Hallelu-Yah
Praise God!
The Power, Mystery, Benefit, Function, and Purpose of Praise
“All of Creation is a song of praise to God.” — Hildegard of Bingen
Sometimes I hear that song and I feel invited to join in. The final line of the final psalm, Psalm 150, sums up all the Psalms and says, “Let all souls, all who have breath praise God, Hallelu-Yah!” Our very breath, the life force that is moving in us, is a praise to its source. And the challenge is to make that praise/breath deliberate, intentional, yet without content or reason.
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I sing Hallelu-Yah to lose myself in the Mystery, to open to the unnamable. With each Hallelu- Yah, I am lifted up out of my small separate self into the larger Self that is united with the One. I sing to open the eyes of my heart that I might see the miracle that was, is and will be, always before me. I sing to give myself away.
I sing Hallelu-Yah to honor, magnify and glorify that glimpse of miracle that is given to me each morning in the dawning light of day, in the steady beat of my heart. I sing Hallelu-Yah to exalt and bless and celebrate the simple fact of existence.
Praise whittles me down to my essence, purifies me of trivialities, washes away my worries. Through praise, I remember who I am and what my life is for. Through praise I am transformed.
I offer flavors of praise — simple Hallelu-Yahs — as a practice of exaltation, of remembering, of returning to the heights and depths of our Divine inheritance.
To listen to various ‘flavors of praise’, go to the following pages: