You call and you sing to me.
You call to me across measureless depths and yet you are in the here and now.
You call and you sing over me.
When I was lost in the wild, and when I hungered in the desert you found me.
You set a place for me at your table and I was filled.
You called and sang your song over me
across a deep and distant space.
and yet you are in the here and now.
Into the night, you gathered your cloak,
your staff and your lamp and set out for me.
When you found me alone you took me in
And prepared a bed for me in your great home.
You called to me, cupped my face in your hands and sang your love over me, across the swathe of time and space and yet
you are in the here and now.
You called to me and sang over me,
You set your signet upon my hand and called a feast for me in your home.
You called to your children,
to your maids and your servants
and prepared a celebration for me, and you laughed and you danced and you held me to your chest telling me how much you love me.
You told me how much you had yearned over me and how you had longed for me.
You sang your love for me over distant valleys, over heaths and silent rivers, across rocky canyons streaked red with the sunrise and yet you are in the here and now.
Oh, what joy my bosom bears!
My heart breaks at the vastness of your gentle hand and the tenderness of your love.
You called to me and ran down a dusty and rocky path to meet me on a broken road strewn with potshard and bone.
I am undone,
Nothing of myself was clean or good.
My filth and worn hands were all I had, a ragamuffin, a vagabond in an unknown country.
Yes, there was nothing I might offer in return.
Nothing I might buy,
no meager work on my part would suffice.
But you sang over me. You rejoice in me.
Across the wideness of time and through the swathe of an unending universe you sang over me.
Your goodness to a lost child,
blind in his defiance and shipwrecked by his pain; your kindness and gentleness turned my heart.
I cannot sing nor speak enough of your tenderness and your furious, unyielding love.
I’ve not the words or the grace.
But you are good.
You are faithful and you have drawn me deeply into your heart.
And even so, you still sing over me, through space and the rhythm and cadence of eternity.
And yet you are in the here and now.
The hearth no longer barren,
No longer sullen with cold ash.
It blazes deep, and bright. I am won over and lost in the fury of your song.
And yet you continue to sing brightly over me.
Your song rings brilliant through the cloud,
Your song sails over lush valleys, It rests within my heart.
You will continue to sing your song over me.
I have learned your melody, it is part of my being
and I meditate on it day and night.
In my joy, I will teach your song to my children.
And in my joy, I will teach others your song.
And they too shall teach their children and their children shall teach their children your song.
Even so, til the rending of this good earth, and your furious love, you will still sing over me.
A song that echoes throughout the plains
Throughout mountain and field,
through the frost-blown winter sky and through meadows deep with summer green,
always you are in the here and now.
Selah.