Prayer/Meditation for Music Sunday
As many of you know, I serve as one of the Worship Associates at First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington. My fall rotation has just ended, so I'm tidying up and putting away resources and reference materials I will need again in March. I've been pleased with the prayers I've been writing recently and gotten good comments on them. I thought I would go ahead and post them, so that I have an easy way of pointing people to them, and by way of sharing one of the things I've been up to lately.
This is the one from last week, when the bulk of the service was Verdi's Requiem.
Merriam-Webster defines music as “the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity.” Is that all? It is all that-a science and an art, mathematical, temporal, measurable in many different ways that can fascinate us. But the mystery of music lies in how it moves us; the ways that it connects us, engages us, inspires us, opening doors within our selves. As we join in prayer and meditation, we move through those doors, seeking that deeper connection with our selves, with each other, with the world around us and the universe beyond us.
Music of the Spheres, we marvel at the wonders of creation, aligned within your patterns: the celestial paths of stars and planets, the rhythm of raindrops on the roof, the unfolding order at every level of magnification. Call to us in a voice of wonder, raise us from our daily orbits, vibrate through our bodies that we may know our part in your symphony.
Choir of Angels, the voice of forgotten lullabies and rousing anthems, fill our lives with joy. Fold within your song those who are lost and those who are searching, those who are newly arrived and those who will soon depart from us, those who are wounded and those who are slowly healing. Wake us from contentment, banish our fear, send us on journeys of discovery.
Still, Small Voice, we listen for you. In the midst of the tumult of busy schedules and unexpected detours, we pause and you are there. Calm the nagging voices of worry and doubt, tap the wells of love within us, and guide us on paths of peace. Between the verses of our lives, in the moment between one breath and the next, in the silence…let us hear your call.
This is the one from last week, when the bulk of the service was Verdi's Requiem.
Merriam-Webster defines music as “the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity.” Is that all? It is all that-a science and an art, mathematical, temporal, measurable in many different ways that can fascinate us. But the mystery of music lies in how it moves us; the ways that it connects us, engages us, inspires us, opening doors within our selves. As we join in prayer and meditation, we move through those doors, seeking that deeper connection with our selves, with each other, with the world around us and the universe beyond us.
Music of the Spheres, we marvel at the wonders of creation, aligned within your patterns: the celestial paths of stars and planets, the rhythm of raindrops on the roof, the unfolding order at every level of magnification. Call to us in a voice of wonder, raise us from our daily orbits, vibrate through our bodies that we may know our part in your symphony.
Choir of Angels, the voice of forgotten lullabies and rousing anthems, fill our lives with joy. Fold within your song those who are lost and those who are searching, those who are newly arrived and those who will soon depart from us, those who are wounded and those who are slowly healing. Wake us from contentment, banish our fear, send us on journeys of discovery.
Still, Small Voice, we listen for you. In the midst of the tumult of busy schedules and unexpected detours, we pause and you are there. Calm the nagging voices of worry and doubt, tap the wells of love within us, and guide us on paths of peace. Between the verses of our lives, in the moment between one breath and the next, in the silence…let us hear your call.