In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth…. Genesis 1:1 (NRSV)

One of my top favorite movie musicals is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, and the other one is Jerry Bock’s Fiddler on the Roof. Underlying both are religious themes and this may explain partially their particular appeal to me.

In The Sound of Music the nun-governess Maria discovers that the von Trapp children have had no experience singing. On an Austrian mountainside she teaches them by singing: “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with A – B – C, when you sing you begin with Do – Re – Mi.”

Before math and counting, before 1 – 2 – 3; there was God!

Before languages and alphabets (A – B – C); there was God!

Before music and “Do – Re – Mi”; there was God!

Before there was anything; there was God! This is a great mystery and one which we accept on faith. In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth, God set into motion the creation of everything that would follow. Our reactions: amazement and awe as we look with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our noses, taste with our mouths or touch with our fingers! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Prayer

O God, we read, “In the beginning when You created the heaven and the earth,” we marvel at all Your hands have made. We bow in reverence acknowledging that before there was anything You were, are and always will be. Help us to cherish the mystery and to be filled always with amazement and awe as we look around us, above us and beneath us. Amen.