Singing
You wouldn’t notice them except on windy days. They are hidden in the weeping cherry, hanging by the garden and dancing on the lowest branches of the oak out front. There are spoon chimes all over our yard. He made them for me from a box a spoons leftover from a church project. He knows how much I love the sound they make.
I want to be a chime, sitting at the ready for the Spirit to move me. But I need to bump into other chimes to actually sing. A chime will never make a sound swinging solo on the most blustery days. We need each other. That’s the way God set it up. He designed us for dependence on him and for community.
I think about this on the lonely days.
There are days that this house echoes with a quiet that is hard to bear. What keeps me from the friendship I crave? Probably fear. It is strange that when we need others most, we feel the least presentable. My house is in utter chaos with 9 puppies and all the poo and pee that comes with them. I wash blankets from morning until midnight daily. On top of that the normal housework has been seriously neglected as well as our own laundry. Inviting someone into this mess feels preposterous.
This adds to the grief I am already sorting through. To surrender to this fear might bind me to a silence that was not meant for me. I was made to sing within a beautiful community, offering a song while rubbing elbows with others.
Like the spoon chimes we need each other to truly become what we were made to be.
Psalm 133 ~”How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the fragrant anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head and ran down onto his beard and onto the border of his robe. Harmony is as refreshing as the dew on Mount Hermon, on the mountains of Israel.”