The Power of Repetition

Sometimes [actually, oftentimes] I will listen to a song over and over and over. It's how I learn a song so that I can sing it myself, which begins essentially with knowing it well...knowing it so well that I do not have to think about knowing it. Still, with each repeat, I hear something new...something I hadn't heard before....and that new insight then becomes a part of the song from that point on. Sometimes I hear something during the umpteenth listen that I surely should've gotten all along. Such as after singing what seemed a typical woman done wrong song turned out to be, quite atypical, as the woman is Mrs. Claus and the wrong-doer is Santa himself. [I highly recommend Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World...hilarious, inspirational, and a terrific vocal workout all rolled into one!]

Last Sunday in church, I realized how liturgy does the same thing. I was a guest at my friend's Lutheran church, and the liturgy there is rich. As we collectively prayed The Lord's Prayer, new images came to my mind as we stated "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". The mutuality of God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of our neighbor somehow became more real. The older I get, the more I crave liturgy. It's an avenue to hear the gospel in a manner that feels both more at home and yet new at the same time. And sometimes it helps me "get" something that it seems I should have grasped from the get go.