Singing and dancing

Psalm is a beautiful poem by Michellan Sarile-Alagao, which I read this morning, after my quiet time. Psalm appears in page 37 of her collection, After the Sunstone. Prof. Marjorie Evasco referred to this piece in the foreword as her favorite. 

I would like to you to sing over me
a song of deliverance. 

I am tired of singing to you,

offering praises that don't get past the ceiling. 

If this is presumptuous, 

then I know I am forgiven already.

I am a little girl—dancing, demanding:

Look at me. Look at me. 

I am a child ready to play hide and see,

ready to be found.

Oh Lord, remind us that we were loved into being. 

Shout it, if you must.

Let that fact be the music I dance to,

and the song that finds me.

The poem resonates with my personal Christian theological convictions. God sings and is happy. God forgives and justifies us completely, not on the basis of our goodness, but on His unmerited love. "We were loved into being"—don't you just love that line? This realization moves the poet that this becomes the music she dances to. It is also the song that finds her. I can't help myself but remember the Parable of the Lost Sheep:

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.