Today’s find: Playlist

I had something of an epiphany yesterday as I climbed on the gurney at our Parish Center and prepared to give blood.

I’d just spent the previous hour or so at our men’s scripture study, breaking open the readings we’ll hear at Mass on Sunday – this week, of course, the familiar story of the Magi bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Jesus.

So “gifts,” quite naturally, were on my mind. As was the Giver of all good gifts – not the least of which (it occurred to me) was the gift of life, borne by the remarkably complex system of corpuscles and plasma and hemoglobin that has flowed reliably through my veins for ‘lo these 66+ years now.

It’s a small thing, I realized in the moment, to offer a bit of that gift back: To spend a little time on a gurney, and endure a bit of discomfort, in order that someone else might live. But that wasn’t the only thing going through my mind in the moment. I was also doing everything in my power to speed up the process of giving. I had things to do, and people to see…so let’s get on with it, I found myself saying to myself.

Music, they say, has charms to soothe the savage breast. So I decided to see if I could settle myself down just a bit, by turning on my ear-buds and tuning into a favorite Spotify playlist. As is my custom, I tapped “Shuffle” to get the music started…and was delightfully surprised to hear that the Holy Spirit seemed to be hanging around Spotify early on a Saturday morning.

No sooner had the blood begun flowing from my vein into the collection bag than this song began playing in my ears:

Come, thou fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy, never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

–Salt of the Sound

And apparently the Holy Spirit wasn’t quite done with me…because next up came a song that I don’t ever remember having added to the playlist:

Lord, I don’t want to rush ahead

In my own strength (in my own strength)

When You’re right here…

I’m not in a hurry

When it comes to your Spirit

When it comes to your presence

When it comes to your voice…

–Will Reagan & United Pursuit

I had to smile at the gift I’d just been given, this sonic epiphany occurring in the Parish Center.

Before the second song even wrapped up, I was done with the donation…collection bag full, ready to take on the day. And get this: Instead of heading out of there with an anxious, impatient heart, I’d somehow been given the grace to go home by another way.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS