sing

I had a dream yesterday. In it, I was in a public gathering of some sort with lots of people and quite a few of them famous. It was a conference type of setting so we were all supposed to be listening and being wowed by what was coming forth from the stage area. For some reason, I was reading my Bible (don't remember which bits) and the words and concepts gripped me hard. I was deeply stirred by the immensity of the love of God for us and it nearly ripped me open. I couldn't help it, I began to sing. It was not a pretty song. I wailed and moaned and tried to hit some notes as I wept and cried out and made a fairly sad attempt to put a voice to this intense sensation of being loved so largely that it almost swallowed me up. How does one receive such a pure and holy thrust of white-hot passion? I maneuvered my vocal chords through a raw and underdeveloped melody, my voice cracking and changing register as I did so. I was sure I was not making much sense to anyone but myself, and that just barely. I finished the song, or rather, the song finished with me, at least for the moment, and the room fell silent. Then a few others began to cry out in their own voices, some fell to their knees in silence, undone by love's strong hand. The conference was basically a bust at that point. Revival. Revolution. Mayhem. Revolt. It was no longer a nice meeting, it was all of the above.

A few church leaders found me in a hallway not too much later and approached me with that look on their faces which let me know they had no use for disruptive antics like mine. I raised my hand to them and said, "Don't even bother going there," and turned and walked away. As I was walking around, I saw one of the famous people from the conference looking at me with puzzlement and some element of wariness, so I walked over to him, put an arm around his shoulders, and told him that I liked him. He relaxed and smiled (I guess he was relieved that I was not quite as crazy as he might have feared) and he started to ask me what was behind the song I had sung. It was a good conversation.

After I woke up, I got in the shower and mulled over the different parts of the dream. I can get too involved in the details sometimes, so I asked God, "What was the point of that dream?" The answer came clearly and quickly: Always sing a love song. No matter how badly you sing or how terrible you think it sounds, sing out a love song.

Here is my love song for today:
Hey you
close by or far away
love is bumping into you
can you feel that nudge?
it is love
it is someone who is big enough to embrace all your prickly quills
and your soft swampy holes of sadness and insufficiency
and your tall mountains of strength
and still not be stretched to capacity
don't brush it off
lean in
it is not far to fall into love

This is Dean and me at sunset, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. Photo credit to the Winmills.

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outWORD by Matte Downey

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Names of God

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

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