Both Common and Miraculous

I once heard a songwriter I greatly admire talk about songwriting. He said that every song begins with a seed. It could be a phrase you hear in conversation, a story that captures your imagination, or just a fresh idea you think might be worth fleshing out. Or maybe it is musical: an interesting chord progression or melodic fragment. Whatever it may be, there is a moment of recognition. You hear a phrase or story and think, “Hmm. There might be a song there.”

He called the phenomenon the “seed” of songwriting. No one else sees it or hears it, which makes sense considering there is nothing present yet to see or hear; it is just potential. Similarly, thousands of feet may pass by a fallen seed on the ground and think nothing of it. Why would they? There is nothing there yet. It takes someone who recognizes the seed, who picks it up, takes time to plant it in the earth, to water it and care for it. Given time and attention, the potential latent in that small seed can blossom into something truly significant and beautiful. The same is true for the seed of a song. It takes time and attention, yes. But first it takes recognition.

The seed of this song was discovered in a very unlikely place.

I am privileged to serve as a doctoral thesis supervisor for the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. In this role, I get to assist doctoral students as they cross the finish line to earn that terminal degree toward which they’ve been working so hard. The role, of course, involves a lot of reading and editing. And while I do enjoy it, reading academic papers is not typically the most, oh…creatively inspiring, let’s say…reading that one can do.

A couple of months ago, however, I stumbled across a phrase that immediately struck a chord with me–the seed of a song, though I didn’t immediately know it. I just knew I liked the phrase. In a section discussing God’s provision of manna for the Israelites in the desert, the student wrote that God offered a banquet of “one food, both common and miraculous.” Those words immediately jumped off the page. They so succinctly sum up a fundamental aspect of God’s engagement with the world. God gifts us and meets us in the ordinary and thus infuses it with extraordinary significance. With God, the common and the miraculous are not two separate things. What feeds our bodies feeds equally our souls when we recognize it as the miraculous manifestation of the grace of the One feeding us.

Think of a baby feeding at her mother’s chest. She is not only receiving the nutrients needed to sustain her tiny body; she is receiving significantly more through the trusting intimacy, care, and physical touch of her mother. They are not two separate things, the mother’s milk and the mother’s love. They are joined and received as one food, both common and miraculous.

That, I believe, is how God fed his people in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land, and how he continues to feed his people at each Table set between Cross and New Creation. The bread and the grace of God are not two separate things. What tastes only of grain, is actually the grace of God made manifest, grace made tangible. Whether falling from heaven or growing up from the earth, bread is God’s grace in physical form, able to be touched and tasted. It is one food–both common and miraculous. When we recognize this, it is not the meal that is transformed; it is we who are transformed as we receive the bread for what it truly is.

I don’t remember any of that being in the student’s paper, by the way. Just those six simple words: “one food, both common and miraculous.” But that is how songwriting often works. A small seed takes root, buries itself for a time, and blossoms into a song.

Credits

Words & Music: Bill Wolf
Vocals: Makayla Millington and Bill Wolf