Sunday, June 10, 2012

Day 20: Church Bells

It's Sunday morning, and I'm skipping Sunday school. I'll join my family in an hour for the church service, but this season I'm using Sunday school time for my own quiet devotional time.

In spring, it's easy to see Sunday morning as set apart, holy. The ambient temperature permits open windows, lazy air drifting in and out and smelling of honeysuckle. This is my incense. The ambiance of spring birdsong, the depth of nature exhibited by the nearness and distance of calls and answers. This is my call to prayer. The hummingbird at the gladiolas juxtaposed against the dark pine beyond, fragile against immense, flashy against staid, frenetic against still. This is my cathedral.

And then the church bells ring. Across the meadow behind our house, over the treetops of our tiny town. The little white church with the red door that I know so well from the years we attended it. The still air ripples with the sound, like a pebble slipping into a quiet pond. Another juxtaposition, this one sound against silence. This is the sound of holiness.

I love the beckon the church bells on Sunday morning. I love the ancient practice of calling worshipers to come, that the secular world rings with a call to quiet itself because God's people have gathered to worship Him. May God is praised in the hearts of His people around the world each Sunday morning.

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