Songs of Spring Goodness

Welcome to my meanderings for Spiritual Journey Thursday. Ramona is hosting today and she offered the prompt of "gathering goodness." Thank you, Ramona!

This month offers a number of reasons to gather goodness. Spring officially arrives this month, and with it all the hope and labor of new life. And Easter arrives this month, a celebration of life and redemption. My OLW for the year is "song," so I am pleased to share with you this beautiful Redemption Song as arranged and played by the Kanneh-Masons. I always enjoy this family, and their musical offerings are surely good things to gather in your basket.

I've been watching the live video of an eagle's nest, which hatched two fluffy chicks this past  week or two. You can celebrate the new chicks by clicking HERE.  In a few short months these sweet little puffballs will turn into fledgling eagles. The transformation is miraculous and surely a good thing. 

Frederich Buechner wrote:  When God created the creation, God made something where before there had been nothing, and as the author of the book of Job puts it, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (38:7) at the sheer and shimmering novelty of the thing.   (from Wishful Thinking)

Buechner's description, his "sheer and shimmering" is a delight to me. I hope I never forget that the world awakes new every morning, always ready to surprise and delight us. I hear mourning doves regularly now, as well as a chorus of various twitterings, and I see robins and blue jays, and the geese honking as they fly over. Yesterday I walked to the river and saw several mallards and a merganser winging its way up the river. Every bush seemed to sprout buds overnight. I can almost hear the world waking up, ready to grow and thrive again. 

This beautiful song by John Rutter, sung by a wonderful young chorister, celebrates the goodness of the world. All Things Bright and Beautiful. Enjoy:

I wish you a sheer and shimmering sense of wonder as spring comes into full bloom. In the meantime, check out the offerings by Ramona and other SJT participants. Click HERE.

When Stars Sing

The world around us goes it's way ...blithely...confidently...blooming in season and then letting go, each in turn...rising and falling... with little regard for us. Summer turns to fall, and fall to winter, in spite of our messes, our dishonesties, our foul ups, our inequities. That is something to ponder. Sometimes I need to look outside of the human sphere for wisdom or hope. Consider the lilies of the field... or the stars above...

Image by Pexels of Pixabay

A verse from Job caught my imagination this week:  The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.  Job 38:7

Recently I saw a Great Performances PBS show, one in a series called "Now Hear This" with Scott Yoo. In his discussion of Schubert, he mentioned the ephemeral quality of music, how invisible threads of harmony ... or sometimes dissonance...come together to create something of great beauty. But those same threads seem to wander off, or maybe dance off, into the universe once the piece is over. There's something so beautiful and ephemeral and mysterious about that idea, and for me it connects with the idea of the stars singing. Think of the universe in concert: twirling, revolving, dancing, humming, singing... sometimes even twanging away. Day in and day out, the stars sing and twirl without one worry about us. The glory and the majesty of it is overwhelming. I want to be part of that choir!

The best and perhaps only way I can expand on this idea is to share a favorite piece of music. I hope you will enjoy it, and perhaps even shout for joy!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYzO8Y4PH0

October is my favorite month of the year; the cool air, the beauty of the leaves, several personal celebrations. It is also a time of grief for me. It was in October that I lost a child to bacterial meningitis, many years ago. In one way or another, we all carry grief with us, especially this year... and so I hope that in sharing and honoring our memories we might all know we are not alone, that our separateness will dissolve as quoted below, and that we might grow in understanding and empathy. If you wish, feel free to share the names of your loved ones in the comments below. God bless you all.

Andrew Owen Eastlund, 1982

These musing are in response to this quote from Enneathought which arrived via Margaret Simon:
"Consider the Holy Ideas today: No matter what type you are, in Holy Love, our sense of separateness dissolves, and we know ourselves as arising from the brilliant light of Divine Love that creates and sustains the universe."

Margaret hosts our Spiritual Journey group today at Reflections on the Teche. Thanks, Margaret!