Baby Beluga
Like most households, we have a regular division of parental duties. Since I’m on bedtime duty every night, Lee usually takes on the task of bathing our youngest. Except one night he was busy. As I was toweling off our youngest son, I asked him if he could remember what I used to sing to him after baths a long time ago. He looked at me, thinking, but didn’t come up with anything. So I started singing: “Baby beluga in the deep blue sea…”
As a child, I loved Raffi. There’s a family story about going to a Raffi concert, and my siblings covering their ears at the loudness of it all, while I was on my feet and dancing to every song. Five years ago, I started singing “Baby Beluga,” and it was such an exciting moment when Koen started singing it on his own. With his speech delay, we often got more songs than speaking. We would change up the color of the beluga based on his towel color. He would pick an instrument, and I’d have to sing the song as that instrument.
But Koen would never sing with me. He’d sing on his own, or he would ask me to sing. But as soon as I started singing, he stopped. The same goes for his favorite songs — he won’t sing along with the radio, but give him a microphone, and he will sing you the entire song. I always think he’s dedicating himself to listening and absorbing, and it’s too much to sing along.
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Except for this one night. As I started singing “Baby Beluga,” Koen started singing along. Not loudly, but in his unassuming way. He remembered every single word. We don’t always know what he remembers and what he doesn’t — what impacts him and what glances off. But “Baby Beluga” was in his bones.
As I tried not to make too big a deal of it, or start sobbing, it hit me that this is what I wanted: for my children to sing along with me. Not just literally of course. But I want to teach them songs about life, and hear how they re-interpret them in their own key and phrasing. I want to hear what melody they pick out that’s in harmony with the original.
Moreover, this is what I want for my congregation as well. As I “sing” the stories of our faith on Sunday mornings, I want them to learn them in their bones, so that they can “sing along” with me. I want our faith stories as well as our songs of faith to echo in their hearts. I want them to feel confident in their ever-evolving understanding of Scripture — that they can sing along, that they can remix as Jesus speaks to them in their own ways.
May the song go on forever. May we all learn to sing in harmony with what God is doing in the world.
