Advent - Emmanuel: God is With Us

Advent: Emmanuel - God is With Us (A Repost)

This is a time of year when there are songs we only listen to once...

I like to pull out old Advent and Christmas classics and new ones as well, and allow their rich melodies to fill all the corners of my heart and soul...

A friend recently asked me what kind of music I had on my ipod. I proceeded to describe the wide variety of genres and playlists I had so carefully organized - spanning from folk rock, to classical, to jazz, and to mantras and liturgical music. My friend stopped right there - totally surprised - though in the seventies - when we were in our late teens and early twenties, she and I earned our spending money by playing liturgical music in several parishes...

I love classic Advent songs of awaiting like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," and my favorite rendition is by Mannheim Steamroller. I wait all year to hear this song and enter into the deep longing and stillness it calls me to.

I also love an original piece by Michael W. Smith where the chorus gently echoes with yearning and bids us to remember that "Emmanuel" really means - "God is with us."

Yes - God is with us - not only at this particular time of the year - but always - even when we do not feel the Presence of the Divine in our lives. Yogananda reminds me in his writings, that it is only in the silence of deep meditation that God comes to us and makes His Presence known. We have to yearn for it - and seek it with all of our hearts - ever deepening our devotion. Mother Teresa often said that God speaks to us in the silence of our hearts.

This season, may you take the time to reflect on the ways the Presence of the Divine is evident in your lives - and may you create a greater space to more deeply welcome God - however you envision God to be - within the sanctuary of your hearts!


www.meditationsimple.com

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