Flammable Sound And Its Implications

1Sometimes you find beauty in the most unexpected of places.

And then sometimes you find something you’re not sure how to describe in a place where you’re not totally surprised to find something like it but you’re still surprised to find it even though you’re not sure what it is.

That would describe my mental state last night when I stumbled upon an ad for an upcoming worship album which featured a phrase that almost took my breath away, but not quite all the way, leaving me with just enough breath to continue to breathe, and to continue to live to share the unexpected beauty of its mystery with you.

There, in all-caps, against a backdrop of a red-dust spreading ballet dancer in a pose I call the “Ouchie Pretzel”, was this phrase:


I found myself immediately questioning not only myself, but also all I know to be logical and established and true:

1. Does love have a color?
2. Can color be ignited?
3. Can (or could) sound ignite flammable color?
4. If sound can be used to ignite color, and if love has a color, then what’s the deal with all the frozen yogurt shops popping up everywhere?

Then a more philosophical question hit me:

1. What in the world does YOUR SOUND IGNITES THE COLOR OF HIS LOVE mean?

I realized in that moment something very true:

Obviously, it means that the more we draw sounds with the intonation of our thoughts and physicality in the universal realm of ballet, we’ll ignite an invisible flame that will actually be a reverse flame that doesn’t burn but actually creates something new in its place like a dimension in the musical sphere that’s unexplainable by words and incomprehensible by the human or animal mind, all the while transcending our very existence and leading us to that quiet place where we can commune with God.

How have I missed that simple truth all these years?

This ad awakened me to a new level of worship leading profundity. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. It’s almost like I’ve stumbled across a new path that I never knew was there, but if I had only looked I would have seen the path was there the whole time, kind of like that time I lost my car keys for an hour but they were sitting on the kitchen island laughing at me (silently, like the flammable color of love) the whole time.


In other words, the mathematical yet musical combination of intervals that form themselves to create a culturally conditioned yet innately recognized product that we’ve deemed “music” (when we could have just as easily deemed it “croissants”) can literally and/or figuratively and/or eternally and/or tangentially ignite (using that word interchangeably with “jazz hands”) the color, which is really just a fancy way of saying “don’t do what you do, but be what you do, so that you end up doing what you’re made to be”, of his love, which is all possible for $9.99 on iTunes.

Get it today before your color is up and you’ve missed the ignition of the sound.

Or was it all just a dream? I’m going to get some frozen yogurt.

10 thoughts on “Flammable Sound And Its Implications

  1. LaughingLady August 1, 2015 / 10:09 am

    Bahahaha, I just love this. I actually, literally laughed out loud. Definitely glad I followed the tip on Challies.com… 🙂

  2. debbielynne7 August 1, 2015 / 12:35 pm

    I love it! It’s so true that “worship” songs often have really absurd lyrics. Thanks for a good laugh.

    But now I want frozen yogurt.

  3. Brent Johnson August 1, 2015 / 4:37 pm

    Ignite the color of the Jazz Hands?

  4. John Murdoch August 1, 2015 / 6:54 pm

    Followed a link by a member of my congregation–deliriously happy I did.

    But–pro tip. Jazz hands dipped in yogurt gets really messy, really fast. Just sayin’.

    • Jamie Brown August 1, 2015 / 7:06 pm

      And that’s when you experience the deepest beauty of all.

  5. Jeannette Browning August 24, 2015 / 1:22 pm

    How much energy is needed by a worship leader. Ex: leading very slowly, using a guitar rather than energy=no one much wants to sing

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