Language of the soul made audible

Tonight was redemptive for me. Don Saliers said, at one point in the evening, that his favorite definition of music is that it is the “language of the soul made audible.” Emily Saliers (one half of the Indigo Girls), and her father Don (who is a faculty member in theology and worship at Emory), shared a conversation and some music with us. And for the first time that I can remember, a number of disparate pieces of who I am came together at once during an AAR session. Popular culture, theology, music, movement, justice, activism, academe — they were all there, and all a part of the evening. It was embodied spirituality for me, and it was conversation and music that carried it. I’m so grateful that even though I was tired I went out to the event. I am now really looking forward to the Indigo Girls new album, which apparently will come out in the spring. Emily played a song from it tonight, “All that we let in” which was beautiful and compelling. For me it was also a prayer, although I don’t know how true that would be for everyone at the event. But it was for me, and that happens so rarely (if ever!) at AAR/SBL, that I am simply grateful.