Music, Messages and the Magical 5 year old who gets it all.

My girls love music.  They come by it honestly, both my husband and I enjoy music immensely.  And I feed their fondness for music by indulging their requests when they ask for songs to be added to their iPods.  E, my five year old, is the one who most often asks for songs.  My parents supported my eclectic tastes so I try not to judge too harshly when she asks for something I'm sure will make my ears bleed.  And I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE it when she asks for something that I really like.

So when after we watched the Life Vest Inside - Kindness Boomerang video my friend shared on Facebook, she asked for the song on her iPod, I could hardly find it fast enough on iTunes to get it for her (and me).

I left town for a work trip the next day and this morning was the first morning I'd spent with them since putting the song on her iPod.  On the way to school, E say "thank you for putting that song on my iPod."
"Which song?" I asked.
"This one." And she played it.  It's a 'gets me in my tear ducts' song and I cry a little each time it hear it.  It's really beautiful in it's intention--even more beautiful than uplifting video that introduced me to it (I'm sure the song isn't new--I'm not up on current music the way I once was; can't seem to turn my Sirius FM off of First Wave).  E sang along to the parts she's already memorized.  There are a few places where the lyrics run together quickly and she has trouble discerning the words.  She actually thought it might be in Spanish so she asked me to translate.  I told her it wasn't in Spanish but I wasn't sure to which part she was referring.  She reversed the song and replayed the part:
     It's not about win or lose 'cause we all lose
     When they feed on the souls of the innocent blood
     Drenched pavement keep on moving'
     Though waters stay ragin'
Frankly, I couldn't repeat the verse exactly so I just explained that it was talking about how we all lose when we don't show love and ignore our responsibilities to each other. And that the song was about how we don't have to be that way.  And E piped up, "like how the construction worker stopped and helped the boy when everyone else just went past and the boy was happy and helped the lady who was afraid she couldn't get across the street fast enough with her bags and then everyone did something nice."
I got all choked up and had to catch my breath before I could reply.  I realize the video is not subtle in its message, but had been nearly a week since the first and only time E had seen it but she remembered all the kindnesses and why they were important.  "Yes, baby, exactly."
She played Matisyahu's One Day, all the way through again and then the next song, a favorite of mine by Live began. "You don't need no friends..." to which E responded "Yes, I do, I need my friends!  I don't like that part of this song, Mommy.  I like the other parts but I do need my friends"
Heaven is another 'gets me in my tear ducts' tune.  It was the song that made me really like the band, Live and ever since I found out I was having my first baby girl, I can hardly hear it without becoming a puddle of goo.  I love the song.  "No, honey, he's not saying you don't need friends, he's just saying that you don't need other people to know God.  People will sometimes tell you that God is one way or another.  Some people will even try to tell you there is no God because they haven't seen God or heard God."
E's response nearly made me need to pull over.  "People who can't see God aren't looking--God isn't really invisible.  God is everywhere and in everything.  And if people can't hear God, it's because they haven't found the quiet place their hearts to listen and hear God speak to them."
This child of mine, who perpetually chooses the path of most resistance when asked to go anywhere, this child who will do exact thing you told her not to do 30 seconds after you told her not to, this five year old little girl, gets it.  She knows what many adults have trouble articulating, even believing.  And these are her words.  I've not drilled this into her.  We do talk about God, but this her own interpretation and her own language.
It makes me happy beyond words that she is processing what she sees and hears and from all the noise that she is inundated with from TV, movies, music and stories, she is taking in the good stuff and putting it all in order.
As a mother, I will fret over lots of things regarding my girls, but I can rest easy knowing my little E's heart is definitely perfectly placed.