Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5
Response: Their message goes out through all the earth. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day pours out the word to day; and night to night imparts knowledge. Response: Their message goes out through all the earth. Not a word nor a discourse whose voice is not heard; Through all the earth their voice resounds, and to the ends of the world, their message. Response: Their message goes out through all the earth.
Not a word nor a discourse/whose voice is not heard; through all the earth their voice resounds, and to the ends of the world, their message.
Augh...there is so much to that...
There is consolation – each bit of creation, each voice, its way of praising God and making manifest God’s wonder, and each voice is heard.
It’s also humility – mine is but one single note in a choral piece of astounding intricacy and infinite measures.
I am aware of the challenge, too – Do I listen for the harmonies, the dissonances, the rests and syncopations, with as much curiosity and attention as I do the melody? Do I find the layers jarring? Do I listen to what I believe to be the whole and wonder what instrumentation, what voice part, might be missing? And do I seek that out?
I read and pray this psalm as an invitation to all of those things – consolation, humility, challenge, deeper, broader, listening. It's a psalm of permission to revel in the simple thrill that God has been since the beginning, is now in the here and now, and will be, world without end...
An invitation to let my eye revel in: The electric salmon coloured voice of the azalea inside the near entrance to the Public Gardens...
To let my mouth delight in the discourse of lentils and broth, zucchini, bok choy, tomatillos, carrots, cumin, garlic and onion happening in the soup I am eating for supper…
To allow my ears to take in what is real for the woman next to the grocery who chose me to hear her tale… To allow for the simple joy of healthy sighing when entering a bakery to buy hot cross buns and pausing to inhale deeply...
To find comfort in the soft feel of a stretchy wool tee that keeps me just warm enough when worn beneath another layer in a Nova Scotia spring.
I hear in the truth of this, always and everywhere, an invitation to pay attention, to let wonder and awe, empathy and ache, move my heart several measures forward into the great swell that is God’s fullness, and to let my own voice, written, spoken, reflected in action, resound in honour of that complex beauty.
Reflection and Image: Kimberly M. King, RSCJ
