The birds sang all over my coffee this morning, through the open window by the fire escape. I wish I knew their song. It seems like creation doesn’t hold back or get nervous or feel awkward about its praise.
It’s just the song inside and the only way is out.
The sunrise and the starlight and the sparrows under God’s watchful eye, all just singing out the songs buried inside. If I imagined myself into conversation with the birds outside my window and I asked them why they sang, I wonder what they would say. I wonder if they would think me silly and simple minded when they reply,
“…because we have song.”
This is the only option, but it is also the best and I love that the birds know that, and the mountains know that, and the life inside dead tree branches know that. Creation sings without shame or fear, but not to get glory.
Creation sings because the Creator gave them a song. And when creation sings, the songmaker is glorified.
I have a song inside, between doubts and delights and deserts. But the song is not for me. The singing is not so I can hear my own voice, but because I have a song. This, so that God would be glorified and others would see that I am also a part of the Spring chorus of sunlight and starlight and sparrows letting loose melodies into the sky.
Today is a new day and today is the Sabbath, so it has two things going for it and the clock still says 8 am.
The Lord welcomes me when days have weight I do not understand.
The Lord is faithful and He is strong.
And today I will not pretend to steal strength.
Maybe if I start off admitting my weakness, I will not be so surprised when I need to lean on His strength. More than just admitting, though, this day’s beginning needs believing that it is good to not be God. It is good to believe God is completely and uniquely God, that all things rest on His shoulders and all things are held together in His hand.
“In our giving heed to God’s power there rises up in us a realization that God created the universe for this: So that we could have the supremely satisfying experience of not being God, but admiring the Godness of God — the strength of God. There settles over us a peaceful realization that admiration of the infinite is the final end of all things.” Solid Joys Devotional, Gladly Not God
It is good to believe that being human is okay and even just the way God planned things. It is good to praise God for the strength it takes to hold the world together. And as I praise this God of strength today, I will not pretend to steal strength away because it never works.
Being human and weak is the only way we can rejoice in the freedom of God being God and strong.
Friends, this is one of those posts on one of those days. But I probably don’t mean what you think. Nothing dreadful happened and I am not hormonal.
Beauty got weaved in among other things – into the rearranged plans and the winter traipsing and the new basil plant in our little kitchen windowsill. Beauty got weaved in and now I’m writing by a candle my roommate lit to keep me company in the rest of these night hours. Just me and my chai tea + honey + coconut almond milk, candlelit and tucked inside this Brooklyn winter night – inside the beauty that got weaved in among other threads.
I am not quite sure what makes a beautiful day seem heavy or hard. Maybe I imagine sadness into open spaces or maybe that giant glass sculpture we walked through in the meatpacking district really did have a deeper effect than I thought.
I guess I think there is a way to experience beauty in the negative. It looks like sadness over sketchbooks that stay closed and sadness over craft boxes that stay hidden under beds. It looks like doodled inspiration for home improvement projects and the keyboard leaning in the corner of the living room.
And maybe that is the sadness that makes Saturdays feel heavy, because beauty needs space.
Beauty needs to be breathed in without a city metronome. Beauty needs to hear us say “Yes” when it isn’t convenient or instantly beneficial and sometimes my voice gets garbled up in my throat. Sometimes it is hard to know what is beautiful and life feels too crowded to do anything slowly.
That’s probably why I ended up sprawled out on my neighbor’s floor, looking at photographs of America in the 1900s. Photographs were different then – few were taken an arm’s length away. I turned the black and white pages slowly, reading captions and imagining the stories that unfolded after the moments were captured.
This is some of the beauty that got weaved in, but it made me aware of the beauty that got left out. How can I get more of the discernment to know which is which? And is it okay to be sad that I’m not better at choosing?
We’re in the middle of fashion week in this fine city. I know this mostly because I’ve seen more 6+ foot beauties working the sidewalks like runways. I don’t know how the wind follows them so it always blows their manicured hair in the right direction, but it is impressive. They look the right amount of tussled and flustered, with the cold concrete city as a backdrop.
And we’re all just trying to make space for beauty.
We are all trying to choose what is beautiful even when life feels too crowded to enjoy anything slowly. There is both nothing and too much to do on our lists of lovely things. Maybe I’ve imagined this weight and we do not need to be brave about beauty. But maybe not.
Maybe it is okay to feel like days have weight.
Maybe it is okay to be sad about beauty that never gets used or loved or held. Maybe it is okay that a sculpture sunk your spirit and it is okay that the feeling followed you all day.
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 