Who among us hasn't at some time found himself or herself listening to the music of God played through the laughter of the wind, through the whistling of the breeze, through the dancing of the drops of rain, through the rippling of the waves, through the singing of the birds? Who hasn't heard the music of God silently played through the changing shapes and colors of the clouds in the sky, through the joyful colors that paint the earth with serene beauty as the seasons change? Who hasn't heard the soothing music of God played within the corridors of one's soul and the cloistered spaces of one's consciousness and isn't convinced that God has indeed touched him or her with the beauty of God's presence and the power of God's love? The carols of Christmas have a way of blending memories and dreams for me in ways that I can hear God's music.
Albert Einstein once said: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." Someone rightly observed that perhaps the saddest experience for any artist is when one is no longer able to see and appreciate beauty as one once did. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose heart used "to leap at rainbows in the sky," describes it this way: "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, the earth and every common sight to me did seem appareled in celestial light, the glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; turn wheresoever I may, by night or day, the things which I have seen I now can see no more."
It is my prayer that as we celebrate Christmas and as we welcome the coming of the New Year, we may be given a new awareness of God's intervention in the world around us. And each time we encounter God's presence in our lives, may God be more awesome and more loving than our hearts can grasp. May we be taught to be sensitive to God's hand at work, transforming the ordinary into sacred. May our trust be increased in the deeper magic of God's creation. May we not forget that through the life and death of our Lord we have been set free from ultimate despair. May we be able to see the rising sun in every situation that brings our soul's distress, turning the cold gray days of our existence into an affirmation of the final Gloria, changing our skeptical "Ha?" and "Ho Hums" into exciting "Ahas!" and jubilant "Alleluias!," straightening our puzzled question marks into dancing exclamation points.
Listen to the prayer of E.E. Cummings:
I thank you God.
I thank you God for this most amazing day: f
or the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural, which is infinite,
which is yes.
I, who have died, am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;
this is the birth day of life and of love and wings;
and of the gay great happening illimitably earth.
How should tasting, touching, hearing, seeing,
breathing any - lifted from the no of all nothing -
human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
Now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened.
Do have a genuinely meaningful celebration of the remembrance and the dreams of Christmas!
Ben and Marlyn |
