Beats Part 2

   
I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles.

If you know, you know; a heartbeat can be heard for a thousand or a million miles away, especially when that heart beats for you. And if you don’t know, well not even the heart beating within your chest will grab your attention. But it’s there. That pulsing beat- it’s around you and certainly within you. Our earth itself is said to have a heartbeat
https://www.livescience.com/30940-earth-atmosphere-heartbeat-detected-space.html and the rhythms of life are constantly strumming, and vibrating. Everything alive moves and pulses. You may have found a moment to pause and read this today, but even now you are spinning at 1600 km/hr as our planet journeys around the sun at a mind boggling 107,000km/hr. Your blood is flowing, synapses firing, lungs collapsing and expanding to the involuntary beat of your breath. We are always on the move - running like a river’s song indeed, Van.

It's just a little hard to feel that rhythm when everything, and it feels like everything, is striking such a discordant note. Are we moribund or frantic? Can we be both, is that what we call a death spiral? I don’t need to go through the litany of all that is frightening and unsettling us. The shards of  dreams shattered are growing around us daily. How do we get out of this? We look to better economic policies, fairer treatment, vaccines, toxic-free politics- the list goes on. Pray for all or any of these gifts to be made manifest, and let us work hard to make what we can possible. So much will, however, always be beyond our singular reach and not exactly according to plan.

But we are not stuck. We have some tools.  A former professor and friend reminded me, Renaissance musicians called one of those tools the tactus. It's the underlying beat in a musical piece, and it measures or moves at 60 beats per minute- that’s about your resting heartbeat. Our Presbyterian ancestors in crafting the Genevan psalter, would use this tactus for chanting the psalms. God’s words in worship literally slow your heart rate down to its resting state, not in order to be dormant, but to rest and be renewed. It helps you get back on track and find your rhythm again. If you can’t get access to a psalter, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if you could, don’t worry. Grab a psalm, any psalm and pray it slowly, counting two beats at each period. Psalm 23, 34, 46, 84 will get you started. Or, Spotify has some incredible chants. Put them in your queue and let those monks get your groove going. Don’t understand the lyrics? Just feel the rhythm they are making. Let your heart lead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upQ1Qam-0fI&list=PL15DF46D76CA72F5E&index=23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0oGLjqaLkU


Van’s song Crazy Love has been our guide today. He’s singing about a great love, maybe even God’s love for us. Let him sing us out as we take a deep breath, be still for a moment, listening for the heart beating in our chests. A pulsing, constant invitation to join our hearts with the heartbeat of God.

And when I'm returning from so far away
She gives me some sweet lovin', brighten up my day
Yes it makes me righteous, yes it makes me feel whole
Yes it makes me mellow down in to my soul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOmSNfgXy14