What Mozart is teaching me about life and worship

Sometimes, my heart longs for simple worship songs. When I’m too tired to think, when my soul is weary, the simplicity speaks to me. There is beauty in simplicity. But I don’t want to always stay at simple.

My short attention span has grown shorter these days. I find it hard to sit still, to leave my phone tucked away where I can’t see it. I can’t seem to read blog posts or articles longer than 500 words, and videos longer than 3 minutes never make it past the three minute thirty second mark. If a song requires too much thought, I just listen to the pretty music rather than engaging in the lyrics.

What is happening to my brain? I’m all over the place. I can’t take anything too long, too intellectual, too thought provoking.

Which is why I’m glad I spend two hours each Monday singing Mozart with my community choir.

Mozart is killing me. Seriously. His Mass in C minor is like a flipping book. There are so many eighth and sixteenth notes that my brain cannot keep up. Throw some Latin in there and my head feels like it may explode. The first few run throughs of the Kyrie, and I thought to myself, “AHHH! I’ll never get this!”

And then this week, the rhythms started to click. I was keeping up, on beat, and singing in Latin. Engaging in the lyrics and soaking up the beautiful harmonies.

I’m tired of the status quo that my brain seems satisfied with. I’m done with mediocre. I want to push myself hard and make myself think. Even in my worship time. Though there is a place for simple and easy, there is also a place for hard and thought provoking.