Worship

Last night I spent two and a half hours worshiping. I wished it would never end. I wished I could fully explain why that space was the most lushious, peacefully, enlivening place to be. Latley I have no idea how playing music and singing passes for worshiping God. All I do know is that God seems to enjoy it and keeps coming to be with us when we start playing and singing.

The whole experience is a strange exercise. Half the time I'm singing about things I don't really know about and then when I do I feel that the words are never quite saying it. Words like holy, or worthy, or beautiful. What is holy, or worthy or beautiful about God?

What I experienced last night, but could not explain is that God was with us. I felt seen and heard. I was filled with the desire that his goodness would be known. I did not want to move from that space.

This whole experience reminds me of the Mary Oliver poem up there under the name of this blog. "I will sing for the veil." It's all hidden, there is enough to guess at what is there, there is enough to show us that it may, it might, it could lift and the singing is the work, that is the call. Singing for hope of what is there, for more of what is there waiting to be revealed. Now we sing for the one we do not see, but when he comes I believe that we will know that we truly saw him all along and he will be instantly recognizable to the ones who foolishly tried to see his face in the dark.

Having and wanting

All joy . . .emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.
~C.S Lewis

Yesterday our church got in the way of the wind. You could feel it stirring before we even began. It was a wind that comes up from underneath and pushes up and up, and it did as we praised a God who is Holy. He carried us up and propelled us forward and helped us loosen our grip on things a little bit more. Teaching us to chase him, wild goose that he is.

There was no fear in letting go. He is kind. Everyone participated. Every one laid something down and asked the Lord for new life, for resurrection of the stale or aching or broken things.

I was filled with awe and song. I was tempted to feel suspicious at so much elation in simply singing and being. I'm tempted to ask if I am just full of myself, so delighted with the sound of my own voice? When I'm not singing I think about doing it again, how to do it better, how to ride the wind with more abandon. I wonder if what I heard in my mind and ached to sing, was the Lord prompting?

Later in the day I sat quietly with others in prayer, in His presence, and the thing I heard in my mind I prayed out loud and it felt like a living thing or like a meal that could satisfy for a long time. It wasn't me that made the meal. It wasn't like a flash or a strong voice but a quiet phrase playing, sounding just enough not like me that I considered it, held it in my hand awhile and then gave away. It thrilled me again.

I was thrilled for hours, happy and lite and near to God and aching. Joyful and not yet satisfied.
I had to lay it down at some point, descend to the earth again and give the wanting a break, but I didn't want to leave the presence of the Lord. How do I rest but not leave the joy behind I wondered?

Like a pilgrim I went for a walk through the neighborhood, enjoying the light and shadow and canopy of the trees, the tended grass and flowers, the neighbors who were out talking with one another. Geese flew overhead. I wondered if these where the mysterious and chaseable type. I turned toward home and taking my breath away was the most luscious orb of a full moon I've ever seen, hovering so low to the horizon that it had swelled to three times its normal size.
Like a meal I could eat and be satisfied with for a long time.

A voice as big as what's in my heart

Singing has been an adventure and obviously important to me considering it’s the theme around which I started writing this blog. I often want to say more about it, but find it hard to actually speak about in a meaningful way. But yesterday I had a break through, a moment when, in the words of my theme poem, “the veil began to lift.”

The strongest desire I have when I sing is that I get what's in there out there. I often feel that I fall short. It's not a bad feeling, just a longing that what's in my heart meets reality, that it's honest and life giving and that it's something the listener grabs a hold of and is moved by.

One thing that I've struggled with is getting volume out of my voice and still maintaining the purity of the tone. Months ago when I wrote about limitations with my voice this is what I was struggling with. My voice has a nice quality, but not a fullness of volume that is better for soloing.

But yesterday it happened. I don't know if it's just taken me a while to learn control and to gain strength or if it has more to do with running and having stronger lungs, but whatever the reason, it happened.

I was singing a song that we don't sing very often that has an echo part in it, which I didn't remember till we got to that part in the song. I hear in my head that there should be an echo and then oh yeah I should sing it! So I do. Typically I sing harmony and so my voice isn't usually out there by itself and suddenly it was. And I was so surprised that it just sailed out strongly and even felt like it meet the strength of the lead vocalist voice. Which usually when I hear my voice next to his feels pale. It was so exciting. I was so into it that I even varied the echo from the melody line. It was so fun! I finally felt like the strength of conviction that was in me was coming out of me. It was such a satisfying thing and made me feel grateful that I could do that.

Later the person I was singing with said he noticed how much stronger I sounded and had to look over and watch what I was doing ; ) It's nice to know it wasn't just me thinking that.

It was like that wonder filed moment a kid has when they realize that they don’t need the training wheels on their bike any more, dad has let go and they are riding on there own. I floated the rest of the day with the joy that I just may have a voice that's as big as what's in my heart.

Caring

I was just out walking on my 15 minute break. I was thinking about caring about things. I mean having a passion for specific things like trees for example.

I was thinking about the lost stewardship of the earth and that if God had originally designed us to take care of it and continue to cultivate all that's in the earth then he must have put a desire in each of us for some specific thing, more specific than someone else.

I wondered about what my more specific was. What do I just care about more than my neighbor does? What am I called to remind my neighbor of in that caring? What do they remind me of that I don't feel as deeply about?

I thought about creatures. I care a little more for horses than some. I thought about God. I care a little more for worship than some. I thought about words. I care a little more for words than some. These things continue to mark me and form many of the decisions I've made. I can hear God blessing the caring, "yes, this is from me" he says. "It's not a mistake, you are not mistaken. Take up your stewardship again."

Wordless

Word

I, who live by words, am wordless when
I try my words in prayer. All language turns
To silence. Prayer will take my words and then
Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns
To hold its peace, to listen with the heart
To silence that is joy, is adoration.
The self is shattered, all words torn apart
In this strange patterned time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,
And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
I leave, returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended.
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen

-Madeline L'Engle

Oh, thank you Madeline, you are a good friend. I've felt wordless lately, in prayer and worship, not because there is nothing to express, but there are just no names. Every word threatens to make what is Holy, a whore, cheap and sellable. Only aching or rocking or whispering His name will do. Words chase the glory away, chase away His moving in my spirit. Song comes closer, but I cannot abide ascribed words, I fall silent again.I long for new words, Oh Lord help me sing something new about you, something that has lay there all along waiting. Let me "return to language" and see again.

My First Lesson in Worship

It took me a long while to really understand worship. When I moved back to Colorado about 5 years ago I was not on good terms with God. I didn’t feel he was loving toward me, nor did I have a whole lot of loving thoughts for myself. I believed, but only by faith. Rarely did I have an experience or feeling that God loved me. Daily life was megaphone loud with his absence.

I’m stubborn though and so I kept hanging on to faith but longing for more. I didn’t want to just live in the realm of propositions and mere intellectual accent. I wanted to know the gospel was real and real for me. I wanted to be the intimate friend of the Lord that the scriptures talked about. I wanted to know His favor and love. Fortunately, there were enough saints around me that had struggled like I was and whom I trusted. An integral part of there lives was frequent worship.

I was pretty cynical about worship. I disliked and was even incensed with worship music, most of it seemed cheesy and seemed to ignore the darkness I battled with and especially the battle I had with loving God. How could I sing lines like, “I could sing of your love forever,” when I wasn’t even sure I could say it once? If there is anything I truly dislike its dishonesty. But I knew I had to try something, or else nothing may ever change. I would at least give my self a chance to put my self in the way of His presence. I started to occasionally attend a music worship service on Friday’s.

It went badly. God never seemed to show up. I’d leave in the same state of mind I came in with, sometimes worse. I did a lot of complaining about the lyrics of the songs, especially if it was upbeat and peppy. I couldn’t stand peppy. I complained about my life. I tried not complaining, I tried to hear something different than the normal train of thought in my head. I sat, I stood, I sang, I was quiet and mostly there was nothing. I felt like a fraud amidst the people around me that seemed so into it. Did they know I was not into it? Did they know that I was really an outsider, that I was not really experiencing God, that I could not say I was His friend?

I went on like this for sometime. I don’t really recall how long, maybe a year, till one Friday came around. I was unemployed at the time, which made the days pretty difficult, unending and unsure. I went to noon worship, more as something to do than as something to restore my soul.

It was no good. I felt the same and now disappointed. I felt like my chance was over. Usually I would concede and leave immediately, but when the music ended I just couldn’t get up. I sat there while the band packed there things and prepared to leave. Just then someone I’d never seen before sat down at the piano and started to play.

It was beautiful. Where had he come from? Where was this music coming from? Why weren’t more people here listening to this? At first I was mistrustful as I listened. I didn’t believe it could be as good as I was hearing. I kept waiting for something cheesy, or cliché, or for one dishonest note, but as he kept playing my cynical skeptic was run off, the tension left my body and I melted into the chair. The music was so easy to be with. I didn’t have to fight with it or rewrite it in my mind.

But the most important thing in that moment was I let myself believe it was from God, for me. Even though I was sitting there in a mess, he opened the door and let His beautiful self wash over me.

That was my first true experience with what worship is; to be all present with who you are in the presence of who He is. The door had been cracked opened, wide enough to hold a light of hope for me so I could find it again.

No Shadow

Offering
by Paul Baloche

The sun cannot compare
To the glory of Your love
There is no shadow in Your presence
No mortal man would dare
To stand before Your throne
Before the Holy One of heaven
It's only by your blood
And it's only by your mercy
Lord, I come

(Chorus)
I bring an offering
Of worship to my King
No one on earth deserves
The praises that I sing
Jesus may you receive
The honor that You're due
O Lord, I bring an offering to you
I bring an offering to you

No shadow in his presence. There are too many shadows around me; shadows at my job, shadows in the calls that come into the counseling department, shadows in the worlds TV mega phone. There are shadows in me, shadows around my future and shadows around my past.

And then this glorious news comes, there is a place with no shadow. So Lord I come, to stand in your presence. I come to stand in a light that cleanses me from the shadows. I come to stand before the one who is not confused about any of it. I don’t need all the answers when I stand there. I just want to feel the purity and holiness of your light. Yes, I come and my worship is an inexpressible thankfulness for your light.

The Infant Savior

I know Christmas is over but I’m still reflecting on the season. Well, not really the season as much as the story of God being born and the blessing it is that he is born in a baby. It’s astounding that the all powerful being would become an all dependent one. This year when I contemplated Jesus the infant, I saw God’s declaration of trust in us. Here in a manger, in swaddling clothes, in all vulnerability, He unabashedly placed Himself into the arms of a woman and a man.

What are you up to God doing something like that?

Even more astounding is that in the Infant Savior, God says at the same time two things; I trust you and you utterly need my help. In this moment of time, God gives us a picture of the beauty of a mutual dependence. He says love and care for me as I love and care for you. We find Him trusting His original creation in us, believing it’s still there, calling it out to its final redemption.

Lord what original beauty do you trust in me?

My heart is suspicious of this declaration of trust, being so use to thinking poorly of myself, being so use to thinking that God thinks poorly of me. As the baby is handed to me my eyes dart around the room thinking, ok someone else is going to step in now, right? Where’s the nanny or the nurse or the someone that knows better than I do, but that person doesn’t come, and if I don’t extend my arms the baby will fall.

Lord in the midst of what fear have you asked me to watch you?

The baby’s in my arms now and I am beginning to believe. Slowly I am melted by God’s declaration of trust in me. I find my heart locked in the gaze of mother and child adoring Him who loves me, seeing Him adore me, hearing our voices ring with the I love that was meant to go back and forth for all time.