On a recent Sunday morning, we sang a couple of new-to-you pieces. I chose them hoping to balance a fairly “left brain” exploration of Truth with other, intuitive or mystical paths to truth and meaning.

One piece was the short, lovely “Nada Te Turbe” from Singing the Journey. (Thank you to Donna Rohde of the Spanophiles group, who led us through the Spanish pronunciation.)

The other, “Have I Not Seen” from Singing the Living Tradition, has the tune of an old Christian hymn (Jerusalem) which some of you recalled for its William Blake text:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

In time-honored UU tradition, we’ve changed the text. Ours is taken from Don Marquis’ 1922 poem “The Mystic,” which includes these lines:

And I have dwelt with Presences
Behind the veils of Time and Place...
And I have dared the Distances
Where the red planets race –
And I have seen the Near and Far
And God and Man and Avatar
And Life and Death but one thing are

These lines put me in mind of another quotation on science and religion. Astronomer Robert Jastrow, in God and the Astronomers, goes through what is known and not yet known about the origins of our universe.  He then writes,

“For the scientist who has lived by his [sic] faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.  He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

For scientist and mystic, for centuries, “God and Man and Avatar and Life and Death but one thing are.” And that thing is miracle.

~ Blessings of the Season’s Turning,
Jean