The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you’ve never heard of the musical artist, Peter Meyer, then by all means Google him immediately. Peter is a guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, touring musician and recording artist. And more importantly, he was my musical crush in college. There was one song in particular that burrowed itself deep in my soul, the lyrics of which spoke to me on a level I didn’t yet understand but mysteriously intrigued me. Here they are (I recommend listening to it on YouTube):

When I was a boy, each week
On Sunday, we would go to church
And pay attention to the priest

He would read the holy word
And consecrate the holy bread
And everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now

When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don’t happen still
But now I can t keep track
Cause everything’s a miracle
Everything, Everything
Everything’s a miracle

Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn’t one

When holy water was rare at best
It barely wet my fingertips
But now I have to hold my breath
Like I’m swimming in a sea of it
It used to be a world half there
Heaven s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
Cause everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now

Read a questioning child s face
And say it s not a testament
That’d be very hard to say
See another new morning come
And say it s not a sacrament
I tell you that it can’t be done

This morning, outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
Everything is holy now
It used to be a world half-there
Heaven s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
Cause everything is holy now

While there’s so much to draw on from this musical meditation, the one thing I want to gratefully echo from Meyer’s work is the sacramental nature of all materiality. I pause and remember the original blessing (as opposed to original sin) of creation – God declaring all things that God made to be good, good, good, good, good, and very good. I remember God enfolding Godself in flesh — saying “yes” to being a body – something many of us struggle with. Jesus, touching, healing, seeing, blessing, holding, affirming and loving our embodied selves in countless, life-altering ways. Jesus – divine and human – dramatically revealing the pattern that was here on earth all along but we had such trouble grasping: that God was in this place and we did not perceive it. All of reality, all of nature, everything material is sacramental – itself holy and at the same time a window to the holy. If we have the eyes to see

Everything

Everything

Everything is holy now.

I like to think that it was Peter Meyer’s experiences in church life that helped him get there. Though admittedly it can do just the opposite for us, at its best, religion puts it all together. Everything becomes integrated. Nothing is excluded. Mind, Body, Spirit, Soul, Earth, God…
May we have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and all the senses to perceive that God is in this place. Everything is holy.