A Little Love Song

In this issue we focus on two new resources for renewal: Embracing the Love of God by James Bryan Smith and Songs for Renewal by Janet Lindeblad Janzen. I believe these two books are tremendous resources for your own personal growth in grace as well as exceedingly useful tools for small group and church-wide nurture.

How very appropriate it is that these two resources are coming out at the same time. Nothing is more important in life than being overtaken by the ​“furious love of God,” and song is the medium that most fully expresses our experience of God’s love. Love and song, love and song — they belong together, a little like a lock and a key or a bow and an arrow.

A Little Love Song

I must share with you a recent experiment with this glorious combination of love and song. Last Saturday I had the unenviable task of cleaning out the garage. After breakfast Carolynn blithely drove off to her stained glass class leaving me staring at a garage strewn with tools and dust and boxes ad infinitum. What was I to do? Suicide seemed too drastic a way out! No, my only choice was to wade into the pile to see if anything could be done to bring order out of chaos.

Looking at all the ​“stuff,” I recalled Janet Janzen’s ode to the simple life which she wrote for us as we were packing to move to Denver. It is sung to the tune of ​“Three Blind Mice.”

Too much stuff, Too much stuff,
Too much stuff, Too much stuff,
More than enough, More than enough;
The piles are staring us in the face,
They multiply at an alarming pace,
And soon we’ll be buried without a trace in
Too much stuff.

There is more but that gives you a hint of my feelings. However, I had been reading William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, and I wanted, as he says, to make my life a devotion even in so mundane a task as cleaning out the garage. So I picked up a cassette tape of instrumental music featuring the hammered dulcimer. I love the sound of the dulcimer because it captures so wonderfully the haunting simplicity of mountain folk culture. So I worked throughout the day and into the night, allowing the captivating sound of the dulcimer to lead me into loving worship and adoration. It was a good day … and I did finish the task!

A More Excellent Love Song

But my little twitter cannot compare to the more excellent love song that arises from all creation. In the middle of writing this essay I took a brief hike in a lovely area nearby, Castlewood Canyon. Entering the canyon alone, I soon became aware of the music of love and adoration to the Creator of all things. I heard it in the hymns of bird and insect. I heard it in the chant of wind and water. I heard it in the swish of pines that waved to the wind and stretched their needles toward the heavens. My ears were too limited to pick up the sound, but I could see the love song of Columbine and Larkspur and Golden Banner and Indian Paintbrush. I wondered if even the rocks were straining to shout out their own peon of praise.

“God so loved the world”
​“We love him because he first loved us”
​“singing and making melody in our hearts to God”

Peace and joy,

Richard J. Foster