Faith is deeply personal. While we gather in fellowship and community, in shared belief and the desire to be agents of positive change in the world, we have our unique stories and struggles, our joys and sorrows. It is one of life’s quiet mysteries that we may never be able to fully convey to another our experience of God and grace, nor the breadth and depth of gratitude that fills our hearts and drives our actions. Perhaps God comes to each of us in ways only we can see, using words (or a song) only we alone can hear.

The Song

by Naomi Shihab Nye

From somewhere

a calm musical note arrives.

You balance it on your tongue,

a single ripe grape,

till your whole body glistens.

In the space between breaths

you apply it to any wound

and the wound heals.

Soon the nights will lengthen,

you will lean into the year

humming like a saw.

You will fill the lamps with kerosene,

knowing somewhere a line breaks,

a city goes black,

people dig for candles in the bottom drawer.

You will be ready. You will use the song like a match.

It will fill your rooms

opening rooms of its own

so you sing, I did not know

my house was this large.

Audrey Wood Corcoran

Appointed readings for today: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20, Psalm 103, Luke 15:11-32