Love Divine and the kitchen sink...

I miss the old hymns. The language, the images, like poetry from another time and place in our Christian history, can be both memory and inspiration. One of my favorites, Love Divine, written by Charles Wesley, was a favorite of our song director Mrs. Morris at Clayattville Baptist Church. It was a little high in spots for most of us but we loved hearing her clear sweet soprano voice hit that e flat. As a child I understood most of the words, all the important ones, and it remains one of the theme songs for my life.
“Love divine, all love excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down!” That exclamation point sets the tone for the whole hymn. Everything that really matters to me is contained in that one phrase. God, who is love beyond our understanding, joy of heaven, came to earth and is still coming to earth. Each of the verses that follow, like a good paragraph, begins with a topic phrase. “Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast!... Come Almighty to deliver, let us all thy life receive;...Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be...”The breath we breathe can become the loving Spirit of God. We can receive new life in love, become a finished new creation, pure and spotless.
The old timers had no problem with asking God’s help, naming how God could help, believing God would help and it was personal. “Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.” Every morning I need to pray this prayer. Like Paul what I would do, I do not do. What I ought to do, I don’t. Those things I shouldn’t do, I do them every time! The deliciousness of doing good and the equal tastiness of doing what I shouldn’t...what a contradiction in being!
Sin is a four letter word for most of us these days but no other word works for me in naming how I fall short of the glory of God. It is a curious paradox that recognition of myself as a sinner sets me free. I do not have to try to be perfect, get it all done, get it all done right, save the world and myself and all the generations to come. I do my part, small though it might be, and leave perfection, perfect Love, up to God. And in letting go of the dream of the perfect me, of being in control of me, I find the beginning and the end of my faith, Alpha and Omega. A heart set at liberty can sing a song of praise and thanksgiving for the wonderful complicated mysterious gift of life.
I think I’ll go play the piano and sing for awhile... let the dishes sit in the sink while I remember where I came from and where I am going.