I woke this morning while it was still dark and the wind was blowing. It was not our usual wind blowing from the sea, but was coming over the east bay hills. Inland winds are mysterious, gusting and swirling from who knows where. I am sure my just planted tarragon, thyme, and lemon grass are wondering what strange force plucked them up from the safety of the nursery and my window sill and dropped them to a bed in my front yard where they have been subjected to rummaging racoons, and now this gusting dry wind. Perhaps if I were an intuitive farmer, I would have sensed some change, and waited to plant, rather than making use of a few free hours on a Tuesday afternoon.
That particular morning found me perusing the newspaper and grousing about the government. I know just about everyone is grousing about the government for one reason or another, but on the first day of the shutdown, my grouse factor was heightened. I knew that the volunteer whom I would be picking up in a short while would be grousing as well, and she certainly was. When she was a young woman, she had to flee a violent and corrupt regime, so she is particularly wary of governments who do not tend to their people. We gave our grousing free reign for a few minutes, and then I gently reminded both of us that we were on our way to worship, and the gentle folks we would be worshiping with did not need to experience our unhappiness about the government, but rather our happiness in friendship and faith. She agreed, and accepted the change of direction (not always easy for her). She replied with stoic resolution, “Yes, we must be in a good mood.” We had made a pact and our course was set.
Yet, as I pulled into the parking lot, a vision came to me. That vision was my folder of music lying, not in the trunk of my car, but on my dining room table. I explained my dilemma to the volunteer. Her newly found resolve of good cheerwavered a bit (she takes her role as song sheet distributor quite seriously), but I assured her that in my trunk I could find something. The pickings were a bit thin, as I had been cleaning my trunk out the day before, which is how my folder came to rest on the dining room table. However, I found song sheets and three of the four sheets of accompanying music. I figured that we could sing the last hymn a capella. We walked in and quickly explained the change of plans to the pianist. She laughed heartily and looked through her binder. I had no idea that she keeps her binder organized, not alphabetically, but by the month and year we sing them. “Ah, yes. These hymns are from July of this year.” She had the fourth hymn so we were set. It was then that I realized we would be singing patriotic hymns.
Consequently, in just over an hour I was moved from grumbling over the newspaper to singing about the beauty of this land of spacious skies, amber waves, and fruited plains. Our complaints and laments were turned into sung prayers that communally asked that our flaws be mended and that freedom would ring from every mountainside. I felt God’s healing touch, and I was grateful. Afterwards, the pianist said, “I believe we have done our duty today.”
The Spirit picks us up and moves us about in surprising ways. Blessed be.
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning to its course.
Ecclesiastes 1:6
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