Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
   O God of my salvation,
   and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

Psalm 51:13–14

Module Five: sing

Study:

In preparation for this week's liturgy, please read Part 6 of How to Be Here by Rob Bell. Please read the Wisdom for the Way essay titled, “sing” found here.

After you have completed the above, choose one or more of the the following:

• add

Questions:

• add

The Liturgy

sing

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
   O God of my salvation,
   and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

Psalm 51:13–14

Opening Prayer

Creator, in the beginning, you created a garden but found it to be a lonely place. So you tried again. Thank you for showing us that creation is ongoing. Divine Spirit, you flow through the world as grace, impelling us to action. Keep our heart attuned to love so that our action is a Divine expression. Incarnated God, when you asked Peter to feed your sheep three times, you gave him freedom of forgiveness. Help us to choose loving creation.
Amen.

Confession

How have we, followers of the way of the Christ who bled, decided that the perfection of the Creator could be imitated in being in perfect control? We have gagued our success by the popularity of our doctrines and services in the name of a God whom the populace put to death. Forgive our unwillingness to be foolishly clumsy in the name of love. Use our broken efforts to match the abundance of the love of nature.

Amen.

Passing of the Peace

Exchange this acknowledgment of confession.

From the freedom of confession, I greet the Christ in you.
From the freedom of confession, I greet the Christ in you.

The Inquiry

These questions will be used each week to guide a time of sharing. If you are unable to share, please raise two clasped hands and the other participants will offer you a blessing.

What have you made this week?

What suffering have you encountered this week?

What longs for salvation?

After each person shares, the group will offer a blessing to each person:

[Person’s name], in the name of Jesus Christ know you are beloved of God 

The Reflection

Read aloud:

The Practice

create centers on creative spiritual practices. Each week, participants will be offered a creative practice in the Spirited Words Substack Newsletter.

For Thought

It is evident therefore that colour harmony must rest only on a corresponding vibration in the human soul; and this is one of the guiding principles of the inner need.

Wassily Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 26

Read Aloud:

Help us, as human souls, to pay attention to the “corresponding vibration[s]” of the universe. As we do, compel us to see the unity of all things.

Amen.

The Response

These questions can be used to help the group engage with the reflection.

Where is your place of solitude?

or

What would you like to create this week?

After each person shares, the group will offer a blessing to each person:

Christ, give us the courage to hear and be heard.

Responsive Reading

Amid the depth
Of those enormities, even thinking minds
Forgot, at seasons, whence they had their being;

The Prelude, Wordsworth, 187

In Simone Weil’s essay on the sacraments, she begins with the easily skimmable sentence, “Human nature is so arranged that a desire of the soul has no reality in the soul until it has passed through the flesh...” My eyes don’t even want to stick to those words long enough to allow them to register in my mind. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, yes, I want to get to the heart of her thoughts on this religious life we are trying so hard to join in. Just get to the good stuff.

But this is a thought of ultimate importance. Before we argue about the bread and the wine or remonstrate about the ideal quantity of baptismal water, we must acknowledge that we live in bodies. Whether you think of your body and soul being fundamentally separate or not, we, practically, deal with life from two angles: the physical and the mental or spiritual. Before delving into the theological, Weil states the conditions of participation. That which is spiritual must be incarnated. For us to brush the ineffable, we must do so from the pile of carbon and stubbornness we call the natural world. In other words, we have to try. We have to pick up the pencil and sketch out the desire of the soul.

Far too often, we don’t start because we can’t get our minds around the entire thing. We don’t take the first step because we can’t figure out the seventeenth step.

Rob Bell, How to Be Here, 92

Long ago, in my back yard, my oldest son was trying to blow the seeds off of a dandelion. The dandelion is my favorite flower, not because of the flower, which isn’t that astounding, but because of the globes of seeds. I have always delighted in blowing dandelion seeds and watching them fly beyond me, and I hope I never outgrow it. I just love a thing that has the courage to fly. On this particular early spring afternoon, I was trying to show my son how to blow the seeds off in one pass. This requires a couple of things, but the most important is knowing what the globes look like when they are ready to be blown. Pick one that isn’t ready, and it won’t go. I pointed and demonstrated and giggled as the seeds danced around our heads. I picked out a pretty good globe, just right for blowing, and handed it to him. He took a big breath, opened his mouth super wide, and stuffed the whole thing in. Needless to say, this was a shockingly unsuccessful effort at seed dispersal, none of them made it farther than a four year old can spit, but the blue sky was spangled with the sounds of our laughter.

Spiritual practice is not an invitation to immediate perfection. Creativity as a spiritual practice isn’t aimed at critical acclaim. Practice isn’t even a mandate to efficiency or getting stuff done. It is a jocular invitation to love, to play, and to

sing

Responsive Reading

Read Aloud:

A. Fly upward.

B. For the soul ascends to love.

A. Fly outward. 

B. Toward the one who sits alone.

A. Fly inward.

B: And love the one you find there.

Closing Prayer

O, God, we ask that you infuse our souls with the assurance that you are love. We are restless and voracious. Allow us to rest in the abundance of just enough. Clear our souls and minds so that we may participate in the Creation that you speak into being from the first moment to this moment.

Amen.

Blessing

Have courage. You are creating the world. 

Love well. We are all connected. 

Be assured. We are creating the world together.