Voices Found: A love song for February 14

 


Voices Found 143

Love astounding

Love astounding, love confounding limits fearful minds impose.

Love renewing, love pursuing every heart until it knows

love's transforming, healing goodness, love's abiding, gentle grace,

love's endurance, love's love's assurance, love's consoling, strong embrace.


Love receiving, love believing, we rejoice with thanks and song,

faith regaining, hope proclaiming; love has taught us , we belong

safe within love's tender keeping, safe from fear's persistent call.

Love defending, love unending, love of God enfolding all.

Words: Jeannette M. Lindholm.

Music:  Holy Manna, from The Southern Harmony, 1835

Author Jeannette (Jan) M. Lindholm is a professor of English.  While studying at the University of Minnesota, she specialized in composition and rhetoric and received her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature in 1992.  She also holds degrees from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN (B.A. in English and German, 1983), Indiana University (M.A. in English Language and Literature, 1986), and Boston University School of Theology (M.T.S., 1999) where she studied hymn writing with Carl P. Daw, Jr.  Her primary research interests include the following: issues related to religion and rhetoric, genre theory, feminist rhetoric, hymnology, and approaches to creating healthy academic communities.

Reflection:

This year, 2024,  both Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day are  observed  on February 14, at first, a seeming conundrum.  St. Paul's words, however, offer a  meditation on Love: the  love of God and the love of humankind,  echoed in Lindholm's song of love.

Romans 12:9-13

 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves...

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord's people who are in need.  Practice hospitality. 

 



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