{"id":133,"date":"2009-12-24T09:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-24T09:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html"},"modified":"2009-12-24T09:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-24T09:10:00","slug":"creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html","title":{"rendered":"Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: Times;font-size: medium\"><\/p>\n<h2 align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-family:Times New Roman\"><span style=\"font-size:100%\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"color:#FF0000\"><i>Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!<br \/>Let men their songs employ;<br \/>While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains<br \/>Repeat the sounding joy,<br \/>Repeat the sounding joy,<br \/>Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n<div>It&#8217;s a theme that runs through the Bible, this idea that the natural world sings God&#8217;s praises, even if we humans forget or neglect to do so. St. Paul talks about creation groaning, in labor, waiting for the return of Jesus. Jesus himself says that if humans don&#8217;t praise him, the rocks and trees will do so instead. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The heavens declare the glory of God,&#8221; says the Psalmist in Psalm 19. I&#8217;ve written here before that God is that which is greater than what can be thought. We now can think in terms of galaxies and solar systems, black holes and quarks and planets. And God is bigger, greater, vaster, than that which can be thought. And this same God is the God who was born in a manger, who cares about human beings, who is defined by the word love. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For Christians, as we prepare to celebrate Jesus&#8217; birth, let&#8217;s look around, &#8220;<i>while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy.<\/i>&#8221; <\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plainsRepeat the sounding joy,Repeat the sounding joy,Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy. It&#8217;s a theme that runs through the Bible, this idea that the natural world sings God&#8217;s praises, even if we humans forget or neglect to do so.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two) - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two) - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plainsRepeat the sounding joy,Repeat the sounding joy,Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy. It&#8217;s a theme that runs through the Bible, this idea that the natural world sings God&#8217;s praises, even if we humans forget or neglect to do so.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-24T09:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two) - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two) - Thin Places","og_description":"Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plainsRepeat the sounding joy,Repeat the sounding joy,Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy. It&#8217;s a theme that runs through the Bible, this idea that the natural world sings God&#8217;s praises, even if we humans forget or neglect to do so.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2009-12-24T09:10:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html","name":"Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two) - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-12-24T09:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-12-24T09:10:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/creation-sings-joy-to-the-world-part-two.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Creation Sings (Joy to the World Part Two)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}