LHW - The Already and Still Yet to Be

The Already and Still Yet To Be – Text by A Williams ©2013

Tune: Kolding

Life's verse dwells in already and still yet to be

When we think we've fond answers we lose clarity

Our choices move us on innumerable paths

Where we hope to one day see all clearly at last

We wonder, we wander, dialogue and discern

Longing for connections and from others to learn

Where God is moving in and as part of our lives

Seeking the divine clearness so God's way will thrive

We're pursued by the Spirit in all that exists

All creation is seeking though doubt it persists

Finding questions and answers through actions of love

For the Kingdom's today as forever above

Lenten Hymn: In a Time Without Alleluias

In a Time Without Alleluias by A Williams © 2013

Tune: Wingate

In a time without Alleluias

When the world seems without delight

Souls are filled with solemn silence

For in darkness joy takes flight

In a time without Alleluias

Seeming so far away from peace

Creation seems still and stifled

Struggles on without release

In a time without Alleluias

Love seems broken and nearly gone

All our powers simply failing

to help us continue on

In a time without Alleluias

Hope for hopelessness is found

Naught on earth can keep love silent

Or God's mercy underground

The time returns for Alleluias

When we face all the dark inside

For we cannot do God's justice

Til to self we've truly died

We'll sing full the Alleluias

When at last we can clearly see

The world just as God intended

Love adorned in majesty.

Treasure Hunting for God

Asked for a devotional on how I deepen my relationship with God, I came up with the following.  Sadly I couldn't fit a Cowboy Mouth or Adele song in the 1hr I had to write it:

Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep Little Lion Man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head – Mumford and Sons

My relationship with God deepens through any number of processes, events, practices, and encounters.  Yet often the most meaningful, life changing moments come seemingly randomly while focused on some organized process aimed to an end, much like following a map to the X where the treasure will be found.  Yet, rarely do these “treasure” seeking missions turn out as simple as the map makes them out to be. Along the way things happen which cause me to look more deeply at myself, to see what my personal motivations are, to hear the music that is playing as I walk along side others, to see the world more deeply through better understanding myself and those I’m traveling with. 

Ten thousand words swarm around my head
Ten million more in books written beneath my bed
I wrote or read them all when searchin’ in the swarms
Still can’t find out how to hold my hands – Avett Brothers

Sometimes what we find even at the end of these adventures is the thing that changes us.  Sometimes we think something is the answer, but when we look at it deeper it actually changes us and changes the questions. Our relationship with God is deepened by realizing that the everyday has great amounts of spirit moving throughout it and it leaves us caught in a tension between realizing what it is that we could have done differently and working to reorient ourselves on the path we’re now on as the people we’ve become.  This constant state of flux and searching makes up life itself and pulls at us so we can’t just be comfortable as who we see ourselves to be.  When we are willing to not just focus on an end, but to see the means of life as ends unto themselves, we find ourselves continually moving, changing, growing, and ever more faithfully searching for who we were made to be. 

In these bodies we will live,
in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love,
you invest your life – Mumford and Sons

Awake My Soul.