I’ve experienced the sacredness and holiness of God and life in many church services over the years through the music, aesthetics, preaching, communion, God’s word, the Spirit, the gathered community etc. But more and more I’m experiencing the holiness and sacredness of God – the presence of God in the “everydayness” of life. It makes life magical and mystical.
The story is told of Moses who encounters God through the burning bush in the desert. I’m wondering this morning, if maybe the bush was always burning – that God was always trying to get the message through to Moses, but he just didn’t see it, just wasn’t aware of it because he was just too busy and distracted tending the sheep in Midian near Mount Horeb. I’m not tending sheep but I get just as busy and distracted by the pressing concerns of my life and miss the signals, signs and presence of God all around me all the time in everything, if I have eyes to see and ears to hear.
Along with this song, “Everything is Holy Now,” by Peter Mayer here are some of my favorite quotes that remind me of the reality of God that I live in and to wake up to it, remember it and come alive to it.
Which one of the following quotes speaks most to you today?
“God is not far from anyone of us, for in God we live and move and have our being.”
APOSTLE PAUL ACTS 17:27-28“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
ALBERT EINTSTEIN“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
FREDERICK BUECHNER“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING“By virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. On the contrary, everything is sacred.”
TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
Lyrics: “Everything is Holy Now”
When I was a boy, each week
On Sunday, we would go to church
And pay attention to the priest
He would read the holy word
And consecrate the holy bread
And everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now
When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don t happen still
But now I can’t keep track
Cause everything’s a miracle
Everything, Everything
Everything’s a miracle
Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn’t one
When holy water was rare at best
It barely wet my fingertips
But now I have to hold my breath
Like I m swimming in a sea of it
It used to be a world half there
Heaven’s second rate hand me down
But I walk it with a reverent air
Cause everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now
Read a questioning child s face
And say it’s not a testament
That’d be very hard to say
See another new morning come
And say it’s not a sacrament
I tell you that it can t be done
This morning, outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
Everything is holy now
It used to be a world half there
Heaven’s second rate hand me down
But I walk it with a reverent air
Cause everything is holy now
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