In "Your Hands"

I don't know much of JJ Heller's stuff; my dad gave me a copy of her song "Your Hands" about a year ago, and I do know that I love it.  

When I was a Clinical Pastoral Education student and chaplain at BJSP Hospital last summer, I shared this song with the rest of my CPE group.  I explained to them, with some emotion, that these lyrics conveyed an important part of my idea of who God is and what God does for humanity.  My God is a pastoral God, and I know that I can be safe in God's metaphorical hands when I am struck with fear or sorrow or worry.

When my aunt died a month later, my dad and I added this song to the playlist for her memorial service.  We felt it went a long way towards expressing some of the pain and heartbreak the family was suffering.  I don't know if the words gave solace to anyone else that day, but it was good for my soul.

And when I am baptized into the Community of Christ church this fall, I hope to have this song sung during the service.  The overall theme for the service is the Parable of the Prodigal, and I think this ties in nicely.  This sense of security in the loving presence of God is the foundation of my faith.

"Your Hands", JJ Heller

I have unanswered prayers

I have trouble I wish wasn't there

And I have asked a thousand ways

That you would take my pain away

You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand

How to walk this weary land

Make straight the paths that crooked lie

Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

When you walked upon the earth

You healed the broken, lost and hurt

I know you hate to see me cry

One day you will set all things right

Yeah, one day you will set all things right

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

Your hands that shaped the world

Are holding me

They hold me still

Your hands that shaped the world

Are holding me

They hold me still

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave you

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave

I never leave your hands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-F6DGGF4Qs

The Titular Post

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a Soul, and a Moment.  And the three are always there."

Even as I focus on taking my seat at the table of God's community and contributing to the good work being done, part of me is still wandering around and checking in the corners and behind the sofa for new glimpses of God.

This blog is a chance to share with others all my surprising, spontaneous, overwhelming, whispered encounters with God.  I take these God moments where I can find them - and, as Heschel said, they're everywhere.

So I'll be baring my soul in reflections on songs, poems, articles, world religions, theological ideas, superstitions, the occult, overheard conversations, the nature of friendship, humanist values, travel fantasies, fandoms, comic books, epic movies, Dungeons and Dragons...

Essentially, here you will find anything and everything through which I have experienced even one quiet, resonant, awestruck moment of sacred significance in the presence of God.

Shalom.