Image Credit: Desvre

Our community group this year is listening to various podcasts and focusing on the meditation and reflection sparked by those podcasts.  If you’d like to follow along with us, you can check out my notes here on the blog each week.

March 21

This is our week to pause from our podcasts and spend some time in other forms of meditation and reflection.  Last night we listened to one of the daily meditations that the Liturgists are putting out during Lent.  It essentially took us through Lectio Devina for Psalm 121:5-8.  If you are unfamiliar with Lectio Devina, I explain it in depth about half way down in this post.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from evil:
he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 121: 5-8

Reflection

When we finished the guided meditation, I gave everyone in the group paper and markers.  I asked them to consider the passage once more and to think about the thing or circumstance in their lives right now that needs God’s careful keeping.  Holding this thing in mind, and in keeping with the Walter Brueggemann podcast a few weeks ago, I then asked everyone to add one additional metaphor to the list.  And to represent it somehow on their piece of paper.

Here are some of things that were shared:

• God is a warm & heavy blanket
• Sleeping, protected, in a cave in the hollow of a mountain side.
• God is not a careful keeper at the moment
• God is a beaming mother
• God is lifeblood
• God is dappled light coming through the branches of a cherry blossom tree

Gravity of Love

We closed with this song by The Brilliance called The Gravity of Love, clearly rooted in the same Psalm.  Lyrics are below.

I lift my eyes up to the hills
This my morning song
Where my strength comes from

I lift my eyes up to the hills
This my evening song
Where my help comes from

This is the gravity of love
Just as the moon follows the sun
You’re all around me
You’re holding everything

This is the hope of every land
Just as the universe expands
You’re love is reaching
You’re holding everything

We lift our eyes up to the hills
When will our help come
Lord we cry how long

We lift our eyes up to the hills
Even as we run
Hope is chasing us

This is the gravity of love
Just as the moon follows the sun
You’re all around me
You’re holding everything

This is the hope of every land
Just as the universe expands
You’re love is reaching
You’re holding everything

I see infinite stars
One for every human heart

And with all of these suns
I know I am not alone

This is the gravity of love
Just as the moon follows the sun
You’re all around me
You’re holding everything

This is the hope of every land
Just as the universe expands
You’re love is reaching
You’re holding everything