Music for Contemplation: Immanuel by The Liturgists
Carry me to the place unknown
where the river runs so deep
where the water cold washes over me
and I all but drown in Your mercy.
Carry me from this hell called home
where the walls like shepherds sleep
congregations fall from the Gospel's heart
to the desert of prosperity.
Immanuel
God with us
Where are you now?
Immanuel
God with us
Be here somehow.
Lift me up to the place unknown
in the shadow of Your wings
where I'm safe from harm
hidden in Your arms
never far from the sound of your breathing.
Oh lift me up from this hell called home
where the blood of children speaks
of the wars we've made
of the lives we trade
for this desert of prosperity
for this desert of prosperity.
Immanuel
God with us
Where are you now?
Immanuel
Our God with us,
be here somehow.
Immanuel
God with us,
where are you now?
Immanuel
God with us
Be here somehow.
God with us,
be here somehow.
-Immanuel by The Liturgists
Theme and above image comes from Sanctified Art sanctifiedart.org
Remembering the Gathering
By Karin Craven
“Joy to the World, the LORD is come! Let Earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing” might best express the unconscious subtext to this Advent gathering. These lyrics came to mind in the aftermath of our time together on Sunday afternoon. Perhaps it might have been because our sending song was “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Maybe it was because we began with “showing, not telling” as a way to name our understanding of “savior.” Drawing with oil pastels on black paper was a way to show our present understanding of what we are “saved from” and what we are “saved for.”
This active stance of inquiry focused on our bodily selves in relation to the impact of Jesus’ birth more than 2000 years later. In a more inchoate form of drawing, we were asking about and responding to the nature of present joy in remembering that God has come down to earth in the form of a vulnerable baby boy. In answer to that perennial question of “who is the savior God to me,” is the ongoing need to create space enough in our interior selves such that our inner witness can sense and respond to the mysterious presence of Love Divine in our hearts. Drawing connects us with our non-rational selves, such that we might be surprised by bodily apprehension of wisdom beyond words.
Linking one side of the brain with the other side for a more complete, if not provisional self-knowledge, we were asked to describe our drawn image of the Messiah in a sentence or two. Words matter. So does sensate observation when it comes to experiencing and witnessing. Not just in drawing or singing the faith, but also in the fabric of our very lives. Advent as a season of preparation has to do with enlarging our capacities for self-reflection for the sake of reaching out and being living witnesses that testify to the presence of Love Divine for all peoples.
Focused on the birth narrative from Luke (2:8-20), we connected with this story at differing levels of conscious awareness as we wondered about the experience of shepherds as primary witnesses in a particular landscape. “What places do you expect to encounter God, and where do you not?” Expectations form our ability to see and value certain landscapes, as does memory in evoking other places that inform our present view of lands in which we are emplaced this season. In the story, the shepherds had an unexpected experience of God. This year, how might we prepare ourselves to receive more fully the living God? “What inner work or practice helps you?” was our concluding question. These questions are grounded in the yearning for wholeness within ourselves and amidst the diversity of communities in the economy of God’s spacious worldwide household.
Questions to Ponder
What places do you expect to encounter God, and where do you not?
What inner work/practice helps prepare you to encounter God?
What does authentically sharing your witness look like for you?
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