My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…“
(from the Song of Songs)
I was measuring the basement window to make curtains last week when I looked out and saw these little beauties reaching for the light. The snow has barely melted and they have appeared earlier in the year in these mountain parts than I can ever remember. They are still blooming. The first blossoms after a long dark winter feel like love awakening.
In this season of singing a new song I was reminded of Depuis le jour by Charpentier.
Since the day I gave myself
my destiny seems all flower-strewn
I think I’m dreaming under a fairy sky
my soul still intoxicated by your first kiss!
What a beautiful life!
My dream wasn’t a dream!
Oh! I’m so happy!
Love is spreading its wings over me!
In the garden of my heart
sings a new joy!
(translation)
Monserrat Caballé was the master of the pianissimo at altitude.
For there’s nothing we can do to oppose the truth; all we can do is align ourselves with it. (2 Corinthians 13:8)
Lately I’ve run into a number of articles on sympathetic vibration in music. The other word that keeps grabbing my attention is alignment.
Sympathetic vibration can be demonstrated when a pitch fork is held near a string tuned to the same pitch. Without being touched the strings seem to come alive and respond with vibrations that play the same note.
I’ve heard it said that true worship begins in heaven and the heart that is still will pick it up. One of my favourite passages of scripture is found in the second chapter of Hosea. The Lord uses the metaphor of alluring his formerly wayward love to a desert place where there is no voice but His. He says that in that place, she will respond to Him. The New American Standard version uses the word sing.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her. “Then I will give her her vineyards from there, And the valley of Achor [trouble] as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth…”
I’m beginning to see this as sympathetic vibration. When she hears The Voice singing the same pitch which she was designed to sing, the beloved comes alive. Her heart vibrates in sync with the sound that is at the heart of creation. Her heart resonates with Truth.
When we are in tune with the Father’s heart we are in alignment with His truth. When we are all in tune with Him we are also all in tune with each other.
A.W. Tozer wrote: “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”
Instruments in a symphony do not all sound the same. A violin is not a bassoon. Seldom does the composer ask an orchestra to play in unison. He asks them to play in harmony, but all the notes are based on one pure pitch and all play the same song. Worship begins in the Father’s heart. It is a gift He gives us so that we have something to give back to Him.
At the moment the divine orchestra – the Church – most often sounds a bit like everyone is concentrating on individual warm-up exercises and are all practising their own songs at the same time. Some have recently come in from the cold and their instruments are not yet in tune, but I have hope for the day when all look to the Conductor, tune to His perfect pitch, and unite to play the greatest song ever.
Soon.
Their sound will go out into all lands, even to the ends of the earth, when all creation joins to sing God’s praise.
In the meantime this is my prayer: Come play the strings of my heart, Lord. Tune my heart to sing Your praise.
Long before music was sung by a choir,
Long before silver was shaped in the fire,
Long before poets inspired the heart,
You were the Spirit of all that is art.
You give the potter the feel of the clay;
You give the actor the right part to play;
You give the author a story to tell;
You are the prayer in the sound of a bell.
Praise to all lovers who feel your desire!
Praise to all music which soars to inspire!
Praise to the wonders of Thy artistry
Our Divine Spirit, all glory to Thee.
(Charles Anthony Silvestri)
O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.
Regarding the angels, God says, “He sends his angels like the winds, his servants like flames of fire.” (from Hebrews 1)
Other thirteen-year olds asked for the new Beatles album for their coming of age birthday gift. I asked for a recording of opera singer Joan Sutherland’s greatest hits. I’m sure it caused a few eye rolls in my country and gospel music loving family, but Grandma bought it for me anyway. I thought the singer’s voice was “angelic” although I’d never actually heard an angel sing. I could only play the record when no one else was around but I still managed to almost wear it out. Handel’s Let the Bright Seraphim became one of my favourites.
Let the bright seraphim in burning row, their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow. Let the cherubic host in tuneful choirs touch their immortals harps with golden wires.
I could imagine myriads upon myriads of fiery angels singing and blowing brilliant trumpets that sent their sound spinning through the galaxies.
I am on a quest to understand worship. I don’t think I understand it yet. Okay, I know I don’t understand exactly what it is or the nature of its expression yet. It is going on non-stop in heaven as the angels and the elders and the creatures, overwhelmed with God’s majesty spontaneously bow before the Great Throne. What must it be like?
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels,
numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
(From Revelation 5)
One of the jobs of angels is to help us to worship. Somehow our worship is connected to theirs even though we can’t hear it all yet. It starts in the throne room in heaven.
I remember the chorus of a song my mother sang:
Holy, holy, is what the angels sing,
And I expect to help them make the courts of Heaven ring;
But when I sing redemption’s story, they will fold their wings,
For angels never felt the joys that our salvation brings.
I hit a milestone today. My 1001st blog post. I could thank my readers and post links to most popular past blogs, or discuss the experience of blog writing, but as I sit here at the end of a beautiful summer’s day preparing a post for the morning I find I have nothing profound to say. All I want to do is thank God for his goodness and for the hope that does not disappoint. I thank him for a blog on which to express praise that can be flung into cyberspace, if not the galaxies. Today I all I want to do is sing redemption’s story.
God is good. For some reason I will never understand, He loves me — and you. Any other thing I could celebrate pales in comparison.
Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies… (From Psalm 148)
Where charity and love are, God is there.
Christ’s love has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And may we love each other with a sincere heart.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
As we are gathered into one body,
Beware, lest we be divided in mind.
Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease,
And may Christ our God be in our midst.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
And may we with the saints also,
See Thy face in glory, O Christ our God:
The joy that is immense and good,
Unto the ages through infinite ages. Amen.
When I was a wee little girl I sat on my Daddy’s shoulders as he ran and my mother screamed. He had been a competitive sprinter and he didn’t hold back. I thought sitting up there was the greatest feeling in the world.
Today I believe he knows freedom from an old man’s body and the chains of dementia and is again running as free as the wind.
His health was declining. He was becoming more child-like and he spent a lot of his time staring out the window, longing to see Jesus face to face and be reunited with Leah, the love of his life. But he told me he was afraid of pain and the process of transitioning beyond this physical place. Yesterday morning I was listening to a new recording by Josh Groban of the song “Bring Him Home” and turned it into a prayer that God would take my Daddy home, without pain, in his sleep.
My heavenly Father heard and answered, just the way he did when I prayed for Him to take Mom home. In the afternoon I got a call that when my sister-in-law went to check on him at noon she found he had passed away in his sleep. He had a recording of “How Great Thou Art” made at an anniversary party for him and Mom playing on repeat in the background.
God is good, full of mercy and very, very kind. Precious in His eyes is the death of one of His own.
I will miss him, and the conversations that never happened, but in the light of eternity, it will only be a short time before I see him again.
My Dad was a writer and a story-teller. A month ago I snapped photos of him telling one of his many tales of a Saskatchewan boyhood.
Many people will remember him for his writing and story-telling in schools and theaters and old folks homes.
I will remember being carried on his shoulders, sitting higher and moving faster than anybody else in the crowd because my Daddy was the fastest, handsomest, greatest Daddy in the world.
Sing a new song to the Eternal; sing in one voice to the Eternal, all the earth.
Sing to the Eternal of all the good things He’s done.
Psalm 96 (The Voice)
I think the ultimate instrument is the voice.
I love a lot of contemporary solo music as well as the classics. It touches my soul so often and songs play back in my head in the night. Music carries messages that comfort and challenge and lift my soul. Something marvelous happens in corporate worship when voices singing together are not drowned out by amplified instruments and a singer with a microphone.
People talk about singing a new song and a new sound arising. I wonder if the new sound is an old sound we have forgotten? The Bible speaks of God singing over us and of us responding to Him with song when we realize that He really does love us.
There is something in choral music that speaks of unity in the Spirit. How I long to hear the entire family of God joining their voices in praise to the Creator.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to the Most High.
It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre.
You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done.
O Lord, what great works you do! And how deep are your thoughts.
Only a simpleton would not know, and only a fool would not understand this:
Though the wicked sprout like weeds and evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.
But you, O Lord, will be exalted forever.
(Psalm 92: 1-8 NLT)
I suppose the guitar is the modern equivalent of the harp and lyre. Recently I found the music of the marvelous guitarist, Rodrigo Rodriguez (was he born to this?) Here he plays “How Great is Our God.” Enjoy.
Creativity can be messy. The hardest part about the kids growing up and moving away was that I had no one to blame for the mess anymore. (Although one of them makes serious historically authentic bows and arrows and swords and even the most amazing costumes for his little boy, and I’ve seen the aftermath on his kitchen table. The other two are perpetual home renovators. Now that’s messy.) I have ideas for refinishing furniture, sewing, painting (in several media) cooking, writing, photography, song-writing. I pick up materials when they are on sale or available at the thrift shop. I’m kind of addicted to potential.
I really want to make leggings for the grandbaby out of recycled sweaters – wait, the baby is talking in full sentences now. Oh dear.
I finally finished a quilt this week that has been awaiting binding for several months. I took one square apart and reassembled it more than once, but now it’s done.
I’ve got a pretty good song jotted down on manuscript paper sitting on the piano – well, except for the harmony in the bridge for the accompaniment. I wrote the lyrics for that one four years ago. When the notes are all penciled in I need to enter it into the computer. I hope I can remember how. Every updated version of the music program seems to require a complete brain overhaul.
There’s a pile of potential in a trunk under my sewing table, and unframed canvases leaning on the wall. I really should entitle my recipe collection on Pinterest, “As If.”
My friend asked if I intend to live long enough to finish all these projects. Yes. As a matter of fact I do. I figure if you stop planning for the future you might as well not have one. Besides, I’ve made investments in all this raw material.
Some projects take a long time. Some of my favourite things have remained in an unfinished state for longer than I care to admit, but eventually, like the quilt, they are ready to throw on the bed in the guest room or hang on a wall. Sometimes I set things aside when I don’t like the way they are going. I’m not giving up on them, just taking time to re-think them. If you were to look in the storage bin in my closet at something under ponderment it might look like a confused mess. But in my mind I see a dozen different ways it could go. I just need to find the right one for those materials and colours. It’s a process.
Sometimes we look at people who are in process and wonder why they are taking up room in our lives. Nothing ever seems to change. They’re a mess. OK, truth is, so am I. But God sees our potential and he’s not giving up on us. He’s invested too much – and he has all the time in the world.
Psalm 117
Charis: Subject to Change 