Threshold Choir Offers Comfort in Final Days

Credit: thresholdchoir.org

The Threshold Choir (now an international organization spanning the United States, Canada and parts of Europe and Southeast Asia), began with Kate Munger, who found herself in 1990 singing at the bedside of a dear friend as he lay in a coma dying of HIV/AIDS. A decade later, the first official Threshold Choir meeting was held at a private home in El Cerrito, California. The 100 percent non-profit, volunteer-run organization has been thriving ever since.

Threshold Choirs have a simple yet profound mandate: to provide solace to the dying and their families as they negotiate the great journey of death, and give shape to the compulsory art of grief. Their website explains:

When we are invited to a bedside, we visit in groups of two to four singers. We invite families and caregivers to join us in song or to participate by listening. We choose songs to respond to the client’s musical taste, spiritual direction, and current receptivity. Many of the songs we offer are composed by Threshold Choir members specifically to communicate ease, comfort and presence. Because our songs are not religiously oriented, our singing is appropriate for those who are deeply spiritual, whether religious or not.

Kate Munger has been inspired by the angelic vibration of the human voice from an early age
(Credit: thresholdchoir.org)

There are often just two to four members present at any bedside to maintain a sense of intimacy and privacy. This small but powerful group abide by a set of values that honor the privilege of being invited into a very tender and vulnerable time in a person’s life.

Not surprisingly, the singers benefit from their volunteer service as much as the dying, their families and caregivers. “We are healed by our songs before the vibrations ever leave our bodies. We are blessed first and then we send out the blessing,” Munger says.

To request a Threshold Choir session in your area, to join as a singer or start your own chapter, visit their website.