holy now

So this is how it works with me and new music: the music comes into my life somehow, whether by CD purchase or mp3 download or a new mix. I listen a few times, get a decent feel for the melody and the lyrics, and then let it stew for a while. When it becomes The Right Time - sometimes days later, sometimes months - the bingeing begins. I listen to the song over and over again and let it carve out a little space in my heart. Usually I write down the lyrics, but either way, by the end of the marathon the song has made the transition from outside to inside.

(I put a lot of store by memorizing things - when I was working as a chaplain in the hospital, older folks who were losing their sight and their health and their spirit were immensely comforted by the psalms and prayers and bible verses that they had memorized decades ago. I notice too that stuff I have put to memory tends to pop up at very opportune moments.)

I just finished "uploading" a song... one that came to me months ago and just now has experienced its kairos moment. It's absolutely gorgeous poetry I have reproduced it in its entirety simply because I couldn't choose an excerpt.

When I was a boy, each week On Sunday we would go to church
And pay attention to the priest And 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.

And when I was in Sunday school, We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two, And 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, I barely wet my fingertips
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's holy now.

Read a questioning child's face; Say it's not a testament
That'd be very hard to say. See another new morning come
Say it's not a sacrament; I tell you that it can't be done.

This morning outside I stood; Saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush, Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head. And 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's holy now.

(Copyright Peter Mayer 1999)

This is not where I'm at right now. Not by a longshot. The miracles are still hiding - if Moses is parting the sea all around me, I'm walking through it with blinders on. But I've been there, walked with that reverent air, and enough of it stuck that something in me resonates with these lyrics. Thank God.