Hear My Faith

Fellow clergy, Jeremy Smith is promoting a synchblog for the upcoming Exploration 2013 event for the United Methodist's General Board on Higher Education and Ministry.  I will be participating and sharing my own answers to the question, "Who called you on the journey of ministry?"

As I begin to think about how I answer this for my upcoming blog, I reconnected with the song, "Seal My Fate" by Belly (it happened to be playing on internet radio).




Tanya Donnelly's lyrics are just vague enough to lend a great variety to the interpretation. As I'm thinking about call to ministry, the passage from Isaiah's own call to ministry came to me.

Isaiah's Lips Anointed
with Fire by
Benjamin West

As Donnelly sings:

  Unholy and dirty words I gathered to me,
 Thinking the point was keep what's mine for me,
 While he's laughing.
 Hear my faith.
 Seal my fate. 

it reminds me of Isaiah's own declaration that he's a man of unclean lips.  In his vision, the angels purify him with fire and he responds, "Here I am, Send Me."

Donnelly also expresses the uncertainty of the spiritual experience:

   And if you think you've finally found the perfect light,
 I hope it's true. 

and

  I'd like to see it happen. I hope it's true
 'cause I can feel it.
 I hope it's true.

The call of God pulls us in sometimes risky directions that turn our previous plans upside down.  At the end of the day, we hope in faith that it is true.  The song expresses to me a sense that it's almost too good to be true - there is a hesitancy there.

This may be a universal sensation when we encounter grace.