While I am so grateful for the gifts that Zoom offers to us, there are things that my internet connection will not allow in my online living room. I tried recently to begin with music streamed for YouTube through the browser on my laptop and all I could hear was, “Um, Elsa, I can’t hear anything. It keeps breaking up.” As mad as I am at Zoom for this, it gives me the opportunity to offer that gift to you in this digital format.
This is not the that musical piece that I had chosen that day for that directee but a version of a hymn that you might have sung a thousand times in a hundred different places. It is a hymn that sings of the glory hinted at in John 12:20-33 though we don’t usually sing this song with full gusto until Easter Sunday comes. Glory is hard to grasp and even more impossible to explain even when it is Jesus speaking. If there must be a definition, then let it be Frederick Beucher who illustrates what glory could be. But, really, it’s a mystery that we might just encounter through song and so I invite you into this experience with an old possibly beloved hymn.
If you prayed with me through stepping into the wilderness, you might be ready to gather materials but there is nothing to do to prepare for this meditation. No need to read the scripture unless you really want to. You can get a pen and journal if you want but I invite you into silent wonder when the music pauses. You might get squirrely and need a wee bit of help staying with the silence. If so, grab a timer. One from your kitchen or phone will do just fine. Breath deep and simply begin.
In a comfortable position, ready to receive whatever might come, press play on this familiar hymn and allow the music and lyrics to fill your whole being. After you listen once to the entire hymn, press pause so that silence may settle around you and remain in that quiet wonder for two minutes. Set a timer if you need.
With the hymn still ringing in your ears, recall when you’ve heard this hymn sung and when you have lifted your own voice to whisper its glory. Remember the words or phrases you couldn’t bring yourself to sing out loud and the smell of the hymnal you held in your hands. What do you remember feeling when this song entered into that space? What else was happening around you in that moment? How did this music invite you to taste and see glory way back when?
Listen again to Holy, Holy, Holy and pay attention to what this hymn might reveal to you about glory right now. Is there something that feels glorious in these lyrics to you? Is there wonder in how the music echoes in your heart that makes you feel that somehow this music was composed just for you? Do you feel God showing you something you didn’t know before as you listen again?
As you move through all of the memories of this hymn and reflect upon hearing it again in this moment, ask God what is about glory that you might need to know right now. Is it in a single note of the song or in the memory of that hand that held you that day when you heard this hymn sung so long ago? What is the shape and texture of glory for you right now? How might you hold it and what is the invitation this mystery might be offering you to live? Wander through all of these thoughts and all of the others that come to you in your quiet wonder until glory feels less mysterious and more familiar.
Breathe deeply into what you have experienced in this time of prayer reaching all the way back into your story into the present. God has revealed something to you. It may have felt like a mere glimpse of what could be but God showed something of their radiance in you. Give thanks for this gift and ask God to keep showing that wonder to you beyond this time of prayer.
As you feel so moved, please share what you discovered in this sacred listening and how you are moving into the possibility of glory.