sacred

A Song for the Season: Soft Light From a Stable Door

Steve · December 7, 2013 · 1 Comment

A little something special for the seasons of Advent and Christmas…I’m going to periodically through December post lyrics and audio recordings of songs from our Christmas CD produced a few years ago, Nathanael’s Creed’s “Home Again with You.”

[If you’re looking for stocking stuffers, the CDs are available for $15, which includes postage and handling. Drop me an email or send a check to: Steve Givens, 51 High Valley Dr., Chesterfield, Mo. 63017.]

First up is “Soft Light from a Stable Door,” a song based on a beautiful poem by the English poet Lilian Cox.

To listen, click here: Soft Light from a Stable Door

Soft Light from a Stable Door
Words by Lilian Cox
Music by Steve Givens & Jim Russell

Soft light from a stable door
Lies on the midnight lands;
The wise men’s star burns evermore,
Over all the desert sands.

To all peoples of the earth
A little Child brought light;
And never in the darkest place
Can it be utter night.

No flick’ring torch, no wav’ring fire,
But Light the Life of men;
Whatever clouds may veil the sky,
Never is night again.

To all peoples of the earth
Never is night again.
The wise men’s star burns evermore
Never is night again.
Soft light from a stable door
Never is night again.
Never is night again.
Never is night again.
Never is night…

–

The players

Guitar: Jim Russell
Lead vocals: Steve Givens
Keyboard: Phil Cooper
Percussion: Pat Dillender
Bass: Gerry Kasper
Background vocals: Phil Cooper, Pat Dillender, Jim Russell and Gerry Kasper

Today’s Word: Odd

Steve · December 1, 2013 · 4 Comments

The improbably odd Daddy Longlegs. SJG photo

On more than one occasion, my former spiritual director said to me, “If it’s odd it might be God.” It’s a funny line, a very short poem perhaps, but nevertheless a grain of wisdom to which we would do well to pay attention. For while we very often — perhaps most often — find God in the plain and ordinary moments of our lives, there are also those odd moments of synchronicity, circumstance and coincidence that cause us to pause and wonder, “what’s going on?” And for those of us who hold tight to God and to our lives of faith, we can find ourselves asking, “what’s God up to?”

You know the moments I’m talking about. The phone rings and it’s the very person you were thinking about or needed to hear from to get you through a rough moment. A song comes on the radio and bears just the message you needed to hear. A scripture reading at church seems meant just for you at that very moment. Your dream job becomes available right when you’re best able to accept it. A series of highly improbable events comes together in perfect fashion, leading you to the place you most need to be. Fill in the blank. We’ve all been there.

We can chalk it all up to pure luck or the roll of the dice. We can “do the math” and come up with the odds. We can just ignore that it happened. Or we can begin paying closer attention to the moments and days of our lives and realize that these things happen more often than we ever realized. We can begin to see God living and moving in our lives and call the whole thing a miracle. When we choose that way of living, we find ourselves filled with hope and faith.

Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time “something odd” turned out to be God?

Today’s Word: Dwelling

Steve · November 22, 2013 · 1 Comment

While in Arizona a few weeks ago, we visited Montezuma Castle National Monument, with its amazingly preserved Pre-Columbian cliff-dwellings that were built and inhabited by the Sinagua people beginning around 700 AD. Standing far below and looking up at the five-story structure, it’s hard to imagine what life must have been like when the structures were inhabited, hard to believe just how treacherous it would have been to live under such conditions, scampering up and down ladders carrying fish and water from nearby Beaver Creek and clinging to the side of a mountain for shelter from weather and enemies.

cliff2 — Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona. SJG photo

And yet, life remains treacherous even today. Our dwellings may be more sophisticated, but we often still live under the dangerous conditions imposed by both the society around us and the decisions we make that contribute to those dangers. Our streets and roads are as treacherous as any hand-crafted ladder, and we still cling to things because we somehow believe they will protect us in one way or another. And so we must consider just where we place our trust and where we seek our shelter from the spiritual storms and enemies of our lives. Equally important is our ability to provide a place for God to dwell within us, as Paul suggests in his letter to the Ephesians (3:17-19): “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Our dwelling place is in God and God’s in us. We fit perfectly together, rooted in love, a communion carved of one piece and clinging inseparably together through time.

Ask yourself in silence: To what do I cling?

Today’s Word: Holy

Steve · November 21, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Sacred Heart in Chinandega, Nicaragua market. SJG photo

Sanctus — holy — the brass candleholder gleams,
here in the chapel at noon.
I am making my presence known to the Holy One
and the Holy One to me.
We behold each other
and I know I am not worthy to even be here,
know that mounds of dark failure and sin,
— a life full, day full, moment full —
(it doesn’t matter how much or how little)
should separate me from sanctus but do not.

The stained-glass face on the side window,
above the radiating and sacred heart,
holds my glance like a Word I’ve never seen before
as I try to puzzle out its meaning and source.
And yet this face knows my name, my life,
and never blinks or changes expression,
revealing divine compassion and grace
so abundant I would drown
were it water.

For I am covered in grace, not sin.
Enveloped in hope, not in my past.
Secure in that gaze.
Wrapped in that holy.
Held in that love.
Sanctus. Sanctus. Sanctus.

Ask yourself in silence: Where do I experience the holy and sacred? What holds my gaze and points me to the divine?

Today’s Word: Table

Steve · October 5, 2013 · 2 Comments

family — Family around the table. SJG photo

In the resurrection story of the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24) two of Jesus’ followers are walking on the road to Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, talking and worrying about all that had just happened. The resurrected Jesus joins them and asks them what the hubbub is all about. And they don’t recognize him. “Have you been living in a cave?” they ask him. “You haven’t heard about the teacher Jesus and how he was killed and now — and NOW — they say his body is gone.” Jesus reminds them of their teacher’s promise that he would rise again. And still they don’t recognize him.

It’s not until later, when he stops with them to share a meal, that their eyes are opened and they recognize him. When he breaks the bread, when he shares the table. Then they say, “I thought something odd was going on…were not our hearts burning within us as he walked and talked to us on the road?” This is the blessing of the table. Whether the table is the altar we gather around to celebrate the Eucharist with fellow believers or the dining table around which we gather to eat, drink and laugh with family and friends, the act of gathering around a common table can be a sacred, life-giving experience, a time of recollection and remembrance of all the graces in our lives. It is a time to enjoy the bounty of the earth, all the while recalling the numerous ways that God has insinuated himself into our lives without our even noticing.

Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time you felt your heart burning within you because you recognized the presence of God or Jesus in your life? How could your time with family and friends around the table be transformed into something more sacred?