Sing a Single Alleluia!

mrjoneshereandthere.blogspo…

Yesterday, I was driving along in the car and I have to admit I was talking to the angels — I’ve been doing that lately. It was a nice little conversation and after it ended I felt like bursting into the full chorus of the Easter Hymn, Allelulia, Allelulia, let the holy anthems ring!  I could not remember all the words but my heart sang the melody with gusto. I felt immediately blessed and grateful for the good life I have.

 

Breaking into spontaneous song is a good thing to do. It frees up the body and mind. It connects you to something good and something of Spirit. It is like a “noisy-quiet time.” You receive immediate benefits from it.

 

Contemplative silence can lead to revelations of the presence of the One for whom we long — actually I believe it enhances our awareness of “Whom” is already present, always. Contemporary and sacred songs can do the same. We can unite with the wholeness within. How do I know this. I feel my body respond to the Allness of which I am a part.

 

Silly songs from Veggie Tales lighten my cells and make me laugh, a very good thing in deed. Since Daidirriederaming post last week about “Every little cell in my body is happy, every little cell in my body is free…” I’ve had this embedded in me like a singing mantra and it plays at will. I’ve been meaning to teach it to my almost 4 year old granddaughter.

 

I’m big on a dedicated quiet space in my home and have had one for many years now; most often in my writing room, but it’s also been as sparce as my platform rocker I call my prayer chair in a general sitting room. I can choose the times it is not disturbed by other sounds and activity and draw the quiet around and within me. I often sing songs to myself in the quiet too.

 

It was amazing to me the vibrations of peace that chair gives off over the years. Tom’s sister, when she visits, heads straight for it, and in past days solved many life challenges, rocking, talking, humming by herself in it.

 

When we moved from North Carolina back to Michigan, we had a house sale with many large items on bargain price sale. I had one woman who repeatedly tried to buy that rocker, which I declared over and over again, was not for sale. I resorted to sitting in it while she perused and purchased many other items and hovered occasionally near the chair.

 

Quiet spaces can be made in our homes by intention and design. If I were to build a new home, which I don’t see happening at this stage in life, I would include a sanctuary room. Gerry L. Grimsley and Jane J. Young, in their book “Contemplative By Design, tell us how they’ve been called to a ministry of developing quiet spaces.

 

They say that their plans, work and prayer for developing quiet spaces for a 2006 SOULfeast conference for Upper Room Ministries brought them great joy, but they felt particularly blessed by seeing how the participants responded to their individualized spaces where they withdrew from their busy conference schedules for sabbth rest.

 

Their book sets up fifteen different spaces with themes, materials to work with, scriptures, writing and art products to use individually by persons as they come into the space. A participant guide invites them into contemplation and/or activity.  Just reading what is available within that space makes it possible for you to adapt it for yourself in your own home or if you are in the business of giving workshops, you could offer a couple of these quiet spaces within your workshop frame.

 

“How can it be that we can say

our God is everywhere

yet hours pass, and we do not sing

a single Alleluia?

 

Could it be that a minute shift

of focus, of attention

will unveil a feast of the sacred

within our every day?”

 

The authors conclude a carefully designed quiet space will say, ‘discover the feast. Taste. Be fed.

 

PS  A UTube video is popping up here – appears I can’t delete it; If you see, the penguin one, I guess we could think, “We can always dance.” I don’t know what else will pop up.