Life is a church.
I don’t know exactly what it is about this song, but it captures my heart and soul.
Give it a listen and let me know if it touches your heart.
Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved the church and it has such sweet connotations for me. Maybe it’s that this singer reminds me of one of my favorite and formative singers from my adolescence – Keith Green. Maybe it’s simply the melodic tune. Maybe it’s his beautiful, powerful, crystal clear voice. Maybe it’s the passion I hear in his voice. Maybe it’s the litany of life events that he sings about – the awe and wonder of being a boy, loves first kiss, the joy of a newborn child, the sorrow over a death.
Or maybe it’s that I’m finally beginning to understand what it’s all about. What life is all about. What church is all about. What worship is all about. What sacrament is all about. What holiness is about. What being human is all about. What God is all about and where God is. That it is in God that I, that we, “live and move and have our being.” That life itself is a sacrament. A SACRAMENT, as best as I can define it is – “a visible sign of an invisible reality.” To see and know and live in the awareness that all of life is sacred, holy, full of meaning and truth.
What if it’s all Church? What if it’s all worship? What if it’s all sacred? What if it’s all sacrament? What if it’s all spiritual? Is there such a separation between the holy and the human? Between Heaven and Earth?
These words simple inspire and center me and lead me to a place of awe:
Life is a church
These are the sacraments
This is the altar
Love is the spirit
Making the blue planet turn.
“Life is a church” – right here, right now, in this breath God’s presence, life’s beauty. All of life – full of meaning, holiness, earthiness, mystery, sacredness.
“These are the sacraments” – Every event in my life in some way is or can be a sacrament – a visible sign of the invisible reality of God’s love, beauty, grace that I live in. All these visible signs – are signs of the Spirit.
“This is the altar” – right here, right now, in this moment of awareness is God, is worship. I can make my whole life an altar. Whatever I experience, wherever I find myself, whoever I am with, it and they point me to God, remind me of God. (And what about that verse that says, we are to offer ourselves as “living sacrifices.” This song helps me make sense of that.)
“Love is the spirit making the blue planet turn” – 14 billion years of grace and it continues in this moment of life that I have. It’s cosmic, it’s big, it’s powerful and yet it’s personal, and evident in my life. Life is a gift. Life itself is gift and grace given and sustained by love, by God, by God’s love.
I don’t think I’ve quite captured it, but I sense it, I feel it and these words are a portal to help me live in it. Maybe Jesus’s words can get me there better than mine – The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven – HERE, NOW, PRESENT, WITHIN and all around.
And during this advent and christmas season perhaps this song speaks to me about the Incarnation – the union of holiness and humanness, God and humanity, heaven and earth not just out there or back then but right here and now.
Jesus speaks to me, for he speaks to ALL mystics – open your eyes and see, open your ears and hear… Life is a church and everything is holy.
Related Post:
http://billjohnsononline.com/blog/everything-is-holy-now/
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