Someone has wisely said, "We have no net of language with which to snare the skies." Deep spiritual meanings and dimensions are difficult to express.

Sometimes plain words are not enough, and so we use elevated language, poetry for example. Sometimes when words are not enough we add music, through which insight comes by feeling, not merely by mind alone. Sometimes we call upon symbols to say things that words cannot: a friend meets a friend, and somehow it is not enough to speak a formal hello: there is a handclasp - and, looking at it one way, that handclasp seems so impractical, so pointless, even somewhat silly - but it is a way of saying something. Perhaps there is a sorrow, and dear ones come, and there are tears, and sometimes no words at all, but an embrace, a caress, which says more than words ever can.

Yes, we may talk easily about the weather or the price of potatoes. But when we approach the deep dimensions, meanings, and values of life and words fail us, we seek other ways of trying to say what we mean.

So it is in our worship of God. It is not by words only that we speak. Nor is it by words only that we are spoken to. Every visual symbol in the sanctuary, every note of song, everything we hear and see, is a means of expression by which we speak to God and God speaks to us. So today, by all we hear and see and say, may the message of God get through to our hearts.