Born of Joy: A New Song to the Lord

 

 

Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.– Psalm 96:1

The internet can be a boon or the proverbial can of worms. For every video or reel that is entertaining and/or informative, there are usually 10 or more that aren’t worth anyone’s time. I think we’ve all fallen prey to those videos that seem to be interesting at the outset but that quickly make you regret clicking on them. It doesn’t take long to realize that, while not all the comments on a video or reel are flattering, its creators couldn’t care less about that. A click is a click, good or bad, positive or negative. The more clicks, the more lucrative posting videos becomes. You also quickly find out that even the 10 seconds you spend on them generates validation, and that’s what the creators want.

Unless you want to spend time researching videos and organizing them into categories or subscriptions, you tend to come upon the good ones randomly. Some of the better reels now open into full-blown videos that range in run time from 5 to sometimes 20 minutes. Depending on their content, and whether it’s something that interests me or not, determines if I’ll stay with them to the end. If I’m pressed for time and really want to see the entire thing, I pause it and save it to return to later.

Recently, I came upon a YouTube page that featured reels and videos of varying lengths and depicting the spiritual practices that go on in the congregations and churches of other countries and other cultures where the settings are more primitive and not nearly as ornate and structured as I’ve been used to seeing all my life. Having grown up in a faith that was highly ritualized in its approach, I decided to explore what it was like to attend a service simply put together with the sparest of accouterments.

The service was a mass being conducted outside somewhere in Africa. There was no seating other than a rudimentary plastic lawn chair for the priest, a small table adorned with a pair of candles, a small book stand for the missal, and a few other items that he would need for the ceremony. Meanwhile, the congregation stood along one side of the small cleared space in front of a hut. Already, they were singing, clapping, lifting their voices to God in their own unique style of chanting broken occasionally with high-pitched wails and prolonged joyful cries.

At one point, a man started walking among the congregants, carrying a large green bucket, in which people were depositing their tithes, offerings, or donations. All the while, the priest was arranging his altar, preparing to begin the mass. He emerged from the hut carrying a paten and a chalice, items used during the Eucharistic consecration of the bread and wine, including the necessary covering for the chalice and a plain white folded cloth. The reel was short and did not proceed through the entire mass. But I saw and heard enough to be deeply moved by the passion demonstrated by the congregants, most dressed in brightly colored dresses, turbans and sashes.

How different this was from the stylized ceremony I have participated in often in the past. Unlike the bland and lackluster repetitions of prayers, homilies and responses used at masses in developed countries, these people exuded a joy that I have never seen anywhere in any church setting. Oh, there is the usual brand of fellowship before and after the service or mass, and the sentiments paid to the priest or minister on the way out. But I’ve never witnessed this type of intense and unabashed jubilation to honor God.

The congregation in this video not only felt genuine joy, but they acted it out in their song, their clapping, and their high-pitched trills. I imagined God looking down with a smile, glorying in the simple type of faith that Jesus spoke of when he said “Unless you become like one of these little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”~Matthew 18:3

We’ve all seen small children at birthday parties when it’s time to sing “Happy Birthday,” and the glee and enthusiasm they all demonstrate. This innocent shameless display of joy is one of the reasons that childhood is such a grand time for most of us, one never to be repeated in our adult lifetimes. Even in bad situations where a child’s life is not ideal, there still persists a basic joy in children that they celebrate, albeit inwardly and unbeknownst to them, a joy to simply be alive, a joy that is felt over the least little thing.

This is what I felt as I watched and listened to these men and women in a hot dusty jungle clearing: the sheer joy of honoring and celebrating the presence and power of God in their lives. No ornate surroundings or expensive gilded artifacts, no cushioned kneelers or stained-glass windows...just joy, reflected in their attire, their attitude, their exuberance...the joy of God’s children, their chants and trills bursting forth for all the world to hear.

 

Nature: God's Power, Wisdom, and Love Made Visible

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.~Romans 1:20

As long as I could walk and pick a dandelion to give to my mother, I have had a love affair with Nature. And I never wondered at the name or questioned its source. I just simply called it by how I knew it: Nature.

Only recently, from a diligent reading of the Holy Bible, did I come to realize why it is called that. All that we see around us, from the tiniest thing that creeps and outward into the entire cosmos is a clear reflection of who and what God is and why Nature is so valued, precious, and even sacred.

When we talk about “human nature,” we immediately imagine the different things that all people are capable of, what we think, how we act, how we speak, how we react to sensory input and to the varied experiences that make up a life. When we narrow it down to a particular individual’s characteristics, it is what we think of as what makes that person different from every other in the universe. Those characteristics eventually assume a recognizable pattern by which we come to know that person and that we call their nature.

The same applies to God, only on a much more vast and exclusive level. Nature, what we call all that we see around us that was not produced or created by human hands, reflects who God is on every level, from the calmness of a sea in good weather to its wrath during a powerful storm. Beauty that leaves us breathless is just a prefiguring of the beauty that is God, but that we, with our finite human minds and the limited scope of our emotional capabilities, are not capable of taking in.

“But He added, ‘You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live.’ ”~Exodus 33:20

At some point in our lives, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all seen something that literally left us speechless. And for those of us who haven’t traveled much, the digital age has provided us with opportunities to see many wonders in photos, videos, movies and television nature documentaries. So we all have some idea of the inestimable extent of the wonders that adorn, not only our planet, but also the night sky.

Those with a more discerning eye also sometimes notice the much smaller wonders that most people miss in their busy lives, the small, yet highly significant processes that go on unnoticed but that keep the cycle of life going...bees and butterflies harvesting nectar, going from flower to flower gathering pollen as with which others will eventually be fertilized...bluebirds flying to and from a secretive spot, carrying materials for a nest, and ants moving in a steady rhythm as they build a mound or carry food to their young. The possibilities of spotting something miraculous are limitless, and none of us could even live long enough to explore them all.

One of the ways in which I’ve always felt the Lord’s presence more intensely happens any time I step from our big busy and bustling world onto a woodland path or an opening in a neglected patch of land or field. As I slowly make my way more deeply into the woods or into the field, leaving human noise and chaos behind as I go, the air itself becomes imbued with a sacredness that I never feel “out there.” In the woods, I find that life’s cares fall away from me, including my self-consciousness and visibility. I start to feel as one with my surroundings, less observed, less significant, less concerned with anything beyond what I can actually see close by. The sense of peace and serenity is so complete that I know I am in a very special place and a sacred moment: in the presence of the One who put this all here for my pleasure and to give me a small taste of what it will be to stand before Him one day.