It’s amazing how such an ordinary act has profound meaning.  Or maybe I’m just reading into what seems so mundane to our everyday life.

There’s a kind of letting the old pass, so the new can emerge.  Okay, it’s just hair (and I don’t have much of it).  But then, at the scissors cut and cut, and space is freed up, one feels what is happening on the outside is also happening on the inside.

In fact, the whole process is almost meditative and solitude like. While the surroundings maybe busy, but once the hairdresser starts working, it’s me and the hairdresser snipping away.

Some are more chatty, today’s mr. handsome was work like, without any small talk. Get the job done in 15-16 minutes, so I had the same amount of time to myself with my eyes occasionally closed for rest and relaxation.

it’s a little like the notebook entering defragment stage.  Or cleaning up my “mental disk”.  Somehow I felt lighter when I left for Luther Centre for the worship and music practice.

The physical experience which resulted in a fresh head (literally), cleared some space in the heart too (metaphorically).  I think most of us underestimate the mysterious relationship between the seen and unseen, the surface and the depths of our human existence.

I enjoyed the worship gathering rehearsal.  Had a decent afternoon picking up my old Tokai guitar to pick some songs, and think through the liturgy, and other artistic elements for Pentecost Sunday at Bangsar Lutheran Church this week.  Most of the time, if we have a guest speaker, I land up as the guest worship leader. 🙂

Singing through the lyrics which is a mixture of a hymn and some newer songs.  It dawned on me again, and this has been my modus operandi, I see the whole set of songs and the liturgy as a whole with connecting parts.  Some songs on it’s own may lack a certain punch but in the context of the rest may serve it’s purpose.

Furthermore, while the lyrics of one song maybe powerful enough and with theological depth, like my personal favorite, “Here is love” with my favorite line: “And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice, Kissed a guilty world in love” adds the needed depth to simpler lyrics like “I will come and bow down” which serves a more emotive purpose. Both have their place.

I would press this further, and say in some cases, who we are and at what stage we are in actually makes the song serve a greater purpose, like the new song I’m planning to introduce as a Pentecost song, “Consuming Fire”, the line where it says, “Lord have your way is us” and “Let your glory fall”. Most might sing it purely from a individualistic or congregational perspective.  But for me, what’s in my mind is have your way in us means, in us personally, in our families, in our churches, in our nation, in our region and in our world.  So, pictures of people come to mind, maps come to mind, situations crop up and as I sing, I’m picturing how these lyrics, with the line let your glory fall reaches our into these different spheres.

While I’m not sure whether the songwriter originally had this in mind, but I believe humanly speaking, and even more so as we trust in the Spirit reworking and applying these words, it’s lifted from it’s original context and re-appropriated into a new one.

This is good stuff to think about, and readjust our attitudes on quite a number of issues especially in relation to corporate worship and personal spirituality in terms of the interaction between the private and the public (and everything in between).

As we were stepping out ready for a later dinner, of course, before that, we had a good old time of sharing and prayer after working through the music parts, I saw this notebook with a great quote:

to do the useful thing

to say the courageous thing

to contemplate the beautiful thing

that is enough for one man’s life.

~ T.S. Eliot

For those who are gender sensitive and aware, we can say enough for one woman’s life too! But the point is I think we get his point, in fact at least three good points. What’s useful, what’s courageous, and what’s beautiful . to do, to say and to contemplate.

I’m reawakened afresh on such simple matters in the most unexpected way. Then again, I recall I was the one who always proclaims “God is a God of surprises”.  His surprises leaks through the cracks of the mundane.