====Please pray with me====

Holy and loving One,
We so often do not listen,
We so frequently do not ask,
And we really don’t like a change in our personal agendas…
But you, Divine One,
Know us so well.
Capture our hearts
Get our attention
And may the words I offer be in tune
With your heart
And Your holy Word.
Amen

====================

While I was a music student at Ohio State, we analyzed various scores and printed music for our theory and composition classes. Sometimes we picked the music apart as a class, a kind of joint venture of a musical autopsy. Other times, we were handed a portion for an exam, and were expected to dissect it on our own. Complex or simple, I had a deep appreciation for the great works we studied. But the music that never failed to amaze me were the ones that were written when the composer was… deaf.

Their inner muse was so strong, so well-developed, that though they were deaf, they could create symphonies and string quartets and never hear a note of it. The works of composers like Beethoven and Smetana, Fauré and Vaughn Williams stunned me when I realized that they never heard them performed.

They never stopped listening. Even when they could not hear.

• Our texts this morning invite a new kind of listening. They ask us, even though we may be tone deaf to God’s speaking to us, that we try and listen anyway!
• Whether it is seen or known, the Scriptures this morning invite us to HEAR the words of truth, to become aware of the voice of Wisdom and Understanding.
• Our texts this morning invite us to engage with the Created world around us in new ways. To see. To hear. To praise. To worship. To respond.

The problem is that we are, so often, slogged down in the everyday drone of life. And it drowns out our attempts to love and follow God!

Gotta pay the bills
Gotta pick up the kids
Gotta do the laundry
Gotta fix dinner
Gotta get groceries
Oops the cat threw up… gotta clean that up.

And then as every parent knows… the end of the school year hits:
Gotta get teacher gifts
Gotta help the kids study for exams
Gotta get poster board for that last project
Gotta find that band shirt for the concert (And does it still fit? That was Christmas!)
Gotta get good seats at graduation
Gotta sign the kids up for camp
Gotta find a hotel for vacation

AND… if you are dealing with a chronic illness…
Gotta get a scan and blood test
Gotta see this specialist
Gotta try a new medication
Gotta
Gotta
Gotta

We are on this treadmill existence, going nowhere fast!

The Divine invites us –
To reprogram
To reboot
To re-engage with the world around us!

Listen! Think! Look! Praise!

Listen! God says: “Doesn’t wisdom call?”
Think!  God suggests: “Doesn’t Understanding raise her voice?”
Look!   God’s people respond: “When I look up at your heavens…
Praise! God’s people sing: “How majestic is your name in ALL the earth!”

That’s not “normal” mode for human beings. Well… I know it isn’t for me. I might do OK at the “Praise” part on Sunday mornings. But by Tuesday afternoon’s rush hour… um… well… there are different words on my tongue.

Charles Hummel published a booklet in 1961 titled The Tyranny of the Urgent.  In this small volume, he suggested that there is always tension between things that are urgent and things that are important—and far too often, the urgent wins.

Yes. Far too often, the urgent wins. Anyone who has ever had their tasks changed at work because the Boss says, “I gotta have this today” knows exactly what Hummel meant!

We who are locked into our smart phones and Outlook calendars, and have trouble remembering to PRIORITIZE what God thinks is important… Can we learn to not just do the next thing?? Not just respond to the next email, the next tweet, the next voicemail?

I’m not there yet. But I’m working on it. I’m really bad at “unplugging” actually, but I keep trying. Because how can I hear “the still, small voice” of God when I’m not listening for it? “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW???” God asks…

Um… nope. Not really…

Every year, I look forward to vacation, when I try to reconnect with the created world around me. Quite honestly, I am looking forward to getting away… Before I see you again in July, we will journey to a place where there are more seagulls than people. Where the loudest noise I hear is the wind in the sea grass and palm branches, and the biggest decision I have to make is where I will take my afternoon nap… on the beach? …in the hammock? …or at poolside?

And as my blood pressure goes down, and freckles reappear on my nose… I breathe deeply and watch the day unfold at a pace that has nothing to do with the clock, and everything to do with the rhythm of sun and sand and sea. I make time at sunset to watch the birds come in to roost in the marsh, and see the shadows grow longer over the sand dunes. I hold star charts overhead and marvel at the number and intensity of the planets and constellations when the city lights are fading. I look for sea turtle hatchlings.

In short, I am immersed in the physical world I can see, whether or not I can understand it. Because I don’t need to be able to explain the reasons why stars twinkle to marvel at the number of them. I can watch fireflies (or lightning bugs – whatever you call them) and not know if they are advertising for a mate or just doing what they do… blink… blink… blink…

We are far from being hunter-gatherers or shepherds like the writer of the Psalms. But even if you ARE a botanist or an astrophysicist, you can still marvel at the way that our planet moves from season to season, and sustains humans and animals.

Terry Tempest Williams in her book When Women Were Birds wrote:

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.

The world is meant to be celebrated! BUT – also to be cared for… The Psalmist was aware that the entire Created world was under humanity’s dominion. Everything in the air, the sea, and on the land was given to humanity to care for…

How aware are we of our stewardship…
When plastics pile up in our landfills and pollute our oceans?
When we depend on fossil fuels in increasing ways?
When we do not ensure that the vulnerable, the weak and the hurting have clean water, clean air, and enough food?
When Flint, Michigan still does not have clean water after 5 years…
When there are famines in one part of the world, and food waste in the other?

Doesn’t Wisdom call?
Doesn’t Understanding raise her voice?
Doesn’t the Holy One call to us, asking, “Can you hear Me NOW?”

Today –

When you walk out into the warm sunshine or cope with a sudden summer thunderstorm,

Who will you thank?
Who will you praise?
Whose heart will speak to yours?

Can you hear Me NOW? God asks…

May our answer be… YES.

Amen.