4-12-19 - When Stones Sing

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

One person’s praise is another’s blasphemy. When Pharisees heard Jesus’ disciples calling him the “King that comes in the name of the Lord,” they told him to shut them up.

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

When praise is happening, we need to let it rise; we can't quell it. Praise is part of the natural order in God’s world. Sometimes it’s obvious in a riotous sunset or an explosion of spring flowers, the grandeur of waterfalls, symphony of birdsong. But can stones really shout the praises of the One who made them? One day I asked one, sitting on a rock in the sun during a retreat. It told me a lot:

I sing.
I sing of God’s love.
Even cold and solid and unmoving – I sing.
I sing a song rooted in ancient times
I have been singing, and my song has changed and grown –
  oh, not so you could notice unless
  you were watching for the past 20,000 years or so –

But I sing.
Of love unmoving, unmovable
Of earth, of lichen and moss
  and living things that grow on me, adding to the song
I sing with birds, whose song blends with mine
I sing of grass and trees with whom I share space
  of sunlight that warms
  and moonlight that bathes
  and rain that refreshes.
The rain and the wind
  bring new verses, chord changes, shifts in melody –
as wind and rain in your life
  make your song deeper, richer.

I sing to remind you of enough,
  that God has thought of everything,
that you can put all your weight on God’s love
  as you can on me.

I sing with joy.
I sing with all my might,
  that you might hear me and join in.
Sing out! 

Prayer Poem on a Rock, Kate Heichler, September 2013 (revised)

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