It was my turn to set the Friday Five for RevGals this week, when it came to it I found that I was almost devoid of inspiration, and at the root of that is a longing for something different, something new, and yet something eternal, maybe it has something to do with Lent, maybe it is something deeper than that...
This brief passage from Tom Stuckey's book "On The Edge of Pentecost" resonates deeply with me at this time:
"The Church hovers at a kiaros moment. God is giving us a brief window of opportunity....in which to turn ourselves around, or to be more accurate, to repent and believe. To repent is another way of saying we must face reality and change decisively. To believe is another way of saying that we must trust God and risk all...... we must act quickly."
That stirring to act must begin with an self emptying, and dare I say a corporate emptying of selfishness on the part of the Church... again and again I hear some folk demanding what they want, but a new voice is winning out, a voice asking what God wants and how we should respond.
With all of that background I set this Friday Five:
I am coming up with nothing, so I am wondering; what do you do when you feel empty of all creativity and unable to make/do anything? This is a completely open question, the only rule is name 5 things that fill/ inspire you:
1. Connecting with that call to something new I offer the New Song video available on You Tube from Audrey Assad, here are the lyrics:
Far-off hymns and funeral marches sound the same again.
My ears are worn and weary strangers in a strange land
and I need a new song. I need a new song.
All I am is breath and vapor and shadow.
All I have is what I need and this I know.
I need a new song.
I need a new song.
Waiting in the night for you. Burning in the sky for you.
There's an aching in my body, within my lungs.
This web of bones around my heart is coming undone.
I need a new song. I need a new song.
I'm waiting in the night for you
burning the sky for you. Waiting in the night for you
I'm burning in the sky for you.
Words are failing... my melodies falter;
my voice is breaking; my heart is burning...
Because blessing and honour, and glory, and power and praise and
worship. They belong to you.
I need a new song.
I need a new song.
I need a new song...
2. Another way that I draw inspiration is from the Visual Arts, this picture by Tim inspires me today:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
