I read an interesting story in a book titled Child of the Jungle. A missionary and his family lived among the Fayu tribe in New Guinea. The missionary’s daughter, Sabine, wrote this:
When we first moved to the Fayu, we wondered whether they knew any songs, since we never heared them singing. This question was answered fairly quickly. We had just returned from Danau Bira, and our things had once again been stolen. As we were cataloguing our losses, we heard singing from the other side of the river. It was Nakire singing in a lovely monotone.
“Ohhhhhh,” he sang. “The Fayu are like birds. Ohhhh, they always take from the same tree. Ohhhh, such bad people. Ohhhh, poor Klausu, poor Doriso. They are so sad and wonder where their stuff is. Ohhh...”
Papa was delighted as it became clear to us that Fayu simply improvise a song to match their situation. The songs only consist of three notes with which they express whatever they are feeling in the moment. It is not the most sophisticated music, but it is a sound I quickly came to love.
Their use of songs to express themselves may be one of the reasons the Fayu do not seem to suffer from depression or other psychological disorders. Feelings are immediately expressed. There are even times set aside for the release of emotions, for example, the mourning song. When the song of mourning runs its course, the grieving truly is finished, and life resumes as normal.
When a person experienced a traumatic event he might lie for weeks in his hut, not saying a word but singing for hours at a time. During this period, other clan members would provide him with food. Then one day, he would simply get up with the trauma behind him. Cleansed of pain, he would smilingly resume his everyday tasks.
What if we started making up our own songs? “Ohhhh, I am so miserable because my husband lost his job and I don’t know what we are going to do. Ohhhh, I don’t understand why my friends are blessed and I seem to always have trouble. Ohhhh, when will my circumstances change? I feel like running away from it all. Ohhhh, yes, I feel like running away.”
After hearing me preach this in a seminar, a girl on our staff made up a song about her sinuses. It went something like this: “Ohhhh, I am so tired of my sinuses being stuffed up. I just want to breathe; yes, I want to breathe with ease. It doesn’t seem fair that I am allergic to the space I live in. Ohhhh, it just isn’t fair.”
I am sure you get the point. It might help to sing out your true feelings, but always tell God that you are trusting in Him to make wrong things right.
This is the same principle that David practiced. The Psalms are all songs; they are words set to music. And they were David’s way of expressing himself honestly to God. We are encouraged in the Bible to sing unto God a new song (see Psalm 96:1). Perhaps part of those new songs that we make up should be an honest expresssion of how we feel. In venting our emotions properly, we might avoid lots of psychological problems, the same way the Fayu tribe did.
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