The Song of Ascent

My Joy

by Depeche Mode

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My joy, the air that I breathe

My joy, in God I believe

You move me

My joy, the blood in my veins

My joy, flows in your name

You move me

I'm not a mountain, no

You move me

My joy, heavenly bliss

My joy, the pleasure I miss

You move me

I'm not a mountain, no

You move me

To your Joy (Depeche Mode), I am Rapture (Anita Baker); to your queen (Alicia Keys), you, love, are King (Sade). Together these few modern song examples form a coherent theme. Song for many is prayer; it's magic. It raises us up, outward, beyond our everyday selves. It inspires and lends insight. In the biblical Songs of Ascent there are the Psalms 120-125 of the Tanakh informing and encouraging: to be faithful, patient and true to our Lord, the one who makes, who creates with us, protects his creation, gives sight to the wise and sound to the prayerful. He is merciful and forgiving. Peace and justice are his ways; this is the way of the faithful Christian as much as the faithful Jew.

Thus the Psalm was born. Out of a deep desire for wisdom and prayer, psalms are to be chanted or sung, The following Songs of Ascent can be summarized by two great sixth century mystics, saying:

"My beloved children, I embrace you in the Lord, imploring him to keep you from all evil and to give you endurance like Job, grace like Joseph, meekness like Moses and courage in combats like Joshua, the son of Nun, mastery of your thoughts like the Judges, the subjection of enemies as to kings David and Solomon, fruitfulness of the earth as to the Israelites. May he grant you the remission of your sins with healing of the body like the paralytic. May he rescue you from the waves like Peter, and snatch you from tribulation like Paul and the other apostles. May he keep you from all evil, as his true children and grant you, in his name, what your heart requests, for the benefit of the soul and body. Amen"
--Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, Epistles

A part of the Song of Ascents follows here. For the complete Songs of Ascent, see the Psalms 120-134.

Prayer of a Returned Exile Psalm 120
A song of ascents

The LORD answered me
when I called in my distress:
LORD, deliver me from lying lips,
from treacherous tongues.

What will the Lord inflict on you,
O treacherous tongue,
and what more besides?
A warrior's sharpened arrows
and fiery coals of brush wood!

Alas, I was an alien in Meshech,
I lived near the tents of Kedar!
Too long did I live
among those who hated peace.
When I spoke of peace,
they were for war.

Amazement of Creation

Wonder

by Natalie Merchant

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Doctors have come
from distant cities
just to see me

stand over my bed
disbelieving what they're seeing
they say I must be one of the wonders
of God's own creation

and as far as they can see they can offer
no explanation
newspapers ask
intimate questions
want confessions
reach into my head
to steal the glory
of my story

they say I must be one of the wonders
of God's own creation
and as far as they can see they can offer
no explanation

I believe
fate smiled and destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle
know that this child will be able
laughed as my body she lifted
know this child will be gifted
with love. with patience,
and with faith she'll make her way

people see me
I'm a challenge
to your balance
I'm over your heads
how I confound you
and astound you
to know I must be one of the wonders
of God's own creation

and as far as you can see you can offer me
no explanation
I believe...

The wonders of creation. Early spring brings all its own natural joys. We look forward to more time out doors, more direct interaction with the natural world. Many, including me will be gardening, planting, mowing, soaking up some sun. I contrast this with a year ago when I was not up to so much activity. The wonders of God's creation. It seems that "fate smiled, and destiny."

To be a 'child gifted with faith, patience and love' we make our way. Without the most basic elements, the air we breathe, the many wonders of creation, the lifetimes we experience would be very different. What would they be? Would they be? And yes, "I'm a challenge to your balance." Walking the way of faith is counter-intuitive; it is in many ways radical. To believe what you cannot see, to trust in the wind you only feel, may indeed be confounding. But do it anyway. You will be challenged and rewarded in many ways.

No one has really offered an adequate explanation for this earth. We try, but its vastness and many facets are daunting; to know that we are one "of the wonders of God's creation" is the most incomprehensible and amazing of all. We share in creation as both a Creator and as a result. While we're not perfect in the least, we are so very lovable, as one of God's creation. Happy spring.

 

My Joy Is to Be in Your Presence

My Joy

by Depeche Mode

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My joy, the air that I breathe

My joy, in God I believe

You move me

My joy, the blood in my veins

My joy, flows in your name

You move me

I'm not a mountain, no

You move me

My joy, heavenly bliss

My joy, the pleasure I miss

You move me

I'm not a mountain, no

You move me

Is it just today that for many of us, our wings have been clipped, our ability to soar fails, and we cannot even begin to negotiate an ascent from the ground upon which we stand? For many, has the sense of transcendence withered?
To transcend is to go beyond, to move past what is in this moment onward to a moment in the next and the next.
It seems correspondingly in this USA, the land of the free and the brave, that heaven is a question mark for many, and hell has simply fallen off the map.

Hell as a place or a state has fallen from the maps of today; nowhere can it easily be found without some digging. This possibly has to do with the incursion of the Civil Religion into our places of worship and most importantly, into our hearts.
Today many doubt the the Creator plays a role, or any role in the life of the world, engaging with people as his active agents; the devil likewise, with some of those persons as his active agents.

The impulse to consider the stories of Creation, whatever their tradition as nice, historical fiction is a product of the Civil Religion. In accomplishing this sense of doubt in the hearts of millions, a sort of sophistication enters, one which actually allows for the facile manipulation of the masses.
This is accomplished by instilling several ideas, one of which is that there are no other agents of creation in the world; that we, like the animals of the planet, exist for our selves alone.

And since the Civil Religion favors no one else at work on the planet besides human-kind, we cannot expect help from any other source but ourselves. This is a steep load to carry on the backs of so relatively puny a beast of burden.

Yet for some contrarians, in this world, my joy, may just rest in your presence; the eternity of the divine, the loving kindnesses of the world, those could not exist without the miracle of a faithful and hope filled spirit, sometimes called the One.

"You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever."  Psalm16:11

My Joy

My Joy

by Depeche Mode

Listen Here

My joy, the air that I breathe

My joy, in God I believe

You move me

My joy, the blood in my veins

My joy, flows in your name

You move me

I'm not a mountain, no

You move me

My joy, heavenly bliss

My joy, the pleasure I miss

You move me

I'm not a mountain, no

You move me

The bible instructs and gives many clues as to the nature of joy and love. We are at all times to be  mindful of the 'great commandment,' love one another. Here in the gospel of John is one such instruction:

The bishop-teacher to the chosen Lady and to her children whom I love in truth--and not only I but also all who know the truth-- because of the truth that dwells in us and will be with us forever.
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, in truth and love.

"But now, Lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing a new commandment but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk.
Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the anti-christ.

Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense.
Anyone who is so "progressive" as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works. Although I have much to write to you, I do not intend to use paper and ink.
Instead, I hope to visit you and to speak face to face so that our joy may be complete."　　2Ｊohn1
　

Hope for the Modern World

"Be not afraid. Come, follow me..." Jesus to his disciples, Pope John Paul II to the world

 If there is any message of hope in the modern world for the followers of the Christ, it is this: there is a limit, and this limit has to do with the mercy of God.  There is a limit imposed upon evil in the world, in history, wrote Pope John Paul II as he recalled his youth in Poland under Russian domination. In secret he studied to become a priest.

Despite all our fears, of the human capacity for evil and wickedness, or the confusion of our own hearts, we need not be afraid for God loves. Indeed God is love itself. In Christianity there is the great teaching, the revelation that a being, a creator existed for love, in love with all that was created; this being was Gospel, the 'good news.' In a largely joyless, suffering world of oppression and hatred, the future Pope found joy. In the community of Christians, he felt joy so large that he felt compelled to share; this brought him to his vocation as a priest. He went forth to share this good news. Joylessness turned to hopefulness for the young priest from Poland.

In the modern, industrialized West, threats to human happiness take subtler forms than for those who suffer unjust governments. They threaten the Spirit, the Community no less than overt acts of evil. 
And yet there is the Christ, whose message is taken up by followers throughout the world, all parts of the world, not only in the West. It is a universal message of hope, of peace, of love, faithful love.
Saint John, the disciple, writes of the radiant, burning love made visible in the incarnation of the Christ. The Holy Spirit comes down from above to kindle the hearts of ordinary men so that this love is made visible, tangible and real. 

This love is the ordinary love of the Creator. It is not the love of hearts and candy, romantic and fickle.  "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life..." 1John1:1

Love and the Body

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you..." 1 Corinthians:1-19
"We are like little mirrors in which God contemplates Himself."
St. John Vianney

When the Body Speaks

Depeche Mode

Listen Here

To the soul's desires

The body listens

What the flesh requires

Keeps the heart imprisoned

What the spirit seeks

The mind will follow

When the body speaks

All else is hollow...

In matters of the body, there are some who see no body-soul connection, instead they see the body only. The physical, tangible body is their reality. There is nothing intrinsically evil or immoral in things, natural in creation. The Creator has seen to that, writes Thomas Merton. In his effort to express what he sees as the good, the beautiful, the holy, Merton addresses certain issues of the human body.

While all things, natural, created by the One cannot be in any way an impediment to realizing our own true divinity, the obstacles when and where they do exist take the form of "self." It is the tenacious need to maintain a separate egotistic, willfulness that alienates one from the Creator by means of an outwardly 'false self.'
By necessity and by function, this falseness demands an equally false environment in which to operate; the false self subsumes the real; in service to the imaginary, false self we use things for the betterment of this self to the detriment of the One, true, created self, the 'original face' as some call it. Engaged in corruption, evil easily enters as we use many illusions to increase our dependence and attachment to the false self.
The maintenance of such falseness tends to turn one into a fanatic, ever on the look-out for what is not whole or unified. Those who divide themselves, distract themselves in this pursuit to maintain a exterior identity and a second, hidden identity. We all know others whom we may have referred to as 'two-faced' and this is what Merton wishes to address.

The true joy of the world is escape from this little island of false self; instead of entering into union with the One who creates, we encounter much sadness; the grief we sometimes discover is due to the demands of our desire that there be more than there is: he who does not expect, then, has all things.
In any event, the false self is not to be 
"identified with the body. The body is neither evil nor unreal. It has a reality given it by God and this reality is therefore holy... The body is the temple of god, meaning that his reality, his truths are enshrined there... let no one then dare to hate or despise the body that has been entrusted to him by god, and let no one dare to mis-use this body... Soul and body exist together," writes Merton

There are many [persons] in the world, decent and moral, and also who recognize no other reality in life besides their body and its relationship to the environment, or a physical containment within its surroundings. While they may admittedly reduce themselves to their five, discrete senses--taste, touch, sound, smell and sight, their lives are based on their senses and nothing else.
Consequently, they easily fall into illusion-- but do not find fault in the body itself; rather it is the person them self who consents, finding a sort of security in the simplest senses. They will not answer to the secret, still voice of the One, the Creator, who calls them to take a risk, to come out of themselves, making visible all glory of the Created One. This risking, says Merton, is a task for a spiritually engaged person.

The Spirit of Play

Something to Talk About

by Bonnie Raitt

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People are talkin, talking 'bout people

I hear them whisper, you won't believe it

They think we're lovers kept under covers

I just ignore it, but they keep saying

We laugh just a little too loud

We stand just a little too close

We stare just a little too long

Maybe they're seeing, something we don't, Darlin'

Let's give them something to talk about

Let's give them something to talk about

Let's give them something to talk about

How about love?

I feel so foolish, I never noticed

You'd act so nervous, could you be falling for me?

It took a rumor to make me wonder

Now I'm convinced I'm going under

Thinking 'bout you every day

Dreaming 'bout you every night

Hoping that you feel the same way

Now that we know it, let's really show it, Darlin'

Let's give them something to talk about

A little mystery to figure out

Let's give them something to talk about

How about love, love, love, love?

"Let the little children come to me." Matthew 19:14

Play is just about the simplest thing--you might think. Children learn and grow through play, but for adults, it seems that many are uncomfortable with playing, with silliness; with dreams and hopes. They have rooted it out of themselves and expect the same of others. The laughter, the creativeness, the joy of play, all gone. Some are acutely uncomfortable when in the company of adults engaging in such behavior, even those who may describe themselves as "creative" or "artistic." In the early adult years we all struggle to establish ourselves, to make a living and carve out a life path; all these activities leave little room for play.

In the middle years many now feel bored, dried out, dissatisfied. The things they worked to achieve or the disappointments they have endured make them more or less stoics. With retirement approaching, what is to become of the self in the "second half" of life? There still is playfulness--even if it has been squeezed tightly, stowed into a closet or sub-basement all these years. It brings its own delights and its own joys. Laughter is a good thing for ones' health and happiness. The creative effects of play makes a potent method for coping with change.

The Bible remarks many times that the Divine is much pleased by the play of children. Matthew 19:14 tells us, "Let the little children come to me." But for the adult, re-membering, re-discovering joy, playfulness is not always literal; it may be the symbolic play, the love of the divine, the light casting shadows, rainbows glistening over water; it may originate in your own heart.