31 days || seventeen: music.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." 

Aldous Huxley 

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You know that game, "Would You Rather?" The game that's pulled out at dinner parties or in small group Bible studies to break the ice and make everybody like each other?

Would you rather give up television or music for the rest of your life? 

That's the question that was given to me a few weeks ago, and my answer surprised me. Without hesitation, I said television. 

Despite my love for Gilmore Girls or Leslie Knope or Jim and Pam or the gang at Cheers, I just don't think I could do without music. 

And I'm not a musically-obsessed person. I don't know the latest groups or regularly attend shows or have any rhythm or a very good voice. My tastes vary, and yes, I'm just as likely to be listening to Justin Bieber as I am to She & Him. (To be fair, I only know one Bieber song. And it's great for housekeeping purposes.)

But I can't really imagine a life without music and lyrics and Christmas carols and powerful old hymns and dance parties in the living room. I just can't. 

A couple of weeks ago, Jordan and I made the trip up to Birmingham to hear The Civil Wars perform at the old Alabama Theatre. (My grandma once told me she had a date or two there, and I've loved it ever since.)

Our seats were so high in the balcony, I thought for sure my head would start spinning, but then the music started, and it didn't matter. 

Just like when Mumford & Sons took my breath away at Jazz Fest, Joy Williams and John Paul White came onto stage, and it felt like I didn't move for the next hour and a half. Their harmonies were impeccable, their voices blending and moving effortlessly across the sold-out crowd. 

And I realized, in that moment, why my gut reaction had told me -- in the event I ever have to make the choice -- to stick with music.

It goes past the notes and the words and the chords and the instrument and the artist and the 11 years I spent slaving away in front of a piano. It really is about how it all makes you feel. My mood is dependent, for better or worse, on what I'm listening to at any given moment. I just like to breathe it all in, whether I'm attending a live concert or jamming to the radio in my car or listening to Jordan's fingers fly over the keys. 

Like books, music has the power to carry me away and to bring me back. And I love that. 

I don't think I could make it through these 31 days without acknowledging the huge role music plays in celebration, in both the over-the-top parties and quiet moments of meditation. Music, for whatever reason, stirs our souls. It resurrects the past, brings meaning to the present, empowers the imagination. As Huxley said, it expresses the inexpressible.

Music wakes us up to the life that surrounds us, the life that was, and the life that can be.

This fall, before the onslaught of Christmas music begins, I've got a few songs on repeat, songs that are reminding me to celebrate, to say thank you, to rejoice in the now. I wanted to share them with you:

1. "Shake It Out," Florence + the Machine
2. "Losers," The Belle Brigade
3."My Father's Father," The Civil Wars
4."Up Up Up," Givers
5. "Alas I Cannot Swim," Laura Marling
6. "Charmed Life," Joy Williams
7. "Tokyo," Imagine Dragons
8. "Come Thou Fount," Sufjan Stevens
9. "Free My Mind," Katie Herzig
10. "Old Joy," Noah and the Whale
11. "Whole Wide World," Mindy Gledhill
12. "Little Bit of Everything," Dawes

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I'd like to give the gift of celebratory music to one of you. Comment below, and I'll send a CD out to one of you. 

Make sure to tell me what music you're listening to right now!