Post by nina2 on Aug 5, 2008 17:44:16 GMT -5
That is, until I learned that when GOD brings things to a "standstill" I, too, will have to do EXACTLY THAT.
I know..... And the moving space keeps being restricted, because if not yielding to the command of being still, then, still by grace, we "divinely" come to the stillness he demands, at this time.....
Along those lines, I too have been doing what I call connecting some dots. Some from this board, where not too long ago, we were discussing letting go, letting be, being wound back and being catapulted, and much more. And, between each, which involves motion, one way or the other, there is "that time".
To me, one of the greatest examples for this is the crossing of the Red Sea. And I am posting this to share – and maybe I already did before :-) – because, imho, it is timely.
And the main thing through all that, again to me, is that Miriam started, she started alone. There’s something about that tambourine, Keita..... They heard it as soon as she took it in her hand.... And they followed her, and danced, but they did not all sing, until she “called to them”.....
And it’s a song of ascent!
In other words: HE is changing our tune!
Miriam's Song
The womanly strain in the "Song at the Sea"
Miriam the prophetess ... took the tambourine in her hand; and all the women followed her with tambourines and dances.
And Miriam called to them: Sing to God...
Exodus 15:20-21
We don't sing when we are frightened, despairing, sleepy, or after a heavy meal. We sing when we are pining after one whom we love, when we are yearning for better times, when we are celebrating an achievement or anticipating a revelation.
We don't sing when we are complacent. We sing when we are striving for something, or when we have tasted joy and are climbing it to the heavens.
Song is prayer, the endeavor to rise above the petty cares of life and cleave to one's source. Song is the quest for redemption.
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"...... ten preeminent songs in the history of Israel -- ten occasions on which our experience of redemption found expression in melody and verse.
The first nine were: the song sung on the night of the Exodus in Egypt (Isaiah 30:29), the "Song at the Sea" (Exodus 15:1-21), the "Song at the Well" (Numbers 21:17-20), Moses' song upon his completion of writing the Torah (Deuteronomy 32), the song with which Joshua stopped the sun (Joshua 10:12-13), Deborah's song (Judges 5), King David's song (II Samuel 22), the song at the dedication of the Holy Temple (Psalms 30), and King Solomon's Song of Songs extolling the love between the Divine Groom and His bride Israel.
The tenth song will be the shir chadash, the "New Song" of the ultimate redemption: a redemption that is global and absolute; a redemption that will annihilate all suffering, ignorance, jealousy, and hate from the face of the earth; a redemption of such proportions that the yearning it evokes, and the joy it brings, require a new song -- a completely new musical vocabulary -- to capture the voice of Creation's ultimate striving.
Encore
The most well known of the ten songs of redemption is Shirat HaYam, the "Song at the Sea" sung by Moses and the children of Israel upon their crossing of the Red Sea.
...
Actually, there are two versions of the Song at the Sea, a male version and a female version.
After Moses and the children of Israel sang their song, "Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the tambourine in her hand; and all the women followed her with tambourines and dances. And Miriam called to them: 'Sing to God, for He is most exalted; horse and rider He cast in the sea...'"
The men sang, and then the women. The men sang, and then the women sang, danced, and tambourined. The men sang -- sang their joy over their deliverance, sang their yearning for a more perfect redemption -- but something was lacking. Something that only a woman's song could complete.
Feeling and Faith
...
Miriam and her chorus brought to the Song at the Sea the intensity of feeling and depth of faith unique to womankind.
Their experience of the bitterness of galut (exile) had been far more intense than that of their menfolk, yet their faith had been stronger and more enduring. So their yearning for redemption had been that much more poignant, as was their joy over its realization and their striving towards its greater fulfillment.
...
Today
Today, as we stand at the threshold of the ultimate redemption, it is once again the woman whose song is the most poignant, whose tambourine is the most hopeful, whose dance is the most joyous.
Today, as then, the redemption will be realized in the merit of righteous women. Today, as then, the woman's yearning for Messiah -- a yearning which runs deeper than that of the man, and inspires and uplifts it -- forms the dominant strain in the melody of redemption."