Good morning…
“The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out,” on the first Monday of this month she read to me over the phone. “It has long ago been learned by heart so that now it repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit. It is a good song, measured to a rhythm to which I am bound by ties and habit and timidity of mind.”
“The words belong to old experiences which once sprang fresh as water from a mountain crevice fed by melting snows,” her voice continued, slow and calming. “But my life has passed beyond to other levels where the old song is meaningless. I demand of the old song that it meet the need of present urgencies. I also know that the work of the old song, perfect in its place, is not for the new demand!”
“I will sing a new song,” she read the book excerpt aloud. “As difficult as it is, I must learn the new song that is capable of meeting the new need. I must fashion new words born of all the new growth of my life, my mind and my spirit. I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before, that all that is within me may lift my voice unto God.”
“How I love the old familiarity of the wearied melody – how I shrink from harsh discords of the new untried melodies,” she concluded the soulful reading. “Teach me, My Father, that I might learn with abandonment and enthusiasm of Jesus, the fresh new accent, the untried melody, to meet the needs of the untried morrow. Thus, I may rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding.”
Her voice ended in a prayer: “I will sing, this day, a new song unto Thee, O God.”
At my request, she emailed me the book excerpt from Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart. By hand, I wrote the sacred words into my blank journal, and now with my fingers I type into our post these new words born of all the new growth in our shared lives, our open minds, our loving spirits. With repeated reflection, I savor with God the fresh unfolding of an untried melody that is capable of meeting the need of our present urgencies.
Jesus said: “And who would pour new wine into an old wineskin? Eventually the wine will ferment and make the wineskin burst, losing everything—the wine will be spilled and the wineskin ruined. Instead, new wine is always poured into new wineskins” (Mark 2:22, TPT).
Leaving the familiarity of our old and wearied song, might our Father help us not to shrink from the harsh discords of today’s fresh unfolding? Together we are learning new melodies that have never been ours before, so all that is within us may lift our varied voices to the One who is making all things new.
…Sue…
