Spring in the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (Photo: Irene Bom)
I’m currently embarked on a 100-day project to declutter my house, every nook and cranny. In one of the boxes I found some lyrics by Cara Taylor, then aged 14 (now all grown up and a mother of two). Cara’s song is entitled, Creation’s song, and is loosely based on Genesis 1.
The chorus is particularly evocative, depicting God singing creation into being:
I am singing, singing creation’s song
Breathing life upon this new-born world,
I’m shaping flowers and trees,
making rivers and seas,
I’m singing creation’s song
To accompany Cara’s lyrics, here is a “Liturgy of Creation” that picks up on this theme, and expands it to include more of God’s creative expressions.
Liturgy of Creation
(based on Genesis 1)
In the beginning, all was darkness
and God said, “let there be light,
and because God had said it,
there was light.
In the beginning, all was silence
and God sang the song of creation,
and because God sang,
all the stars and spheres vibrated to the music of God.
In the beginning, all was still
and God laughed,
and because God laughed,
the waters took up the roar and the ripple of it;
and ebbed and flowed and seeped and swirled
and delighted in the ways of its being.
In the beginning, all was dull
and God painted,
and because God painted,
the sky became blue, and purple, and pink,
and rainbows hung there.
The grass became green
and flowers and butterflies danced in the drips
and settled like jewels on the earth.
In the beginning, all was unconscious
and God breathed,
and because God breathed,
men and women woke up from their sleeping,
they breathed of the very life of God
and stood in wonder before the work of God’s hands.
They beheld the glory of God in all that God had made
and they saw that it was very good.
posted on the Third Space website.
Nature tales
While visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh in early spring, I had the privilege of having a robin perch on my knee.
I also spent a delightful few minutes watching a tiny bird with hardly any tail dart in and out of a tree with dangling fronds (a Betula Pendula ‘Tristis’), as it foraged, collecting titbits (animal? vegetable?), hopping, skipping, dangling and fluttering to keep its balance. Magnificent!
