Sounding Hope: Music, Presence, and the Prophetic Imagination in Medicine and Ministry
Neha Shaw, Duke Divinity School; Theology, Medicine, and Culture Fellowship
This presentation argues that live music in clinical and street outreach settings can function as a prophetic practice of attention, restoring recognition, presence, and belonging in contexts where suffering is often managed rather than witnessed. Drawing on experiences performing cello in hospital concourses and accompanying unhoused neighbors through Open Table Ministries and Fresh Start, I propose that music heals not by resolving pain or scarcity but by reorienting how we attend to one another. Music creates space for grief without collapse and for hope without denial, making audible a mode of care grounded in mutual recognition.
The theological grounding for this claim is shaped by three conversation partners whose work illuminates the relational and imaginative possibilities of music in spaces of suffering. Jeremy Begbie argues that music embodies a dynamic interplay of structure and improvisation, where order does not constrain freedom but makes it possible (Begbie, Resounding Truth). Musical meaning emerges not from stillness, but from relationship, with each tone sounding in response to those around it. This provides a model for attentive presence in care settings: the clinician or minister is neither fully in control nor absent, but attuned, responsive, and improvisational within the givenness of a particular situation. Music becomes not an escape from reality, but a way of inhabiting it more fully and truthfully.
Walter Brueggemann’s account of the prophetic imagination further clarifies music’s role in restoring moral attention. For Brueggemann, prophecy is not primarily prediction, but the capacity to name truth in the face of denial: to recover lament where suffering has been obscured and to recover hope where despair has become normalized (Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination). Music can enact this prophetic task by shifting the affective and perceptual atmosphere of clinical or street spaces. It does not solve suffering; it refuses to ignore it. It makes possible a different emotional and communal posture, one capable of grief, tenderness, and expectation.
Finally, John Swinton’s work on time, friendship, and the meaning of presence in healthcare reframes healing as the restoration of belonging rather than the management of symptoms. Swinton suggests that genuine care depends on the ability to stay—to accompany persons through experiences that are not fixable (Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time). Music resonates with this temporal dimension: it unfolds in time, requires lingering, and invites listeners to be with rather than move past. Music thus forms clinicians and ministers in the habits of attention required for companionship in contexts where quick intervention is often prioritized over slow presence. Together, these thinkers show that music is not an aesthetic flourish appended to care, but a practice that can restore the relational, imaginative, and communal dimensions of healing. Each provides a different angle on the same claim: music is a way of calling us back to one another.
The session will unfold in a hybrid performance-lecture format. It will open with a brief live cello interlude to demonstrate how sound can subtly alter perception, posture, and presence, allowing participants to experience rather than merely think about music’s relational effects. From there, I will develop the theological account of music as prophetic attention, connecting musical presence to the work of naming suffering without reducing persons to their needs. A hospital vignette will illustrate how music can shift interpersonal dynamics without interrupting clinical workflow, while a second, briefer vignette from ministry among the unhoused will show a parallel movement from anonymity toward shared presence. The session will conclude with guided audience reflection, inviting participants to discern small, context-appropriate ways creative practices might cultivate recognition and compassion in their own clinical, pastoral, or community settings.
Ultimately, this presentation suggests that music, when offered simply and attentively, can function as a liturgical act of presence in places marked by suffering—an embodied, prophetic gesture that helps medicine remember its human center.
The theological grounding for this claim is shaped by three conversation partners whose work illuminates the relational and imaginative possibilities of music in spaces of suffering. Jeremy Begbie argues that music embodies a dynamic interplay of structure and improvisation, where order does not constrain freedom but makes it possible (Begbie, Resounding Truth). Musical meaning emerges not from stillness, but from relationship, with each tone sounding in response to those around it. This provides a model for attentive presence in care settings: the clinician or minister is neither fully in control nor absent, but attuned, responsive, and improvisational within the givenness of a particular situation. Music becomes not an escape from reality, but a way of inhabiting it more fully and truthfully.
Walter Brueggemann’s account of the prophetic imagination further clarifies music’s role in restoring moral attention. For Brueggemann, prophecy is not primarily prediction, but the capacity to name truth in the face of denial: to recover lament where suffering has been obscured and to recover hope where despair has become normalized (Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination). Music can enact this prophetic task by shifting the affective and perceptual atmosphere of clinical or street spaces. It does not solve suffering; it refuses to ignore it. It makes possible a different emotional and communal posture, one capable of grief, tenderness, and expectation.
Finally, John Swinton’s work on time, friendship, and the meaning of presence in healthcare reframes healing as the restoration of belonging rather than the management of symptoms. Swinton suggests that genuine care depends on the ability to stay—to accompany persons through experiences that are not fixable (Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time). Music resonates with this temporal dimension: it unfolds in time, requires lingering, and invites listeners to be with rather than move past. Music thus forms clinicians and ministers in the habits of attention required for companionship in contexts where quick intervention is often prioritized over slow presence. Together, these thinkers show that music is not an aesthetic flourish appended to care, but a practice that can restore the relational, imaginative, and communal dimensions of healing. Each provides a different angle on the same claim: music is a way of calling us back to one another.
The session will unfold in a hybrid performance-lecture format. It will open with a brief live cello interlude to demonstrate how sound can subtly alter perception, posture, and presence, allowing participants to experience rather than merely think about music’s relational effects. From there, I will develop the theological account of music as prophetic attention, connecting musical presence to the work of naming suffering without reducing persons to their needs. A hospital vignette will illustrate how music can shift interpersonal dynamics without interrupting clinical workflow, while a second, briefer vignette from ministry among the unhoused will show a parallel movement from anonymity toward shared presence. The session will conclude with guided audience reflection, inviting participants to discern small, context-appropriate ways creative practices might cultivate recognition and compassion in their own clinical, pastoral, or community settings.
Ultimately, this presentation suggests that music, when offered simply and attentively, can function as a liturgical act of presence in places marked by suffering—an embodied, prophetic gesture that helps medicine remember its human center.