A lot of people are familiar with the song “Trees” by Lorde. Some people know Lorde personally and some might even go so far as to say that she saved their life or is in a way a part of it. I for one am not at the same level as her, but I have heard the song on the radio enough to know the lyrics well enough to sing along. “Trees” is the perfect song to play while contemplating the great lengths we went to make sure our lawns were perfect. I would be lying if I told you that I never raked my lawn or tried to keep it under control. There is something about a freshly mowed lawn that makes me feel as if I have accomplished something great. Raking makes me feel like I am doing something even better, almost as if my soul is being cleansed of all of its dirt. I wonder why that is. How does raking a lawn have any correlation to the eternal soul? What am I missing? I’ve thought a lot about the things we do in our life, why we do them and how much time we spend doing them. It just seems that these days there is so little time to really think. Just a quick glance at the news or Facebook makes it feel like the world is spiraling down and we just have to hang on by our fingernails. This is compounded by the fact that life, as a whole, seems to be a lot easier for many people than it was years ago. What makes life harder in a world where so many things are so very easy and effortless? In the end, we cannot blame the natural order of things. We have merely chosen to live as if the world is only ever going to get harder. Maybe that is just how I am built, or maybe I am just living in denial. It certainly isn’t as if I am the only one who believes this is the case. The world seems so different from how it once was. Life is different from life as I once understood it. Everything I believed was and is true. What am I supposed to do about it? I do understand that there is a lot of pain out there in the world, but there is so much needless suffering. So much time is spent doing work that could be outsourced or automated. The truth is that there is simply not enough time in a day for everything we have to do. It is so important for us to choose to be creative with our time and not just do as we were told. What do we need? What will lead us to where we need to be? Is the world really going to end tomorrow? It has not been this way for a long time, but why is it that we tend to live our lives like this? If you are ever in my neighborhood on your morning commute or around for one of my afternoons off, it’s kind of hard not to notice the sound. It’s a sound like no other and it never ceases to amaze me how it’s not just me who has always noticed it, but everyone. When I think about it, I wonder why I don’t notice other sounds more often. It doesn’t take me long to hear the bell tower on the church where I was baptized. I imagine that once a week at 10am, the bell clangs like the bell in Lord of the Rings to the congregation. It is so much louder than anything else that is on the street at the time. I suppose that it is a sound that is supposed to summon us to come and pray with our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is always such a spiritual moment for me when I hear it. I would not be completely honest if I didn’t say that, but it’s more than that, it’s more than just the spiritual significance. I do notice the bell. It is the way that the sound of the bell always pulls me into the moment when I am driving down a busy street or I have just come back from a nice trip out to see my mother in law. It seems that I never hear the bell when I am driving home from work or anything. The sound is just like hearing my mom shout from a distance away. I mean this isn’t just like her. This is really like her. I feel her here right now, as though I am talking to her and asking her to stay for dinner. She would tell me that it is the little things like that bell that remind her of the faith and goodness of God in her life. I can only hope that it will be the same for me. We are blessed to have a church with a very strong community and a rich history. The sound of the bell comes from the top of a wooden spire located on the outside of the church. Even though there is a door to the tower, it is not a place that you really enter. It is a place to look out at all of the people who do come here to worship. It is a place where you can hear the echoes of generations of people praying. It was never built with a specific manmade feature, but I can’t help but think that the sound of the bell is like man’s song in heaven, it makes people think about the glory of God. I was reminded of this as I drove down a busy street one night. A man was playing his violin. He was in the middle of his performance when the first couple of notes started echoing through the whole neighborhood. I wasn’t sure how to feel. I wasn’t even sure what I felt until a couple of moments later when he began to play the most beautiful and melancholy violin piece that I have ever heard. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. All of a sudden, I felt the longing and desire that any musician feels when playing his instrument. It was the feeling of sharing something beautiful with the entire world. It was the feeling that I could listen to that music for hours and never get tired of it. I want to feel that moment of inspiration and fulfillment again. I want to be able to do what so many other musicians and artists do: share something that so many people feel with others. The sounds I was hearing were not only music to my ears but music to my soul. These songs are not just beautiful pieces of music but so much more. That is why I was very sad to hear a few years ago that the bell would be silenced. That is no longer the case. The bell has now been restored to its full glory as part of a renovation project that is taking place throughout the building. There is no definite date for when it will start back up again, but it is a definite moment in time that people will be able to experience something that I still haven’t heard. At one point it seems like we started believing that the world is only made of bad and ugly things. In order to avoid these bad things, we were forced to create some kind of a home that would make us feel as if we could control everything that happens. While the ideas of how much control we are ever really able to have are constantly shifting, there is one thing that we should never lose sight of. We should not give up the faith that we once had for God. Faith is not simply a thought, it is not a feeling that occurs in your head, but a desire that burns inside your heart. It is how we truly see the world, it is how we believe that our lives can be changed and made better and better. We aren’t meant to know exactly how God works, but we are meant to try. We are meant to find our own answers to the biggest questions, whether we feel like we have the answers or not. This is where God is found. There are times when I feel that God just wants me to listen to my feelings, to understand them, and not to fight them. It’s times like these that I feel as if God is trying to speak to me the most, so that I can hear Him over the chaos. Sometimes I want to scream that I have been listening so hard that I feel like I might have lost my hearing because of it. While He may not be the God of a specific religion, God’s voice is meant to be heard by all who dare to seek His truths. He is Truth itself. He does not ask much of us, but we must still trust Him with all of our hearts and all of our strength. Faith is hard to find sometimes, but it is the path of goodness. It is only through our faith in Him that we can find our way back to our better selves. He was always there for us, even when we thought that He was not. I feel as if this song has been with me for as long as I can remember. It’s the kind of song that makes you feel a certain kind of way. It is like finding a song that perfectly matches your feelings. The song just gives you that warm feeling inside of you. It makes me wonder how many other songs have been lost in our memories and lost track of because they are just too common. This one is the most common, so it is the most common. We just aren’t aware of it because we don’t think about the details that sometimes bring about a greater appreciation for this kind of song. My love for this song and this artist has been very simple. I feel as if this song is the soundtrack to my life. It’s so important for me to find the right words to describe the impact that it has had on me. I