4-8-22 - Do Stones Sing?

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

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

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 do stones really shout out the praises of the One who made them? One day I asked one. Sitting on a rock in the sun during a Spa for the Spirit morning retreat, it told me a lot:

I sing.
I sing of God’s love.
Even if I cold and solid and unmoving – I sing.
I sing a song rooted in ancient times
I have been singing, and the 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
I sing of earth, of lichen and moss
and living things that grow on me
I sing with birds, whose song blends with mine
I sing of grass and trees with whom I share this spot
of sunlight that warms me
moonlight that bathes me
rain that refreshes
The rain and the wind
bring new verses into the song I sing,
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,
God’s love is a rock you can put all your weight upon.

I sing with joy.
I’m singing with all my might,
so that you might hear me and join my song.
Sing out!

Prayer Poem on a Rock, Kate Heichler, September 2013

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