Our Spirits United in Song

By Laurie Williams Sowby, Utah, USA

The language barrier dissolved because we knew Whom and what we were singing about.

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an airplane flying in front of heart-shaped cloud

As my friend and I boarded the jumbo jet in Seoul, South Korea, we nodded hello to the grandmotherly Korean woman seated in the aisle seat. My friend and I then squeezed past her into our own seats, my friend in the center seat and I by the window.

We had been airborne only a few minutes when I heard the soft tones of a hymn. I recognized it as “How Great Thou Art,”¹ which is familiar in many Christian denominations and which I had recently memorized.

I looked around discreetly to determine where the sound was coming from. As I did so, I noticed that the Korean woman in our row had her hand in a small hymnal—printed in Korean characters—from her Protestant church.

I quickly changed seats with my friend and quietly joined in the woman’s song, to our mutual delight. She spoke no English, and I neither speak nor read Korean. But I do read music.

So, as she turned the pages of her hymnal, I would look at the first line of notes and nod if I recognized the hymn. Then I would hum a pitch, and we would start singing, she in Korean and I in English. She would sing the melody, and I would sing the harmony.

We were soon joined by passengers in the rows in front, behind, and to the side of us. For the better part of an hour, our impromptu choir sang several standard Christian hymns in our native tongues. The language barrier was dissolved by the music and by the fact that we knew Whom and what we were singing about. Our spirits united in song.

Before the flight attendants served dinner, our final hymn was “Silent Night”²—and it was only mid-October.

Since that experience, I have thought just how unusual, yet wonderful, it was that a group of strangers should unite their voices in hymns on a jetliner high above the Pacific.

I still get a lump in my throat every time I sing “How Great Thou Art” and “Silent Night.” I cannot sing those hymns without thinking of that Korean woman and the gift of music that allowed us to share our common faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.