Joy Unspeakable II and Harmonies of Compassion


In my Saturday post I had completely intended to buy myself a little time to write Sunday’s sermon. In fact I had what I thought was a “good one” going! I was to preach on our senses in addition to touch as employed by Thomas and how they are God given gifts, recognizing some of us have keener ones than others, which help us realize the Risen One in our midst. I was going to preach on how our senses turn doubt to faith.
However, as the Spirit would have it, I could not seem to finish it and so I took my own advice, for once, and prayed with the poem Joy Unspeakable for complementary inspiration. Well, the rest as they say is history and my post from yesterday reveals the result. Whether it is good or not is less the point than that it is authentic and speaks directly to what is calling me these days and what I believe the Spirit hopes me to say!
So I am going to dwell in Joy Unspeakable this week, as well as in the Word, and offer some reflections on these powerful phrases and those of the author which, when strung together in creative inspired fashion, stir me to resurrection life!
I revisited Holmes’ book of the same title and the line which leapt higher than so many others was this: “creating harmonies of wholehearted compassion”
Yes, I thought that is what we are doing in this time, with technology, with conversation, with writing, music and art, and with prayer. Even worship has become improvisational like jazz!
These new harmonies which play the music to joy unspeakable are often dissonant and desolate and resolve or point to consonance and consolation in a note added or held. Just as variations on a theme might ebb and flow so our compassion might. Yet it seems to be that the bass line or recurring leit motif just beneath the surface is grace. God’s mercy inspires our compassion and never changes. God’s mercy is the theme around and through which we sing and dance and play. Today I plan to listen for these harmonies of wholehearted compassion and see where and how I might enter, add my voice, and trust the improvisation.

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