In Cynthia Bourgeault’s Eye of the Heart book she takes us on a journey into a “World within a World.” If you haven’t read this book yet grab a copy and set your sails to soar into the realms.
She shares her personal experience of moving through spiritual thresholds and realms as a result of losing someone she deeply loved and cared about. In loss and grief we often look for ways to move forward without the other person. The heartache and heartbreak is often more than a human can bear. In Cynthia’s experience, the realms are for our spiritual awakening. Maybe they are for our own healing too.
If you attended a church service yesterday was there a song that moved your inner knowing?
Did you resonate with any of the words in the music?
In ‘Worlds within a World’ there is a realm specifically for music. Cynthia goes into a deeper way of talking about World 3 but when I heard her share this detail I fixed my eyes and ears on ‘music originates in world three.’
As a singer and former worship leader I grew up with music coming out of both ears! My uncles made and played guitars, banjos and mandolins. They literally touched the realm that Cynthia describes more times than I can remember.
I saw it in their eyes.
In the way they looked upward.
In the words that flowed from their songs.
My mom raised me on Martha Carson, Mihalya Jackson, and Dottie Rambo to name a few. We would often sing until we dropped into the bed at night. Music was rendered in another realm. I only knew it then because of the way it transcended me. I know it now because love pours out of music. It pours from the Source, God, Love, Ancient Knowing. It pours from thresholds we have not yet known nor have the words to describe.
Music has always moved me. Maybe you feel the same.
At age twenty George Matheson (1842-1906) was engaged to be married but began going blind. When he shared the news with his fiancée, she decided she could not go through life with a blind husband. George never married. Twenty years later his sister fell in love and prepared to marry. He remembered his own wedding that never happened and felt the loss and grief all over again. In that moment George sat down and wrote this hymn. It took him five minutes to write and it required no edits.
I sat with his song yesterday. Listened to the words. Read them on the page. Something reminded me, perhaps my own ancient remembrance, that love is what we write about. That love is a threshold. Whether it is a spiritual hymn, country song, rhythm and blues, worship, classical or something on the top of the music charts, love is at the core of our writing and our songwriting.
I would venture to say, that nearly every song, has two people within it. One receiving. The other letting go. One reminding. The other trying to forget. One embracing. The other trying to move on.
The next time you hear a song listen for the ancient remembering as it stirs you to find the longing or the ache you remember.
The next time you hear a song listen for the inner knowing of where it landed with you the first time you heard it. Where it lands now.
The next time you hear a song listen for the ‘anointing’ of the words. They will pour like honey over the scar, the wound, or the distance / closeness you might be feeling when you hear them.
The next time you hear a song listen for the expansion that is taking place. The ‘World within a World.’ The higher calling of your very soul. Allow World 3 to surprise and enchant you. Allow the song to become a threshold for what has passed and what is not yet.
If we sang this song at GirlChurch we might remind ourselves that hymns also have a story. Like our own story that is filled with pause or regret. Something we wished could have turned out differently. Something that did turn out differently. We would hold your words if this was your song or your story.
I reminded myself yesterday that singing your story at GirlChurch is expansive theology. We take and eat all of it. Like communion, it fills us.
Perhaps this is your story ….
O LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO
O love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Light that follows all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow thru' the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
… Love expands us …
Shelly
In Her Words from GirlChurch
Their words, their stories, and their sermons for how the Sacred Divine Feminine Spirit has expanded them. These shares will occur as Substack Live Events. When you subscribe to the free GirlChurch Substack you will receive the emails and notifications of each Live Event. Please join live as your schedule allows. If you miss the Live event you will find the links here in this section of… In Her Words.
June 12, 2025 Colette Eaton and The Spacious Way. Listen here to Her Words …
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This made me remember that songs are not written—they arrive. Every true hymn is a visitation from World Three, carrying remnants of a love that cannot die and a wound that cannot lie. Thank you for holding the ache with reverence and letting it sing.