Last week, my wife and I went to Grace Presbyterian Church in Springfield, VA. I was invited to give a presentation in which I used a scripture and a piece of music. The associate pastor commented that she found lectio divina less meaningful than music divina – avenues of awakening to the mystery of the divine, the sacred, the presence of what we call God. So I got to thinking about that! Here is a little experiment.
Scripture reading from Psalm 139:7-12 for your meditation and reflection. You may want to read this slowly and aloud to yourself.
7 – Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your Presence?
8 – If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
9 – If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 – Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.
11 – If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me;
12 – Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You
Some music for your meditation and reflection. Let the music flow into your heart opening inner spaces.
Which is more meaningful for you? Or maybe both? Now, you and I know that it is not just in scripture and music that we are touched by the Spirit. Spirit is with us in our breathing, our eating, our making love, our walking and talking, our laughter, our working, our sleeping, our living, and our dying.
In all life, we know that ‘we live and move and have our being in God.’ [Acts 17:28]
The one thing we know is that God cannot be absent.
“Bidden or not bidden God is present.” -Carl Jung
The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopal Priest, and well known writer and preacher at The Chautauqua Institution, comments: “Where is God in this picture? God is all over the place. God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light, not captured in them, but revealed in that singular, vast net of relationships that animates everything that is.”
Words from a great hymn come to mind: ‘To all life thou givest – to both great and small; In all life thou livest, the true life of all.”
I hope you have something to think about, to ponder in your heart. Where is it that you most often sense the Presence of God? I welcome your responses.
No one has the franchise on God.
With you in awakening to the mystery of God’s Presence in all life.
We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Compassionate Be
Boldly Be
