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Listen:
“There is a time to cry, and a time to laugh; a time to have sorrow, and a time to dance.”
– ECCLES IASTES 3 :4 (N LV )
Reflect:
I’ve found that during the hardest, heaviest seasons, I need a release valve. For me, it listening to the playlist on my ‘alexa’ called “Tracy’s Morning Music”. It’s full of a variety of songs from Top 10 artists, rock and country, praise, oldies, and unknowns. Everything from Warren Zevon’s “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, Neil Diamond’s “Soo-Lay-Mon”, Jackson Browne’s “Looking East” to Susan Ashton’s “Grand Canyon” and Mark Lindsey’s “Silver Bird”. Trust me, the variety is wide! Sometimes certain songs take my mind back to past experiences of pain, fear, loss AND joy, laughter, courage, and happiness.
We live in a crazy world, absurd at times, but those familiar songs remind me that we are not crazy all the time, we’re not absurd all the time, God’s world is wild and beautiful, and unpredictable. Our lives are not just one thing, we’re children of the Most High, designed to live in the wildness of God’s Kingdom.
What quirky or weird or wild thing can you do today to seek out and remind yourself of the true mystery of God’s creation and your part in it? Might I suggest finding absurd landmarks, roaming the garden department smelling the flowers, singing Christmas carols in March, or the Guess Who’s classic “Albert Flasher”.
Blessing:
Blessed are we, when we emerge from
the boredom and frustration of plans deferred.
Winter’s long frost is over.
New ground has appeared, and paths too
that we didn’t see before.
Blessed are we needing help waking up to the music,
the movement, and the color of living,
who need help trying on joy instead.
The wonder of the daffodil, the power of the tiniest seed, cracked open and sprouting new life,
reaching, at its own pace, toward light.
Blooming.
Blessed are we who long to awake.
May we find the places where beauty and love can reach us.
We’re ready for something new.
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