Do you remember Black Sabbath? I think my brother must have been very much into Black Sabbath because I can remember being in junior high when I heard Sabbath Bloody Sabbath for the first time and a song entitled Fluff. I know, Christian blog, no room for Black Sabbath. I agree only Fluff is a delightful instrumental piece that always created pictures in my mind the way any good symphony piece does. It's not the symphony of course, but it is a pretty piece of music. I find pretty music, music that paints pictures of big green grassy fields with trees gently moving in the breeze and a gorgeous sky with big white fluffy cotton candy clouds floating past restful and restoring music, no matter who wrote it, or performed it.
I have been attending a Taize worship service on Sunday evenings when I can. Sometimes there is a piano player who is particularly good at creating delightful picture music. The sanctuary is very conducive to worship anyway. The windows are delightful stain glass and the architecture is graceful and glorious. The woodwork is absolutely gorgeous and my brother, the finish carpenter, would find it satisfying. Each week as I sit in the silence in the presence of God I am awed at the workmanship that has gone to make that worship space not just a sanctuary but a gateway to the heavenly realms. What a work of excellence that space is in so many ways. It is a joy to worship there.
The music enables the process. In addition to a piano player who gets lost in the music, we sing short repetitious responses, some in English, some in Latin. The voices raised in song add texture and color to the picture and there are many moments when the picture is so breathtaking I have to stop contributing and just take in the beauty and wonder. Even the liturgy and responsive readings lend themselves to creating an image of God that is tangible, so close and yet so enormous that I am torn between awe and intimacy. This is exactly what I like to think pure worship would be. Every element is part of the total focus on God, and being in his presence.
By the time we gather to celebrate the Lord's Supper I am feeling so much in tuned with my Saviour it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Tonight I served a young man standing at my right. He was maybe 10 or 12 and I thought it was the high point of my night. I have always enjoyed communion, I always felt it was like a commissioning service, wipe the slate clean and start over. I know it is a throw back to my youth when we had communion every week and I always loved that feeling of being clean again. I think that sweet young man reminded me of those days and the need we all have to be clean again.
Those mental images we are given from time to time are good. They bring us places we cannot go in any other way and isn't it amazing that God uses them to bring us in. I like being in, I recommend it highly. And you thought I had lost my mind on the Black Sabbath memory. Perhaps Fluff isn't fluff at all, but a glimpse into the light in every soul.
I have been attending a Taize worship service on Sunday evenings when I can. Sometimes there is a piano player who is particularly good at creating delightful picture music. The sanctuary is very conducive to worship anyway. The windows are delightful stain glass and the architecture is graceful and glorious. The woodwork is absolutely gorgeous and my brother, the finish carpenter, would find it satisfying. Each week as I sit in the silence in the presence of God I am awed at the workmanship that has gone to make that worship space not just a sanctuary but a gateway to the heavenly realms. What a work of excellence that space is in so many ways. It is a joy to worship there.
The music enables the process. In addition to a piano player who gets lost in the music, we sing short repetitious responses, some in English, some in Latin. The voices raised in song add texture and color to the picture and there are many moments when the picture is so breathtaking I have to stop contributing and just take in the beauty and wonder. Even the liturgy and responsive readings lend themselves to creating an image of God that is tangible, so close and yet so enormous that I am torn between awe and intimacy. This is exactly what I like to think pure worship would be. Every element is part of the total focus on God, and being in his presence.
By the time we gather to celebrate the Lord's Supper I am feeling so much in tuned with my Saviour it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Tonight I served a young man standing at my right. He was maybe 10 or 12 and I thought it was the high point of my night. I have always enjoyed communion, I always felt it was like a commissioning service, wipe the slate clean and start over. I know it is a throw back to my youth when we had communion every week and I always loved that feeling of being clean again. I think that sweet young man reminded me of those days and the need we all have to be clean again.
Those mental images we are given from time to time are good. They bring us places we cannot go in any other way and isn't it amazing that God uses them to bring us in. I like being in, I recommend it highly. And you thought I had lost my mind on the Black Sabbath memory. Perhaps Fluff isn't fluff at all, but a glimpse into the light in every soul.
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