Rachel Fitch
Sid & Cathy Batts Pastoral Resident
What do United Pursuit, Florence & the Machine, Mumford & Sons, Van Morrison, Tim McGraw, Bruce Springsteen, Harry Styles, and David Crowder all have in common?
Well, naturally, they all have a song on our Fruit of the Spirit Playlist!
Now, you might be quite musically inclined and able to sing along to most of these eclectic and some overtly and some more hiddenly fruit-themed songs — or, like me, you might not be!
Behind each song there are stories. The one I’m familiar with is the album by the Meek Squad as it is produced by my friends from the neighborhood where I had the gift of living in Durham. Their story is a beautiful one and the voices included are eclectic — folks with and without disabilities truly making a joyful noise to the Lord. They sing songs they have collectively written and have already been singing together for years in the neighborhood’s morning and evening prayer.
While this is only one album and a few songs, this playlist is filled with many more gems each with a story — songs that staff members suggested as they reflected on the fruit.
Needless to say, whether you are a musically inclined person or one, more like me, who enjoys listening but knows little, I invite you to listen. I invite you to hear old familiar hymns and songs and to discover new ones.
And, as we dive into our series, studying the fruit, and reflecting on how to cultivate them, making room for the Spirit’s work in our lives, I invite you to seek to see the fruit in action. I invite you to pick them out as you read, to listen for them in songs, and to seek to spot them in the actions of those around us. For these are the work of the Spirit in our midst.
