Compassion's Music

I look into the skies and the quality of illumination makes it real to me that there is, indeed, a sheet music of praise stretched across the heavens at all times. It is a song that I hear even on the grayest of days. The Scripture says it this way in Isaiah 49:13:

“Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on His afflicted ones.”

The twisting reach of a long branch has its movement set to the classical music of the ballet as it spirals its way skyward--a pointer to the One who fashioned the tree’s pose. The wind in the tops of the blooms rustling in a garden is the jazz of heavens spontaneity to improvise with fragrant grace. The crash of the waves along the shore is a great echoing round, as it then pulls back over the rocks, singing the movements of the tides with the gravity of His love for us. The mountains have the might to carry their thanksgiving in operatic arias that make us exclaim over their steep reaches to glory. The streams bubble with the sweet high notes of Children of God at play. The deserts sing acappella with the sparseness of their resources, and the surety of their singular stunning voice. The birds need no metaphor for their praise as they unsparingly set the winds and the trees into great anthems of joy daily. And the stars shimmer with the notes that light the theater of our nights.

The image I posted here was a day of gloominess--both in the weather, and in my heart. When I saw the sheet music stretched out across the firmament, with the leafy notes upon the lines, I was filled with wonder over what the song would sound like. I couldn’t translate its notation into music. I am not trained, and perhaps it was too rarefied a song for me to read and sing. When I found the passage quoted above from Isaiah 43, I realized that this song was too precious for me to do anything but to receive it.

It told me that the heavens and the earth have this music from the Lord for our comfort. The trees, flowers, waves, mountains, streams, deserts, birds, stars, and all that He has made, are a gospel choir poised to be lifters of our heads. They sing to cheer us and to assure us that He has compassion upon the afflictions that wound us. They sing while we cry to keep His profound care and comfort ever reliably before us. If we listen they will surround us in lullabies even in the darkest part of any night.

If we look up in the confidence of His covering over us, the sheet music will be clearly unfurled with the music written precisely for our condition. And not even the Meadow Lark’s beautiful song could utter one note that would contradict His song of love to be with us, and to rock us with all of Heaven’s sweet rhythms until we can stand again with our own song of praise renewed and revived.

The creation is beautiful to behold, but hearing its music makes me know that it is founded upon praise that comes from the very first when the “Spirit of God hovered over the waters” (Genesis 1:2b) with His elegant musical whirring—the prelude to all of creation.

Sunset Prayers

At dusk, just before the sun glides below the Pacific, I am deeply touched by the tenderness and awe of the many onlookers who come to watch the event. It is far more moving than any media gathering I have ever seen.

We watch for nuances of blending color as the sun dips low. We hope for rainbows as the cloud formations filter the light. Given the right atmospheric conditions, the green flash that can spread-out as the last rays shoot across the horizon causes a lull and then a great cheer. Sometimes I would rather watch the sunset as it reflects off all of those lovely faces more than the display over the Pacific. Golden wonder paints each face that allows a bit of the child’s surprise to return where it had been so trapped and darkened by the day’s frenzy and trouble.

It is about the words~~sunset and sunrise~~that I am now most struck. If we really look at their structure we know that they are inaccurate in their description. The sun neither sets, nor rises, but on our little planet Earth, we rotate toward and away from its full effects on a 24-hour cycle.

And still the words are fine with us! I think this has to do with the golden glow already noted on the watching faces. Our statements about the sun’s arrival and departure have more to do with our feeling about it than the accuracy of our terms. It is experienced as the sun leaving and coming because of the reliably and profoundly fundamental quality of the event.

Psalm 19: 6 says it this way: “Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end. And there is nothing hidden from its heat.” This is the way that we see the sun from our place here on the earth. In this case, because it is so majestic, our scientific bent can bow to our poetic heart, just as David did in his Psalm.

David’s science, as well as his heart, on the issue was entirely correct though when he said that: “…nothing is hidden from its heat.” The sun is the star that sustains all life here on Earth. The miracle of its placement in the heavens makes it such a marvel that can easily explain the crowds along the shore at sunset. At nearly 93 million miles away we are accurately positioned to have our entire planet wonderfully warmed by its heat. Given any, even slight, change in its positioning and we would either be burnt-up or frozen-stiff.

The sun, though altogether amazing, can receive no worship. The reason for amazement is over the Creator wielding such a protractor with the perfect settings for our life and protection. Every new day and evening is a reason for gratitude over our Defender—the Creator.

David again writes: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained. What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” Psalm 8:3

I have a friend whose amazingly curious four-year-old daughter asked her Mother: “So Mom, about that sunset, does it really fall into the ocean?” It astounded me over how real are the questions of a child. I like to think that we can be as real in our perplexities. “So, Lord, how could You love us so much as to shower us with your gold each evening when your sun sets, only to have it return with utter predictability with the same life-giving lights off another shore?”

Flowers in Profusion

The flowers have already appeared in the land; the time has arrived for pruning the vines, and the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.” Song of Solomon 2:12 This is the last phrase from a dream I awoke from this morning. It lifted me into my day, and this is the view from the blessed launching:

I wondered if it was put upon my lips because of how the flowers decorate the gardens of so many of my photographs. I thought about how they bring with them the vivacity and joy of their unfurling to our homes. I could envision the bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths as they intensely look for the very ones made for them to pollinate. I felt excited, as I knew I would soon be out among them watching the light glance off their silken colors. Perfume filled the rising from my pillow.

Although these are all touching reflections upon my exorbitant joy in the blooms, they weren’t what I felt the dream was telling me. I decided to look into the structural purpose of the gorgeous ruffles along so many of my daily paths (especially so, as they appear all year round in San Diego).

They are far from being just momentary beauties.  They are reproductive engines of the most ingenious design! When I saw the singular ways in which they have been fashioned to ensure their continuance I was thrilled by their mysterious wonder even more. Each one of the amazing windborne ballet-costumes has within it the fruit or the seed of its own multiplication. The flower dances in welcoming celebration to its visitors to carry it on to another place of glorification. It never wants to simply flourish in a beauty for beauty’s sake, for such a small sweet moment, and to say that this was its only purpose.

Ah! The dream was making sense. Our lives have their own way of blooming along the Way. They do give the bright glory to the One who made us, but within all of us is the seed, or the fruit, to spread the glory ever further. A life is not about a solitary beauty; it is to send out the great and ever more loving profusion of grace upon the land. We have been designed to grow gardens of grace by the wings of our loved-ones, those who visit with us and fly to other places of great wonder. Gossamer gowns do not hide the seed and the fruit within us, at the center is the real heart of our presence to be with each other. The things within are even more lovely and bounteous than the things on the outside. The seed and the fruit endure; the petal does not. I was getting my Matthew 26:28 lesson this day about observing the lilies of the field and how they grow.

Just moments later as I was reading my Psalm for the morning (17), I actually heard a dove on the ledge of our window. I rushed to see if it was so. A pair of doves was scouting out a nesting place and their voices came right to my place of study. What were they saying? The last sentence of this Psalm is: “I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.”

It was just so for me this morning. And His likeness was scented with the teachings of delightful gardens and with the voice of the turtledove in our land.

A Red Letter Welcome

The words-in-red are how we refer to Jesus’ own words in the Gospels. I think of them as residing in my Bible, but also as written on my heart by the Holy Spirit, and as love notes posted all around—illuminated even in the treetops.

If I can’t find a specific note, this is always far greater than imaginable for any moment: “ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” (Romans 8:16). I can take this to my heart as an intimate message to me at any time. A child of God is cherished, encouraged, and defended in all conditions. He has written in the scarlet-thread of the blood of Jesus these very exhortations uniquely to each of His own children. They are not generic, but singular to your precious heart! And the opening always addresses you lovingly by name and the closing always reads: Your Loving Father—in the most gorgeous script pouring from an open heaven.

The image of a red-letter mailbox, with messages ready to be dropped-in is how my neighborhood looks as I walk afield. The smile of a neighbor who warmly likes the regularity of my route, the Creator’s design in His tree-bouquets, the rhythm of His heart as I hear the pounding Pacific blocks away, the creatures who seem to praise Him so naturally, and the reliable Truth that no one else fully refreshes my condition like a walk with the Savior. These are notes deposited in that red box, addressed just to me, and sealed with the red wax of the Holy Dove’s image.

I run to open the latch and a heavenly fragrance wafts from the mailbox. Is it the scent of the bouquets overhead?  Surely, they are a great accompaniment, but it is really the “oil of gladness” that exudes from the holy place. Getting a hand-written letter is such a delight. When the Heart of Grace writes it a new understanding—of never being alone, of never being rejected, of always having His limitless resources, abounds over a soul at peril to the world’s attempt at breaking a heart.

This letter is the kind that people call a keeper, but it really comes with the purpose of keeping us—of preserving us to an overflow of love that gives Him the glory as we minister His love in places of deep harshness.

Will you walk to pick-up the mail with me today?