Skip to main content

When I stare into the heavens above...

So here is part 3 of my series of posts based on last Sunday's Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, inspired by Genesis 1. The main part of this blog, a dramatised paraphrase of Psalm 8, I have posted a number of times before in different forms... and I was going to skip it, until on Tuesday a colleague used Psalm 8 and the Casting Crowns below as part of the devotions at a training day I was at. On Sunday we also used a version of the same song, but sung by the wonderful Melanie Johnston. Great minds think alike... or something like that...

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.
Genesis 1: 6-8
Dramatised Reading: Psalm 8
BOTH:          O LORD , our God, your name is honoured in all that you have made!
Voice 1:         Beyond the boundless reaches of space
Voice 2:         Higher than the heavens where the angels offer you their symphony of worship;
Voice 1:         While here on earth even nursing infants gurgle in adoration
Voice 2:         Toddlers shout songs of praise
Voice 1:         Silencing the cynical sneering of the enemy
Voice 2:         Drowning out the godless chatter of the age.
Voice 1:         When I stare into the heavens above,
                        I see your fingerprints all over the sky…
Voice 2:         I see jewellery of the finest of workmanship
                        with the moon mounted in an almost infinite setting of stars…
Voice 1:         And I feel so small…
Voice 2:         I sense the expanse between heaven and earth,
Voice 1:         Creator and creature…
Voice 2:         And I wonder why you bother with me?
Voice 1:         Why you would look once, never mind twice, in my direction?
Voice 2:         Yet I am always on your mind
Voice 1:         You care for me night and day…
Voice 2:         You have made me little less than a god…
Voice 1:         The crown of all creation,
Voice 2:         A jewel that brings joy to your heart.
Voice 1:         You charged me with looking after your handiwork
Voice 2:         You laid everything at my feet:
Voice 1:         All creatures great and small;
Voice 2:         domesticated and wild
Voice 1:         The flocking birds, and shoaling fish
Voice 2:         and the whales whose songs of praise circle the seven seas.
BOTH:          O LORD , our God, your name is honoured in all that you have made! 






ps. for all fact checkers, forgive the wrong attribution at the end of this video, the Psalm cited is It's actually Psalm 143:5, not 145: 4
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that
2 comments
Read more

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65
3 comments
Read more

Living under the Empire... (2) Where is Babylon?

We were driving back from school last week, talking about books that we had been reading and my younger son, Ciaran, asked me "Where is Babylon?" I have to confess that my history is better than my geography, and I said that it no longer exists as an inhabited city, but its ruins were to the north west of the current capital of Iraq, Baghdad. When I checked however, I discovered that it is actually about 50 miles south of Baghdad and the modern town is the administrative centre of the province of Babil... But just as the modern city is but a shadow of the historic capital of 2 ancient empires, first under Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE and then the "Neo-Babylonian" empire (under Nebuchadnezzar etc) in the 6th century BCE, so the earthly Babylonian empire/s was/were fleeting in comparison to the enduring metaphorical idea of Babylon. The original Empire under Hammurabi was probably the ultimate origin of some of the early Biblical stories, including the &quo
Post a Comment
Read more