Awake

Welcome to another poetry Sunday... on Monday! I intended to post something yesterday, but then... well, then I didn't. While I'm breaking rules, I'm actually going to post song lyrics for this week's poetry:

Awake My Soul

Cathedral
Arches of reaching limbs
Crickets sing secret hymns
Over all of us

Fireflies
Tickle across our palms
Lit up like diamonds drawn
From the black above

Awake my soul to live this moment
Awake my soul, 
give thanks and hold it
Dear now
God is here now
Awake my soul

Day ends
And brown eyes smile back at me
She wipes my kiss from her cheek
After last “Amen”

Hush away the hurry
Put to rest the worry
Come to quell and quiet me
In this moment given
Slow and fully live it
Drink up all the passing peace

Awake my soul to live this moment
Awake my soul,
 give thanks and hold it
Dear now
Be here now
God is here now
Awake my soul

-Shaun Groves © 2011 Simplicity Street Music/ASCAP

Oh, to find peace and beauty in every passing moment. To be truly present. To be here, now. To not anticipate. To simply be. Each moment invites us to slow, to be awake, present, alive. Grateful. I've heard it said that we should "practice the presence of God". I still don't fully grasp what that means, but I think these lyrics have something to do with it. Be here, now. God is here, now. Here as we walk across campus and feel the sunshine on our faces, here as we smile at the woman behind the counter at the coffee shop, here as we sing, here as we wait, here as we work, here as we sit and listen to crickets and catch fireflies, here as we grieve, here as we celebrate.  Be here, now, because God is here, now. Slow and fully live.  Awake.