I do not see many church-front message boards around here. Local congregations post their service times, but few have message boards out front where, every week or two, a new and inspiring/infuriating message is posted in big clunky letters. This is not the case in the South where I have spent many years—and where many churches used these signboards as a form of public ministry. I used to look forward to driving around town and seeing what the “sign board ministry” at various churches was adding to the public conversation.
As I mentioned before, some were infuriating—oversimplifying complex theological issues or misunderstanding Biblical subtleties. I remember one, at a church in Pensacola, Florida, that counseled, “When presented with two evils, choose neither.” Purporting to counter the old adage, “the lesser of two evils,” I think I understood the point. Better to remain morally pure and not engage in any evil. The problem is that most human beings are not afforded such a luxury. When presented with two evils, the real choice is whether to engage or not. If one remains aloof, then something terrible will happen. If one engages and chooses “the lesser of two evils,” then one can decrease the terribleness that will happen. The choice is stark and morally fraught, but is it not better to choose less evil over more evil? To me, this is a reality that the signboard, in its quest for purity, seemed to misunderstand.
On the other hand, many messages were lovely statements of faith, and some were quite profound. I remember one from a church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi that picked up on a verse from Psalm 19: “The Heavens declare the glory of God. Shouldn’t we join in?” Amen!
It turns out that this idea has some venerable roots. For starters, there is a mystical teaching that alludes to a vibrational “chant” that emanates from Creation itself and that is mentioned in that very same Psalm. In Psalm 19.2-5, we read:
“The heavens declare the glory of God,
The sky proclaims God’s handiwork.
The days themselves repeat the praise;
The nights as well tell this truth.
Though there is no speech nor are there words,
Their voices may not be heard,
But their shout goes out to all the earth
And their words to the end of the world.”
Many mystics—in many religious traditions—work on accessing this vibrational praise. Among the most famous in Judaism was Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, a Hassidic rabbi who lived from 1772 to 1810 in what is now Ukraine. He instructed his disciples to spend hours each day out in nature, listening to natural sounds and trying to perceive in them the voice of the Divine. Here is a meditation taken from Rebbe Nachman’s teachings:
O Lord, grant me the ability to be alone!
May it be my custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grass—among all growing things,
and there may I be alone and enter into prayer,
to talk with the One to Whom I belong.
May I express there everything in my heart,
and may all the foliage of the field—
all grasses, trees and plants—awake at my coming,
to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer.
May my prayer and speech receive energy
from the life and the spirit of all growing things,
which are made as one by their transcendent Source.
Then, may the words of my heart pour out like water,
O Lord, before You
as I lift up my hands to You and sing.
In this new series of columns by local clergy, we hope to add to the local conversation by sharing insights and teachings from the religious and spiritual realm. Whether tapping into the energy of the natural world or the wisdom of spiritual seekers, we hope to offer enlightenment and inspiration.