{"id":525,"date":"2012-09-03T18:22:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T22:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=525"},"modified":"2012-09-03T22:27:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T02:27:55","slug":"all-we-need-is-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=525","title":{"rendered":"All We Need Is Love…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/span>Have I told You lately that I love You?\u00a0 <\/span><\/em><\/span>Have I told You? There\u2019s no one else above You. <\/span><\/em><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> This past summer, I asked my congregants: Send me the love song you would sing to God.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>My plan was to create a service from their suggestions.
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> One congregant surprised me with an Elvis Presley tune. For several weeks, I had fun making my voice deep and round. I went about the house singing \u201cCan\u2019t Help Falling in Love With You\u201d while making beds and doing laundry. <\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> I fell in love with tunes I had not known. \u201cYou Are Not Alone\u201d by the Eagles became a personal favorite. I sang it as if God were singing to me, as the congregant had suggested. I rediscovered melodies and recast them from my knowledge of the particular person who had suggested the tune.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We sang a version of \u201cLight My Fire\u201d by the Doors for candle-lighting. We rewrote the lyrics just a bit:
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>The time to hesitate is through.
\nThere\u2019s no need to wallow in the mire.
\nBring some matches with you, too.
\nThe lighting situation\u2019s dire.
\nCome on baby, light my fire\u2026 <\/em>
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>I played electric guitar publicly for the Animals\u2019 \u201cDon\u2019t Let Me Be Misunderstood\u201d and Toad the Wet Sprocket\u2019s \u201cSomething\u2019s Always Wrong.\u201d (Our relationships with God aren\u2019t always easy and sweet, after all.)
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> Folks showed up to the service in tie-dyed clothing and beaded headbands. The room was filled with color and light.
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> We went through the service. I took a little time to walk us through the placement of each song. \u201cFeelin\u2019 Groovy\u201d seemed like the perfect Kabbalat Shabbat tune. We might read Mourner\u2019s Kaddish as a sweet opportunity to remember what a \u201cTime It Was.\u201d
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> A roomful of people were reading and understanding our Shabbat services in a whole new way.
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> Prayer is about love. It is about doubt. It is about anguish and passion and joy. <\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> What we sing in Hebrew is about all those things. Mi Chamocha<\/em><\/span><\/span>, <\/span><\/em>understood on its own terms, fairly invites us to stand and celebrate the freedom we have been granted, the security of solid ground underneath our feet. Aleynu<\/em><\/span><\/span> can be read as \u201cImagine\u201d \u2013 who among us has not dreamed of the world being as one, without greed or hunger plaguing anyone?
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> The room was simultaneously filled with the wonder of realization and a joyful, happy ease. We sang love songs and we allowed ourselves to experience the depth of our prayer. <\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> Later, a Christian friend of mine who had attended the service said, simply, \u201cGod was in that room.\u201d
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span> I long for such moments. In this regard, I am spoiled by my congregation. I believe our members long for the same thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>W<\/span>as there one love song we all sang together?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Have I told You lately that I love You? Have I told You? There\u2019s no one else above You.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past summer, I asked my congregants: Send me the love song you would sing to God. My plan was to create a service from their suggestions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,129,130],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aleynu","tag-imagine","tag-kabbalat-shabbat"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}