Lent: Vision

One cloudy June morning, my husband and I climbed into a tiny car and set off nervously.  The roads were incredibly narrow and the speed limit was frighteningly fast.  Dave was getting his bearings driving on the left side of the road, encountering multi-lane roundabouts where drivers were less than patient with confused foreigners, and experiencing great relief when the busy roads of Galway finally spit us out into the traditional Irish countryside.  The beauty enveloped us, like a page from an Irish novel or a classic poem by Yeats, where the grass was green as emeralds and cows stopped traffic as they moseyed across the road.  I think I even saw a leprechaun by a rainbow eating Lucky Charms.

 My mind wandered to the story of Patrick, born in 373 AD, in Scotland, captured by Irish pirates when he was 16, and forced into slavery.  As we passed miles of ancient stone fences lining properties, I wondered if his hand had dug any of those stones from the rocky soil.  When Patrick escaped and returned to his home, his family was overjoyed.  But one night he dreamed that an Irishman was pleading with him to come evangelize Ireland.  That vision changed the course of his life.  At the age of 30, he returned to his captors with the Latin Bible.  He planted 200 churches and baptized 100,000 converts.

Because of God's work through Patrick, we now enjoy a plethora of  hymns, sermons, and worship songs from the likes of Keith and Kristyn Getty and many others.  But my very favorite hymn began as a poem by an anonymous author in the 8th century and was eventually translated and set to a traditional Irish folk song called Slane.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart

Naught be all else to me save that Thou art

Thou my best thought by day or by night

waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light

This song is beloved by my family.  In fact, my son came home from a homeschool graduation meeting recently, saying he successfuly lobbied for it to be the theme song of the graduation ceremony.  I'll be prepared for tears as all the homeschool families sing it on that momentous day in May.  

It is the perfect song for this Lenten journey, in which my heart's desire is to let my vision of Christ overtake me like the sea wind at the Cliffs of Moher, which was the prize at the end of our perilous drive through Ireland.  

Here is Ginny Owens singing Be Thou My Vision, which is all the sweeter because she is blind.