The Song of the Lilies

Do you ever get a song or a phrase stuck in your head? Sometimes you do not even know where it has come from: it just keeps rolling around, demanding to be heard.  For the past few days, the phrase “Earth sings in flowers” has become almost deafening.

Perhaps it is the photograph I took of the lilies in my garden when I returned from worship last Sunday:  Or the dawn breaking song of the cardinals, blue jays and almost adult crows who come early to the feeder outside the bedroom window.

It called to mind “A Song of Faith”, adopted in 2006, which seeks to provide a verbal picture of what The United Church of Canada understands its faith to be in the historical, political, social, and theological context of the early 21st century.  It is a seven-page document of exceptional poetic writing and I share hereunder the words:

We sing of a church seeking to continue the story of Jesus by embodying Christ’s presence in the world.

We are called together by Christ as a community of broken but hopeful believers, loving what he loved, living what he taught, striving to be faithful servants of God in our time and place.

Our ancestors in faith bequeath to us experiences of their faithful living; upon their lives our lives are built.

Our living of the gospel makes us a part of this communion of saints, experiencing the fulfillment of God’s reign even as we actively anticipate a new heaven and a new earth.

Beautiful and inspiring words from a beautiful and inspiring document which I believe we need to revisit from time to time.  Perhaps we’ll do that together over the coming months.

The words which I have been hearing remind me that God’s beauty is all around us and, like the story of Mary and Martha we will be reading this week, we need to take the time to relax and to listen to what Creator may be trying to teach us.

“Grateful for God’s loving action, we cannot keep from singing” so I hope you, too, enjoy the song of the lilies.

 Beryl