Part 1:  Gloria In Excelsis

In the beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with the Voice

And the Word was the Voice

Who spoke all things into being.

And the Voice said, “Let there be light!”

And the Word became light,

flooding Nothing with a boundless energy

springing from a love of simply being

at one with the Voice in the speaking of all things.

And the Voice breathed 

a deep Sigh of joy 

filled with wordless Word,

blowing through the light 

which illuminated Nothing 

with a bright, soundless harmony 

of love between the Voice

and the Word and the Sigh.

And the Voice said, “Let there be a place, and places,

swirling in infinities, dancing through spaces,

where We might listen to the echoes of the Word,

where We might hear the singing of the Sigh,

where laughter and joy and love may be heard,

where Our longing and Our loneliness may have a place to cry.”

And the Word became a matter of matter, the stuff of stuff,

filling Nothing with Something,

with many things full of life in ice and light,  

in plasma, gas and rock, in enough things made enough,

balanced in ellipses, blown into lines of time

to resonate and hum with light––

the Word made music in the spheres:

a spatial choir, a universe to sing apart its part,

to choose its universal notes and in its choice

to be another voice.

And the Voice said, “Let this voice, too, be heard.

By the power of the Sigh,

Let this voice, too, proclaim the Word.”

Part 2:  Et In Terra

In the time when time was still new

In a warmer sphere, 

a few degrees askew,

wild with seething seas, yet lifeless and austere––

a still unfinished  place 

which sustained its sweet blue note in the canticle of space––

the Singer and the Lyric and the Music descended

and that place’s lifeless life was ended.

And as the Sighing Spirit hovered just above 

an ocean of potential,

the Voice cried, “Let us have a place to stand!”

And the Word dove down into the depths

of the vast, pervasive waters

and spoke the word of rising to the bottom of the sea.

And with fire and trembling,

by the power of that command,

the Word created land.

Terra firma.  Terra incognita.

Continents and islands. Peninsulas and strands.

Yawning canyons, rolling hills and towering peaks.

Flats, steppes, deltas, frozen wastes,

secluded coves and barking sands.

Clay and rock and grit and minerals and dust.

Glass and jewels and metals.

Chemicals and rust.

And the laughter of the Voice

reverberated in the earth

as the Spirit broke the waters

and the Word gave Terra birth.

And the Spirit hummed a lullaby

above the seething swell

as the shaping Word reshaped each sound

and inlet, molded every fjord and bay

let each volcano have its way

and rang the mountains like a bell.

And the Voice said, “Let this new voice, too, be heard.

By the wind of the Spirit,

Let this voice, too, proclaim the Word.”

Part 3:  Pax

And when the land had risen from the seas,

standing bare and moist and lifeless

in the fecund, warm and fertile breeze, 

the Voice said, “Let there be voices which do not 

merely echo or harmonize with notes already sung.  

“Let there be life which springs from Our Life but sings its own song.

Let there be piping reeds to whistle in my Wind,

Let there be  whispering flora, bushes, shrubs and grasses

with the sibilant sound of masses 

humbly bowing down in praise.

Let there be stout, hearty trees

to stand against the Holy Breeze,

banging limb against percussive limb

so that in their rhythmic beating,

in their rooted yearning, in their upward reaching,

in their gratitude for living,

their aptitude for giving,

they too, their green and vegetative voices raise

in their own unique, prolific hymn.

Let them sing along 

in their own time, in their own song.

“And let there be the sound of small, scuttling things,

and trilling voices lifted high on wings,

and the sounds of a large, stalking, deep, roaring throat,

and lamenting, lupine barks and howls,

the trumpeting of tusk and trunk, the rumble of heavy feet,

burrowing growls, a soft, sustaining bleat,

and the quack and honk of things afloat.

Let there be sweet, aquatic voices singing from the deep,

insectile chirps, amphibious burps,

and gentle things that murmur music in their sleep.”

And the Word sang shapes into the soil and sea

and the Holy Sigh blew Life and song into the shapes, 

so that by the Voice and Word and Breath 

all these voices came to be.

And the Voice said, “Let these, too, be heard.

By the Spirit and the force of Life,

Let all these singers, too, proclaim the Word.”

Part 4:  Ecce Homo 

When the earth was filled with nearly every kind

of Life in nearly every state of animation

and nearly ever sound that animal or plant could make

had been added to the score,

The Voice, the Word, the Song

did something that would change the heavens and the earth forevermore.

Inherent in this new creation was a calculated chance

that this newest voice might be so absorbed 

in the singing of itself that it could, it might

create a dissonant disharmony,

an awkward, arrhythmic antiphony

in the very heart of the dance.

But also, there was hope, a more than even possibility,

that of all the creatures swimming in the sea

or gliding through the skies or burrowing or slithering

or in one way or another moving on the land,

there was hope that this one might not merely hear each harmonizing note

and repeat it all by rote—

there was, there is, a hope that this unlikely creature just might

understand

the reason why the song began.

So, with every hope but also every apprehension

the Voice said, “Let us make a man

and woman, in our own image–– Voice and Word and Breath.

And let us hope they learn to sing

the song of Life and not the song of death.”

And that, of course, is the source of all the tension––

that the all-creative Voice 

gave us such a powerful choice.

So the Word assembled dust and clay

and the Breath of creation had its way

and we became 5 billion voices

with God only knows how many choices.

Still, when we are our better selves,

when we are not lost in pursuing our own aims, no matter how absurd,

we still can hear the Song sung over our making––

We hear the Voice that sings, “Let this voice, too be heard.

By the Will that gave this creature will,

Let this voice, too, proclaim the Word.”

Part 5:  Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus ad erit

We were made to appreciate

sounds deeper than the ear can perceive,

music only the heart and soul can hear,

melodies only the discerning mind can believe.

We were made to contemplate 

sounds tuned only to the spirit’s ear.

And you, beloved friend and sibling in the Sight,

when you finally escape from all the sound which is merely noise,

when you find that quiet place where you see the Song and hear the Light,

when you follow the winding way of the Word, blown by the Breath of Making

and you stand on the precipice, poised

to fall out of death and into love…

listen closely,  and somewhere beneath

the chattering of your teeth,

behind your trembling and shaking, 

you will hear the meaning of your life.

We make music to draw us into creation’s deeper symphony.

We sing because it is our pathway to the all-sustaining Song.

We love because it is our only way to embrace the original Lover

whose Voice and Word and Breath created us to be the beloved other.

And, though so often we get it wrong,

we are still invited, always summoned, forever encouraged–– made–– to sing along,

to tune our voices to the Holy resonance,

to learn the way out of our mangled dissonance 

and into that divine harmony 

that is patient and kind,

that bears all things, believes all things and hopes all things,

that seeks to sing you into your right and healthy mind,

and make you, too, a voice that out of joy and love forever sings.

In the rest between the notes, 

in the break before each glorious chord,

in the space between the stops,

be still and know

the Touch of the Breath

which lifts you as the Voice sings  to you,     

over you,       

about you:

“Let this beloved child be heard. 

By my Love which loved you into life,

Let your voice, too, proclaim the Word.”