MaryBeth from RevGals offers the following prompt for today:

You know how sometimes you just want to have a hymn sing? Well, today is that day.

Share with the group five favorite hymns or praise songs or songs that bring you close to the Spirit (that’s a pretty wide net!) and why they are special to you.

Bonus if you can share Youtube videos or audio files of one or two or more.

Ahhh…. I love the way God takes music and gets my attention, or as a former director used to say to us, “SNAP TO!” Maybe some of these will help you “snap to” the Spirit this morning…

1. Andrew Peterson’s Planting Trees. It’s a reminder to me that much of what we do by the power of the Spirit is in the arena of digging holes, spreading roots and caring for the parts of our lives that are above and below ground. It’s a metaphor that works for me on many levels, so much so that I created a video for it:

2. A more “classical feel” is in this piece by Karl Jenkins. It is the “Benedictus” from  “The Armed Man (A Mass for Peace). Again, a video that I created (for my co-workers at NIH) – but with the words of a blessing by John O’Donohue. May the music and the blessing touch your hearts and remind you that your work in this world is life-giving!

3. Julie Miller’s Broken Things

4. John Ritter’s arrangement of For the Beauty of the Earth

5. A prof of mine, David Edwards, wrote a contemporary Christian song titled You are Water to my Soul. Part of the lyrics are:

You are water to my soul,
gift of life to me.
You are all I ever need —
Heaven’s healing stream.
Clouds pour out your rain,
washing ev’ry stain.
You are Water to my soul,
gift of life to me…