Yesterday or the day before (or if you are reading this on Substack “sometime ago”) an article came down my fb feed celebrating the making of Stevie Wonders "Songs in the key of life album", which I think came out around 1976. Who hasn't heard a Stevie Wonder song? I clicked and read through and then went to YouTube to listen to a song or two.
I love how songs serve to take us to faraway places - especially when you know what is being sung about.
One of the amazing benefits of the internet is you can search a songs lyrics and actually have the right words that go with the song. I don't know about you but I spent years belting out what I thought were the right words to a song only to find out I was wrong.
It's funny how life is like that. We hear something and for some reason it sticks, even if its wrong, and we exert lots of energy defending our position, our understanding, our mistakes. Some times it can be funny and other times it's painful.
Why? There are probably a thousand answers to that question.
Pride? Fear? Greed?
I have been in that boat a few times - defending a mistake or even a position that has no impact on my life at all but stuck in the need to be right or the fear of being wrong.
I once read somewhere, I think it was in A Course in Miracles, a line that said that I should ask myself "do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?" "
Many times I have confused being happy with being right. After awhile it can become a lonely and exhausting space filled with a constant senseless defending the undefendable. That line from a course in miracles has sat with me and more once in a whiles than not wisdom prevailed and I have been able to choose happiness over being right.
Proverbs 11:2 says "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."
With humility comes wisdom.
Wisdom has many faces. Usually my first reaction-image is a wrinkle faced person getting on in age who, having lived through what I am now or about to be facing and come out the other side, or having felt the sting of loss over arguments that meant nothing in the long run, was quick to shift and the able to offer, with a twinkle, a gentle smile and a few golden words of calm love that assuaged my fears.
Wisdom can also be that space, that moment when you look into the eyes of the person before you and see not an adversary, an opponent that you must strike first lest they crush you like a little bug, but just a fellow human, a loving being, a child of God... When you think about it how much more wiser can one get?
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you.” - A Course in Miracles
Love that is calling but unto itself.
I love how songs can serve to take us to faraway places.
Perhaps that is why it is so essential in worship services. To elevate our thoughts and feelings to that level of God awareness about God, the world, and each other. To see that "Love is in need of Love today". Not a bum, or an evil rich person, or a christian, or a muslim, or a buddhist, or a jew, or a republican or a democrat or any "other" but love that is calling but unto itself.
I invite to you give the song a listen and let the words take you where they will today. - a space so full of love it has no choice but to spill out and save the world.
"It's that love's in need of love today
Don't delay, send yours in right away
Hate's goin' 'round breaking many hearts
Stop it please before it's gone too farThe force of evil plans to make you its possession
And it will if we let it destroy everybody
We all must take precautionary measures
If love and peace you treasure
Then you'll hear me when I say, woah-ohThat love's in need of love today
Don't delay, send yours in right away
Hate's goin' 'round breaking many hearts
Stop it please before it's gone too far..." Stevie Wonder
Amen. Ase. Aho. Namaste.
Posted: The Global Prayer Closet Facebook Group - (39 Views)