"O God of Stars and Sunlight"

O God of stars and sunlight, whose wind lifts up a bird,

In marching wave and leaffall we hear they patient word.

The color of thy seasons goes gold across the land:

By green upon the treetops we know thy moving hand.

O God of cloud and mountain, whose rain on rock is art,

Thy plan and care and meaning renew the head and heart.

They word and color spoken, they summer noons and showers--

By these and by thy dayshine, we know thy world is ours.

O God of root and shading of boughs above our head,

We breathe in thy long breathing, our spirit spirited.

We walk beneath thy blessing, they seasons, and thy way,

O God of stars and sunlight, O God of night and day.

text by John Holmes, music by Johann Christian Störl

Ironic, this song, since part of what attracts me about the Unitarians is the lack of necessary belief in a deity. But I can still sing out without qualm about a god of nature, which encompasses my Agnostic Pagan nature quite well.

For the last couple of years I have not been studying voice, and mostly my singing has been limited to what I have done with the singing group at my daughter's school. With my daughter's graduation, this commitment, after six years, is at an end. My voice feels rusty from disuse this morning, and the attention to breath and shape of mouth feels new again. I feel impatient to sing more of what satisfies me.