Apart from being an appreciative student of the classical guitar, I am fortunate to serve part-time in a local Episcopal community of faith, St. Paul’s in Ivy, Virginia. This week, I was asked to offer a prelude for the virtual YouTube service on Sunday.

In this time of social distancing, my position has been somewhat “repurposed” as video editor for all of St. Paul’s online liturgies. This is an unedited performance of Prelude 3 by Heitor Villa Lobos. This video will open the liturgy of Morning Prayer on Sunday (Aug. 23). I put this video together in the spirit of “Visio Divina” – “sacred seeing,” an ancient form of mindfulness that encourages the heart and imagination to enter into image, music, and silence as a way of opening to the experience of beauty, to what seems transcendent in our current experience. This is a distinctively human capacity we all share.

I’m grateful to offer this extraordinary Prelude by Villa-Lobos in the context of a community gathered online for prayer. You just never know where the guitar might take you.