New Songs

 "Sing a New Song

    to the Lord,

His praise to the ends

    of the Earth."

                -Isaiah 42:10


Over the past year,  the scripture readings that refer to a 'new song' have struck a chord with me.  There is something exciting within those words in that they seem to be saying that each of us has an opportunity, no matter the age or circumstance to start a 'new song' each day.

That phrase, to me, calls us to not fall into such consistent patterns of existence that we end in boredom or malaise.  God desires us to be attentive to the people, places, and things that surround us and to realize we have the ability to respond to them in new and unique ways; he does not want us to wake each day and just walk past them.

It is like Jean Pierre de Caussade's idea of the sacrament of the present moment: each day we awake to encounter the world anew and to see how God is present and speaking to us through the opportunities that arise.  Each day we have the blessed gift of being able to respond in creative fidelity to each unique situation.  

Today, maybe especially in your most familiar relationship, try to break out of old patterns and see how God is calling you and I to respond in a new way; to sing a new song.

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