Lenten Writing Project Reboot 2020! Writers' Reflections in the Wilderness of Lent
Words of Faith
Spirit to Spirit Writing Project
The word Lentcomes from an old English word meaning lengthening of days. In Christianity, it refers to the time before Easter, traditionally observed through repentance and learning. It's a season to be intentional about changing and growing. Some people give up items to create space and time for new life and habits to grow. Instead of giving something up, I invite you to try to commit to answering these writing prompts each of the 40 days of Lent. The discipline it takes to set aside time each day to reflect and write about God and your relationship with spirituality is a journey that you will emerge from with a renewed spirit. Every writer has their own special voice to add to this project, whether poetry, prose, essay, thoughts, lists, or through comments, prayer, and encouragement.
How do I participate? Each day, a writing prompt will be posted. A prompt is a question or statement that is meant to inspire your thoughts in whatever genre you feel moved to write. Post your reflections as a comment under each day's prompt (for further instructions, see 'How To Post' on the right side of the page). It is up to you if you write, read, or pray along with us each of the 40 days of Lent or just drop in from time to time when the spirit moves you to participate. Writing regularly is a discipline that many writers struggle with and this is a way to involve that discipline as a Lenten practice. Through writing and leaving encouraging words for others in this project, we become a supportive spiritual writing community
Thursday, March 5, 2015
FaithSong
What is a song that is not "religious" per se, but still feeds your faith. How does it make you feel and how does it answer that spiritual need?
The River by Garth Brooks which isn't one of those classics they play on the radio now and then, but when they did, it always reached me with the message of getting out in the current of life, not standing on the banks and wishing to do this or that. "I'll never reach my destination, if I never try So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry." and "Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides."
Another is Willie Nelson's Blue Skies On a particular bad day for me, gray skies overhead and in my thinking about problems I was facing, I started singing with Willie while listening in the car. It became my song, not about losing a love and finding another, but about loving myself, believing in the positive and hopeful. And as I sang, clouds separated for glimpses of blue and a sun break. "Blue skies looking at me, nothing but blue skies do I see." It lifted my spirits and made me feel that in the midst of the gloom producing problems God opens up some blue sky,
The River by Garth Brooks which isn't one of those classics they play on the radio now and then, but when they did, it always reached me with the message of getting out in the current of life, not standing on the banks and wishing to do this or that. "I'll never reach my destination, if I never try So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry." and "Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides."
Another is Willie Nelson's Blue Skies On a particular bad day for me, gray skies overhead and in my thinking about problems I was facing, I started singing with Willie while listening in the car. It became my song, not about losing a love and finding another, but about loving myself, believing in the positive and hopeful. And as I sang, clouds separated for glimpses of blue and a sun break. "Blue skies looking at me, nothing but blue skies do I see." It lifted my spirits and made me feel that in the midst of the gloom producing problems God opens up some blue sky,
Not to many years ago I took piano lessons and learned to enjoy the piano. I can plunk fit the longest time and have fun doing it.
One of the early songs I learned to play was 'what a wonderful world'. Some of the lyrics are timeless 'I see friends shaking hands saying 'how do you do? They're really saying I love you'. It's really a song of seeing beauty in the world. I think that there is so much good in the world that goes unseen. This song reminds me to look!
I never thought of it that way! And at the time, Louis Armstrong was seeing some very tough stuff with racial segregation and prejudice, but yet he sang this song about the good in the world. A prayer.
Despite the title, the song "Prince of Darkness" by the Indigo girls is almost an insistent war-cry against the darkness of this world. A refusal to participate in the darkness 'any longer' - meaning, she has knowledge of that darkness, but has clawed her way out of the murk by her strength. Knowledge and naming of some of the evils in this world and then, in spite of this, she claims light and sun. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=indigo+girls+my+place+is+of+the+sun&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=322719AB3AB40221C536322719AB3AB40221C536
I remember walking into a chapel during a silent retreat some years ago and the haunting violin melody from Schindler's List was playing. I don't think I even knew where the piece came from, but I found myself close to tears. It still moves me when I hear it. I think it has become a piece that simply asks me to step into the quiet, gives permission to be something small in the midst of God's greatness, recognizes the sad and solemn while offering hope.
It is wonderful to take meaningful songs and bring them into a church setting. I think they give a depth that regular church songs sometimes can't. In fact one of the great protestant reformations was in the 1880's when churches allowed hymns with popular melodies to be used. ("What a Friend we Have In Jesus", et al.) It caused quite a conflict. Doug
It’s My Turn- Doug Millar Back in the early 60's I think I was one of the first people to bring a guitar into a (Lutheran) church. Or so it seemed. I had been playing folk music for a few years and had learned several church songs. I remember being at Bible Camp and having someone lead the singing with a piano. It felt artificial to me and I suggested the guitar could be used and was refused with indignity. Only the organ or piano were allowed to accompany sacred music, I was told. Of course, that did it for me. I proceeded to play for church outings and services whenever I could. Sometimes people walked out in protest. Usually playing things even like "Jesus Loves Me:" were welcomed. Kum ba Yah was the favorite. As a neophyte missionary and English teacher in Japan in '66 the head missionary asked me to play guitar during our small student church services. We usually met in a dusty prewar wooden meeting hall with absolutely no heat. He preached and I led songs. I was thumbing through the hymnbook and stumbled across “What a Friend we have in Jesus”. Normally it was sung like a dirge in our church with greatly stretched out phrasing. It was so overdone that I had never considered it. This time I noted that it had a regular chord structure that seemed to say it was written on a guitar. I played it and was excited that it played well, but at a much faster speed. It was a happy song! What a great discovery. I got into the happiness feeling of it and was soon flatpicking it like a bluegrass song. In no time, I had worked up a little finger picking solo on it. Paul Simon would have been proud. Basking in my newfound discovery, I came to services on Sunday ready to share my new arrangement. We had about 20 or so students who all sat around us and participated well. They knew the old version of the hymn. I introduced it with my story of the slow version and said we would do it a different way. At that point, I started playing the introduction fingerpicking style, and then moved them into the upbeat rendition of the actual hymn. They participated with enthusiasm and obviously enjoyed it. I noticed that my missionary mentor wasn’t into it as strongly as I hoped. He hated it. It seems that he was from Paso Robles where there were two types of music: church music and Country Western. In his mind, the two should not and had not crossed paths up to that point. To his credit, he allowed me to continue doing more upbeat hymns, even though his personal taste was elsewhere. The statistics for traditional ministry had been very poor and I suppose he was forced to try something new. For me it changed my approach to church. I knew the experience of the sacred could also be happy and personal. Instead of being lost in the past, we could get lost in the present. It is now many years later and that reformation of a sort has progressed beyond me. I have to say that I do not like what I feel are big screen videos with a band playing hymns. It is too “us” and “them”. However, the graciousness I was shown needs to be passed on by me as well, thanks to a very startled and kind missionary long ago.
Immersed in a world of song, Each genre helps me know where I belong, Spirit delights in the broadest expressions, Small perspectives lead to musical suppressions.
Children’s songs bring a lift, a lilt, From the ABC’s to fears, all without guilt, Nursery rhymes put to tune, Speak profound truth without solving the rune.
Camp songs stir up the fun of campfire, Tell silly stories or adventures to aspire, Encompass all folks from every clan, Guitar, mouth harp, around all ages span;
Protest songs bring blood to a boil, Worker’s rights, equal pay for backbreaking toil, Racism given theme songs to overcome oppression, When a chorus of voices rise out goes depression.
Love songs explore the loss, the wonder, the joy. They capture sensual feelings for each girl, each boy. Crooners bring expression to the most private spaces, Even shy folks find words; bring smiles to lover’s faces.
Harsh genres: metal, Metallica, hip hop, pop pain, Put social fractures in one’s ears, attending brings gain. Urban blight, abusive relationship, taboo’s broken, Scatterer delights when fears rule, truth’s unspoken.
Opera struts with power, with breadth of plot, Voices, agents of story, orchestral scores with drama shot, Hundreds of situations brought to the stage, From folk themes to mystery to the magical mage;
Country Western has a delightful, predictable twang, Directly based on everyday folks lives, truth sang. Playful, tragic, heartfelt, ironic, full of life, Grand Ol’ Opry brings joy, overcomes strife.
What songs catch your ear? Are there tunes that allay all fear? Spirit constantly provides the score, Our task, listen up, ask for more.
The Rev. Ronald Allen Melver, M.Div. 14.3.15 or π day 3.14.15
The River by Garth Brooks which isn't one of those classics they play on the radio now and then, but when they did, it always reached me with the message of getting out in the current of life, not standing on the banks and wishing to do this or that.
ReplyDelete"I'll never reach my destination, if I never try
So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry."
and
"Choose to chance the rapids
and dare to dance the tides."
Another is Willie Nelson's Blue Skies
On a particular bad day for me, gray skies overhead and in my thinking about problems I was facing, I started singing with Willie while listening in the car.
It became my song, not about losing a love and finding another, but about loving myself, believing in the positive and hopeful. And as I sang, clouds separated for glimpses of blue and a sun break.
"Blue skies looking at me, nothing but blue skies do I see."
It lifted my spirits and made me feel that in the midst of the gloom producing problems God opens up some blue sky,
Spirit often scores the day. thanks.
DeleteThe River by Garth Brooks which isn't one of those classics they play on the radio now and then, but when they did, it always reached me with the message of getting out in the current of life, not standing on the banks and wishing to do this or that.
ReplyDelete"I'll never reach my destination, if I never try
So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry."
and
"Choose to chance the rapids
and dare to dance the tides."
Another is Willie Nelson's Blue Skies
On a particular bad day for me, gray skies overhead and in my thinking about problems I was facing, I started singing with Willie while listening in the car.
It became my song, not about losing a love and finding another, but about loving myself, believing in the positive and hopeful. And as I sang, clouds separated for glimpses of blue and a sun break.
"Blue skies looking at me, nothing but blue skies do I see."
It lifted my spirits and made me feel that in the midst of the gloom producing problems God opens up some blue sky,
Not to many years ago I took piano lessons and learned to enjoy the piano. I can plunk fit the longest time and have fun doing it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the early songs I learned to play was 'what a wonderful world'. Some of the lyrics are timeless 'I see friends shaking hands saying 'how do you do? They're really saying I love you'. It's really a song of seeing beauty in the world. I think that there is so much good in the world that goes unseen. This song reminds me to look!
I never thought of it that way! And at the time, Louis Armstrong was seeing some very tough stuff with racial segregation and prejudice, but yet he sang this song about the good in the world. A prayer.
DeleteThanks for sharing that history, Ruth.
DeleteGiving voice to a tune benefits all.
DeleteDespite the title, the song "Prince of Darkness" by the Indigo girls is almost an insistent war-cry against the darkness of this world. A refusal to participate in the darkness 'any longer' - meaning, she has knowledge of that darkness, but has clawed her way out of the murk by her strength. Knowledge and naming of some of the evils in this world and then, in spite of this, she claims light and sun.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=indigo+girls+my+place+is+of+the+sun&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=322719AB3AB40221C536322719AB3AB40221C536
Spirit continually surprises when we listen.
DeleteI remember walking into a chapel during a silent retreat some years ago and the haunting violin
ReplyDeletemelody from Schindler's List was playing. I don't think I even knew where the piece came from, but I found myself close to tears. It still moves me when I hear it. I think it has become a piece that simply asks me to step into the quiet, gives permission to be something small in the midst of God's greatness, recognizes the sad and solemn while offering hope.
It is wonderful to take meaningful songs and bring them into a church setting. I think they give a depth that regular church songs sometimes can't. In fact one of the great protestant reformations was in the 1880's when churches allowed hymns with popular melodies to be used. ("What a Friend we Have In Jesus", et al.) It caused quite a conflict. Doug
DeleteWe each contain the ingredients needed for Spirit to use.
DeleteIt’s My Turn- Doug Millar
ReplyDeleteBack in the early 60's I think I was one of the first people to bring a guitar into a (Lutheran) church. Or so it seemed. I had been playing folk music for a few years and had learned several church songs. I remember being at Bible Camp and having someone lead the singing with a piano. It felt artificial to me and I suggested the guitar could be used and was refused with indignity. Only the organ or piano were allowed to accompany sacred music, I was told. Of course, that did it for me. I proceeded to play for church outings and services whenever I could. Sometimes people walked out in protest. Usually playing things even like "Jesus Loves Me:" were welcomed. Kum ba Yah was the favorite.
As a neophyte missionary and English teacher in Japan in '66 the head missionary asked me to play guitar during our small student church services. We usually met in a dusty prewar wooden meeting hall with absolutely no heat. He preached and I led songs. I was thumbing through the hymnbook and stumbled across “What a Friend we have in Jesus”. Normally it was sung like a dirge in our church with greatly stretched out phrasing. It was so overdone that I had never considered it. This time I noted that it had a regular chord structure that seemed to say it was written on a guitar. I played it and was excited that it played well, but at a much faster speed. It was a happy song! What a great discovery. I got into the happiness feeling of it and was soon flatpicking it like a bluegrass song. In no time, I had worked up a little finger picking solo on it. Paul Simon would have been proud. Basking in my newfound discovery, I came to services on Sunday ready to share my new arrangement. We had about 20 or so students who all sat around us and participated well. They knew the old version of the hymn. I introduced it with my story of the slow version and said we would do it a different way. At that point, I started playing the introduction fingerpicking style, and then moved them into the upbeat rendition of the actual hymn. They participated with enthusiasm and obviously enjoyed it. I noticed that my missionary mentor wasn’t into it as strongly as I hoped. He hated it. It seems that he was from Paso Robles where there were two types of music: church music and Country Western. In his mind, the two should not and had not crossed paths up to that point. To his credit, he allowed me to continue doing more upbeat hymns, even though his personal taste was elsewhere. The statistics for traditional ministry had been very poor and I suppose he was forced to try something new. For me it changed my approach to church. I knew the experience of the sacred could also be happy and personal. Instead of being lost in the past, we could get lost in the present.
It is now many years later and that reformation of a sort has progressed beyond me. I have to say that I do not like what I feel are big screen videos with a band playing hymns. It is too “us” and “them”. However, the graciousness I was shown needs to be passed on by me as well, thanks to a very startled and kind missionary long ago.
Sometimes the clash can bring out a break in the spiritual skin that allows growth. Thanks for leading out.
DeleteLent 2, Thursday
ReplyDeleteLife’s Songs
Immersed in a world of song,
Each genre helps me know where I belong,
Spirit delights in the broadest expressions,
Small perspectives lead to musical suppressions.
Children’s songs bring a lift, a lilt,
From the ABC’s to fears, all without guilt,
Nursery rhymes put to tune,
Speak profound truth without solving the rune.
Camp songs stir up the fun of campfire,
Tell silly stories or adventures to aspire,
Encompass all folks from every clan,
Guitar, mouth harp, around all ages span;
Protest songs bring blood to a boil,
Worker’s rights, equal pay for backbreaking toil,
Racism given theme songs to overcome oppression,
When a chorus of voices rise out goes depression.
Love songs explore the loss, the wonder, the joy.
They capture sensual feelings for each girl, each boy.
Crooners bring expression to the most private spaces,
Even shy folks find words; bring smiles to lover’s faces.
Harsh genres: metal, Metallica, hip hop, pop pain,
Put social fractures in one’s ears, attending brings gain.
Urban blight, abusive relationship, taboo’s broken,
Scatterer delights when fears rule, truth’s unspoken.
Opera struts with power, with breadth of plot,
Voices, agents of story, orchestral scores with drama shot,
Hundreds of situations brought to the stage,
From folk themes to mystery to the magical mage;
Country Western has a delightful, predictable twang,
Directly based on everyday folks lives, truth sang.
Playful, tragic, heartfelt, ironic, full of life,
Grand Ol’ Opry brings joy, overcomes strife.
What songs catch your ear?
Are there tunes that allay all fear?
Spirit constantly provides the score,
Our task, listen up, ask for more.
The Rev. Ronald Allen Melver, M.Div.
14.3.15 or π day 3.14.15