the song, day 2

Come to Stillness:

Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

O Lord, as we spend time with you and your Word this day, let us hear the words of your Ancient Song; and let us listen closely for the Song of God that rises in our hearts. In Christ. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 100

Scripture for the Day: Isaiah 26:1-9

Reading for Reflection:

If enough of us were to ungarble our words [the word spoken uniquely into each one of us by God], perhaps God’s story might be more clearly heard and understood.  Perhaps the song that God sings into the wind that whispers all around us in the trees would be on more lips and taught to more children.  My friend Russell Montfort once remarked that he suspects that “we die with half our music left in us.”  Maybe we do not know the words to our own song.

     And it is not just our own little melody that suffers; the whole chorus is not as good.  If you leave out enough of the words, even the Song of the whole universe will sound funny.

     The Song needs my word.  It is not the same song without it.  And I am the only one who has ever heard it, the only one who can ever listen to its echo deep inside and know whether or not the life that I am living—what I am doing with my hours and days and work and other selves to love—rhymes with it, and sings it clearly at all.  (Between the Dreaming and the Coming True by Robert Benson)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Thy Mercy, My God

Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart. and the boast of my tongue;
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Hath won my affections, and bound my soul fast.

Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair;
But, through Thy free goodness, my spirits revive,
And He that first made me still keeps me alive.

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.

Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own,
And the covenant love of Thy crucified Son;
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
Seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine.
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
Seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine.

Closing Prayer

Everything in all of creation, O Lord, is a unique song of yours. And when we sing our song—that song that is buried deeply within each of us—we are indeed being who we were made to be. We are in harmony (shalom) with the voice of our Maker. Help us to sing our song (Your song) clearly and fully this day. In the name of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)