Bells and Blessings
Good Morning Friends,
We had a memorable trip out west playing handbells that somehow prompted in me a sense of grateful wonder for the journey we are on together. Initially I thought that we had come a long way from Florida to Washington, but one of the players joining us was a minister that came from Beirut, Lebanon. Despite her relative young age she had come a long way spiritually as well as geographically. It was she who gave the sermon message at a gathering of worshippers at a service last Sunday and it was full of understanding that our lives as Christian bell ringers, whether we know it or not, retells the glory of God’s handiwork in us, not unlike the way nature proclaims God out of a whispering silence of a retreat center and the reality of a face of nature changed by the likes of Mount St. Helens. The reality is that not all handbell ringers are church goers but many are spiritual having been humbled by the skill needed to be musical with a bell…having received grace to go on after a mistake… to be on time with the next note at the next measure. What struck me about the service was how she connected the experience of her family life in a war zone, to scripture about the Holy City of Jerusalem and the faith experience of our lives together as a team of bell musicians in a place where nature can be at war with its surrounding. She thoughtfully connected the reality that we were all playing in a place where the mountains do rock the earth. The hymn we played at worship, A Mighty Fortress is Our God was one we would play later that day in concert. It had little to do with Luther who wrote it for she was not a protesting Protestant but a reformed one submitting to God for protection. I appreciated the opportunity that Moorings Ringers played during worship as did the person we scholarshipped to attend from the region to the conference.
I pray it was pleasing to God that Lutherans, Catholics and Presbyterians, Methodist and Baptists paused near a town named Selah, in a place called Yakima, seeking security in what can be an unsafe world though worship. Beyond the curve of the musical instrument through space, beyond our time in worship and meditation and devotion, beyond the strike point that makes the note is the music connecting God with our Bells and Blessings.
Scripture: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. (Selah) There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Selah) Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Selah)
Psalm 46 (RSV)
Message: As we flew into Portland, Oregon we got an aerial picture postcard view of Mount Hood. We knew intellectually that this place was where continental plates converged to make mountains and volcanoes that periodically awake violently from their sleep. We knew it to be a place of canyons gorged by rivers of melting ice… a place of cascading streams tumbling off ledges….a place to broaden us beyond the distant curve of the earth and the contours of the Milky Way that dusts the night sky. There was something so much more dangerous in those mountains than the tropical paradise in which we live in Florida. The place had a way of bringing a pause to our routines at a retreat center on the Columbia River where we would practice and learn. Yet we were anything but still. We moved, but always more than to the music. A quite moment of reflection in the orchards of cherries and apples and grapes, a hike into a canyon dividing two geological formations helped us to remember. On the way we walked in the Grove of the Patriarchs, surrounded by trees over a thousand years old and along roaring streams that turned into waterfalls. Joining with my brother David and his wife we travelled up to the Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood where Amy and I walked next to the snow where my father used to ski. I ate salmon at the Historic Columbia Gorge Hotel and Elk burgers and mountain berry cobbler at a roadside Restaurant on a river near Mount Saint Helens. Amy and I found Geocaches along the Yakima River with the help of one of our choir members that has found more than a thousand of them. We performed music for the stars at an elder care facility where family members of our choir had recently moved. And we practiced and practiced and the echo of the millions of bell notes ringing in my ears is just subsiding. Interestingly as we flew out of Portland for home, the sky was clear allowing us to see the ring of fire. Returning home we saw the wings stretch to meet the setting sun thinking that we had just experienced a doctrine more of God than words can express. Now it is nice to stop moving if only to discover a new Selah.
Pray we realize that security in not to be found in the world but in God. Pray we realize that our security comes from our faith, not from our circumstances. Pray we realize that our security is beyond time and place. Pray we realize that through prayer, we enter God’s refuge. Pray we persevere in prayer as we reengage the routines of our life. Pray we look beyond the mountain’s majesty to the city of God. Pray that truth is planted deep in our lives producing fruit. Pray we look to the creator not the creation, to love of the Giver and not just the gifts.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 