"He's gonna cover us up with leaves
With a blanket from the moon
With a promise and a vow
And a lullaby for my brow"
I sought out the soft dappling light and felt the cool evening August breeze tonight alone on a quiet road. As I walked up into the pasture covered in tall grass and white wildflower blossoms I wondered about the word Amen.... the last breath of prayer, and perhaps the last word spoken at the end of a day. It is our accepted way of expressing the serenity of surrendering to a Higher Power after we have offered up our honest attempt to share our innermost reflections. I wondered how often others have stopped to think about its meaning and its purpose.......
Amen.
Let it be.
When we express ourselves through prayer, amen affirms our expressions. How often do we say a prayer, one that perhaps we have used over and over again and we forget to clear away the debris so as to feel the meaning and the essence of the words right in the moment? Routine words lose their oooomph if they are swallowed and transformed into a rote disconnected mantra. Amen doesn't hold much substance in those moments. There's such a different feel to letting the word slip through our lips without a pause of acknowledgement.
Amen
So be it.
Tonight, I didn't say a prayer I had memorized. Rather, I said Amen during and after the quiet contemplation of taking a walk alone on a road that was lit up by a gorgeous everchanging twilight sky. The landscape and skyline tonight was my prayer. I just had to walk into it and and let it pull me into its beauty. As Tom Waits sings, it was a lullaby for my brow.
Amen to that.
Amen.
5 comments:
Do you know Tom Waits' song "Bend down the branches"? It's from an album "For the kids", and it is a lovely gentle lullaby.
There's a lovely time-lapse series here with it as the music.
It's amazing to me how beautiful some of his stuff can be -- and how some of it is not!
N.
N.....I didn't know that lullaby and it's beautiful......love the words and the passionate Waits-ian feeling to the tune. Thank you for the link.
Maybe what Waits does is express a different shade of beauty. There was a line in the lullaby....beauty getting old......sometimes his songs render that type of beauty and we're not used to seeing and feeling it that way.
I've never really known what "Amen" means, except that it is the last thing one says at the end of a prayer, or when one is very thankful...! "Let It Be". Of coursed. This makes perfect sense. "Amen, to that"...I've always loved when people say that....I guess it comes from the intuitive knowledge of what Amen means.
As always your writing stirs and touched, my dear Dana.
Naomi....I didn't know either when I was thinking about it last night, and then when I looked it up, I had the same thought....of course.....let it be......
It also quickly made me rethink Lennon and McCartney's Let it Be. And this morning as I drove to work a resounding gospel version of the song serendiptously played on the radio. I couldn't believe what I was hearing!
"When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.
Let it be, let it be, .....
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be."
amen. :)
Beautiful photo and reflections, dana. xo
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