises:
1. Try this experiment. Give someone five seconds to solve this puzzle: 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1=_________________. Then give someone else five seconds to solve this puzzle: 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8=_______________. I will guarantee you that the guesses will be different. On test samples of people, the average answer guessed for the first equation was 2250. The average answer for the second was 512. (Of course, the right answer is 40,320)
Why was the guess for the first four times higher than the guess for the second? First impressions mean everything. It all depends on where you start. Where you finish is dependent on where you begin. If something doesn't have a "right spirit" from the beginning, it's going to have a "bad spirit" at the end.
Spirit comes first!
What kind of spirit do you give off? What is your best spiritual feature? Your worst?
2. Willie Ruff and John Rodgers of Yale University put into a synthesizer the "songs of the planets." They even made a record of it. The six visible planets with their elliptical orbits constitute in Kepler's phrase a "six-part harmony motet," while the outer three planets add the "rhythm section" in which Pluto beats the bass drum.
Listen to their album The Harmony of the World. Or share reactions to David Deamer's DNA Music, a musical translation of DNA sequences.
3. Pass out copies of "A Letter to a Young Musician," written by James A. Rogers, Diaconal Minister of Music for over 20 years at First United Methodist Church, Springfield, Illinois, as first published in Worship Arts, September-October 1996, 3-5.
4. Discuss the implications of Mary Catherine Bateson's thesis that one shouldn't so much "plan" a life from the outside in as one "composes" a life from the inside out.
5. There is a notion that all art aspires toward the condition of music. Would you agree or disagree?
6. "I heard the Queen Mary blow one midnight . . . and the sound carried the whole history of departure and longing and loss." E. B. White speaks here of sounds that echo a lifetime of thoughts and experiences. What are some of these sounds for your people? Put together some focus groups and find out.
7. Carlyle Marney liked to tell people who complained of God's silence to live on the basis of the last clear word from God they heard until they could hear another one. What was the last clear word from God you have heard?
8. The book Elevator Music calls Muzak, etc. "furniture music." The thesis of the book is that music is now more than just background; it's become a utilitarian fixture and feature of our environment. Could this be why people are already trying to trademark sounds? Already there are three trademarked sounds: (1) the NBC chimes; (2) the MGM lion, and (3) the Harley-Davidson engine sound of its "Hog"--patent pending. If you could trademark the sound of your church, what would it be?
9. Bach and Handel went blind; Beethoven went deaf. Which do you think would be worse? Blindness or deafness.
10. Sing and discuss the following hymns that teach sound theology, like this one:
*** This is My Father's World, and to my listening ear all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. ***
1. This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my Father's world: I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; his hand the wonders wrought.
2. This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise, the morning light, the lily white, declare their maker's praise. This is my Father's world: he shines in all that's fair; in the rustling grass I hear him pass; he speaks to me everywhere.
3. This is my Father's world. O let me ne'er forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father's world: why should my heart be sad? The Lord is King; let the heavens ring! God reigns; let the earth be glad!
"There's Within My Heart a Melody" (# 380)* "The Voice of God is Calling" (# 436) "Take My Life, God" (# 399)
"There's a Church Within us, O Lord" "Rescue the Perishing" (vs. 3) (# 591) "Come Thou Fount"
(#400) "This is My Father's World"(#144) "When in our Music God is Glorified"
(# 68) *# are in the United Methodist Hymnal 
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