Aural grace

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify
You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so
fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and for ever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

- Michael Dennis Browne

This is the text to Pilgrim's Hymn, set to the music of Stephen Paulus (local composer and frequent collaborator with Browne). Click the link to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's version; turn it up and close your eyes. You'll be glad you did.

Some days, it's so easy to get caught up in the ordinary hassle and pain (or simple "attitudinal arthritis") of the moment, that we forget the beauty that underlays every breath. Vast, silent, shimmering...and ours to dial into.

This text comforts and reassures me, in a cosmic sense. Not in the "if I just trust, everything will come out right" sense, because that denies so much of the experience of being human--the painful part. But rather, I believe in our connection to an immense, generative web of love, which binds and weaves through the Creator, creation, and one another. And that we're all pilgrims, when we're at our best: we seek out the relationship that draws us further into the light, and we keep on climbing up to it, and making our offerings along the way.

The heart of Holy Week is in this text--Christ was sealed into death and darkness, in order that we may experience the light of unceasing love, surpassing all we know.

Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.
Amen.