Songs Without Words - a collection of music and reflections
This series will feature selections from Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words accompanied by poems, reflections, and meditations. You are invited to use these resources for a daily meditation; allowing the music to influence the text and the text to influence the music. Integrate them however you wish into your own practice of prayer. The music in this series is played and recorded by Juli Bey.
No. 1
Retrospection
written by Aaron Schultz
Anonymity is lonely.
It’s a strangers empty gaze meeting our own
as we remain insignificant in their eyes;
a momentary glance evaporated,
a forgettable encounter forever lost to the forces of time…
What marks the transition between
stranger and Friend?
passerby and Companion?
acquaintance and Lover?
To be loved is to be seen.
Your significance is materialized through God’s gaze
To be seen by God strips us of our isolation
and clothes us with belonging.
Significance is never withheld
and significance is never enhanced through
pious prayer, achievement-oriented religion, or deliberate devotion.
There was never a time when God ceased knowing you.
God, in her generous self-giving,
offers you the unquantifiable gift of being seen,
simply because you exist, have always existed,
within the Trinity’s momentous overflowing of Love.
Nothing has been withheld.
Everything has been named.
Your whole person celebrated.
If you prefer a video file, below you will find a recording of the piece “Retrospection” filmed and played by Juli Bey
No. 2
Hope
written by Aaron Schultz
(for a Maundy Thursday Communion Liturgy)
We gather together, in the comfort of our homes,
Preparing ourselves to partake in a solemn feast;
originally celebrated in such a way where the
comfortable was upended by the foreshadowing of Passion
and the predictable was overturned by the dismantling of hierarchy
when Jesus the Christ bent down to wash the dirty feet of his disciples.
Familiar elements of bread and wine
Connect us in simplicity to the Table of the Last Supper,
When Christ himself announced a message
Nobody was ready to hear.
Christ, in his abundant graciousness,
Offered himself freely and completely to all,
Modeling for us the essence of Love,
Instructing us to give ourselves completely to this Love,
and inviting us to be this Love and usher in a new Kingdom.
A Kingdom where hope reigns in uninhibited glory.
A Kingdom where gifts are freely given without expectation of reimbursement.
A Kingdom where equality is assumed and mercy equally distributed.
The new Kingdom of God. The ancient reality of being wonderfully human.
If you prefer a video file, below you will find a recording of the piece “Hope” filmed and played by Juli Bey
No. 3
Consolation
written by Aaron Schultz
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NRSV)
Blessed be the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.
Come to our assistance, O God, Mother of us all.
Where can we go to find your Presence?
We are suffering, because we are no longer in control.
The familiar has taken unrecognizable form,
and the unfamiliar has become normalized.
We wait for a return to stability;
when our schedules become predictable,
when we can warmly embrace family in our arms,
when we can make music in the company of friends.
As we wait, we look to you, O God, for comfort.
You are our consolation, our hope.
In the depths of this depressive isolation, You abide;
Greeting us with a holy calm
gradually lifting the residual sadness residing in our hearts.
When we cease to be in control, you carry our burden
so we can continue on with a lighter load.
The journey will still be long and difficult,
but we are never alone,
for you are always before us,
encircling us, enfolding us, embracing us…
in the comfort of hope,
the celebration of resurrection,
the mystery of salvation,
the consolation of Presence.
Where can we go to find You?
We cannot find what has never been lost.
Your Light is the constancy we seek.
Your Love the security we hold.
Your Presence the sustenance of our souls. Amen.
If you prefer a video file, below you will find a recording of the piece “Consolation” filmed and played by Juli Bey
