God’s Song: Us!

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, God, Lynn Bauman, Psalm 147, raise up, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The Psalm for today’s liturgy is personalized by Lynn Bauman in a lovely way. Just reflecting on the first six verses, translated in a much more personal and lyrical manner than traditional English, gives us pause. See if you don’t agree. (Read aloud and stop to reflect on what is said, bringing our life situation now into the meaning, if you will.)

Hallelujah! My whole being longs to be a song in which you, my God, are always the refrain. So let this canticle of praise which is my life bring honor to your name. The music for this song began in ages past when you, O God, drew back the exiles from afar, when you rebuilt your ancient city called Jerusalem. And now it sings the healing of our shattered hearts, the binding up of all the wounds our world has caused. The chorus of stars, each named by you, sings out and adds its voice. It sings the majesty of God and wisdom’s boundless name. For God steps down and raises up in tenderness all those who live in grief; and just as surely God subverts all wickedness and casts the wicked in defeat upon the ground. (PS 147: 1-6, Ancient Songs Sung Anew)

(Can’t you just see God stepping down somewhere in the sky, picking you up out of whatever sadness clings to you and calling you – softly smiling – by your name…?)

Weather Report

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, judge, keep smiling, let go, Psalm 147, snow, spark of the divine, spring, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, weather report, winter

I smiled as I read the Psalm for today – one of the praise psalms toward the end of the book, Psalm 147, wherein we find a weather report of sorts. In verse 16, the psalmist sings of God’s activity thus: He spreads snow like wool; frost he strews like ashes. Yesterday I was thinking we were surely headed for spring but this morning there’s lots of activity out there, wind and blowing snow – as if last week’s dump of almost 3 feet of the white stuff were not enough!

My thought that I am powerless to do anything but accept the vagaries of the weather was a good segue as I read a quote about relating to other people. Alan Cohen, in his daily reflection (A Deep Breath of Life) says the following: Help me not to judge my brothers and sisters, but let me recognize  my unity with them. Help me to see the spark of the divine in all the eyes I look into. I smile again as I think of English class when I was a child and find myself cringing at the “dangling preposition” that makes me want to correct the previous sentence to say, in all the eyes into which I look. But how clumsy does that sound! The bottom line in all this seems to be something like the following:

Just keep smiling and let go of your need for everything to work according to your rules. Living will likely be easier that way!

God’s Desire

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attention, centering prayer, God's eyes, God's presence, intention, love, Psalm 147, recognition, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

Last evening I shared some thoughts on contemplative prayer with a friendly group of people in Syracuse, NY. We were speaking specifically of the method of Centering Prayer, different from other forms of meditation in that the practice is one of intention rather than attention. One simply makes the intention to be in God’s presence and then lets go of all thoughts as they arise during the period of silence. I said at one point that God’s presence is assured; it is our consciousness that wanders away. All we need to do is to return to the One who always waits for us.

In this morning’s psalm, I read a line from a modern translation that supports my image of God companioning me during the prayer. It reminds me of something I heard long ago that says, “Our desire for God is also God’s desire for us” but goes even deeper in touching my heart. Listen as you read it aloud. Then picture yourself looking at God and seeing this desire in God’s eyes.

God searches out the faces turned in love and trust with eyes that long to catch our glimpse of recognition. (PS 147:12) May we all be blessed with the ability to recognize God in this day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Tender God

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companion, God, grief, heal, humanity, instrument of praise, majesty, Psalm 147, raise up, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

This morning I can do no better than to simply copy out the verses of the responsorial psalm (147:1-7) which lifts my spirit as it reminds me of the God whose constancy has companioned humanity throughout the ages. This same God remains to raise us up and heal us all our lives.

Hallelujah! My whole being longs to be a song in which you, my God, are always the refrain. So let this canticle of praise, which is my life, bring honor to your name. The music for this song began in ages past when you, O God, drew back the exiles from afar, when you rebuilt your ancient city called Jerusalem. And now it sings the healing of our shattered hearts, the binding up of all the wounds our world has caused.

The chorus of the stars each named by you sings out and adds its voice. It sings the majesty of God and wisdom’s boundless name. For God steps down and raises up in tenderness all those who live in grief; and just as surely God subverts all wickedness and casts the wicked in defeat upon the ground. So add your voice and sing this song, become an instrument of praise!

Stars

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Amateur astronomy, Astronomy, Empirical formula, God, Little Star Twinkle, Milky Way, Psalm 147, Star, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

One of the real benefits of living in the country is that the night is really dark. Away from city lights, I am able to see the stars and on clear nights especially, it is a feast for the eyes! On rare occasions the Milky Way is visible as a path because of the sheer number of the stars. Other times larger stars (or planets) are so bright that I am reminded of the childhood song, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are…like a diamond…” I laugh as I think that a scientist, on hearing that song today, could tell a child the chemical composition of a star in order to answer the wondering of what it is. I prefer to contemplate diamonds – the beauty, clarity and worth represented by those jewels in the heavens.

Psalm 147 has a line that often – and again this morning – pushes my experience of star gazing to its deepest meaning. It sings: [God] knows the number of the stars; he calls each by name. To be able even to count the number of individuals in a crowd is one thing, but to be able to name them all is quite a feat. Being called by name is a meaningful experience as well. To think that out of billions of people or trillions of stars (or even galaxies) God calls me by name is beyond comprehension but worthy of the highest praise.