"Here..."

The following is a quote from Chapter 22 of "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness, which was part of my holiday reading material...

The story to this point is that Todd believes all women to have died out on his planet, due to a disease which also meant men could read each other's, and animals' thoughts as "noise". Nothing was private because "noise" was everywhere. Todd is due to go through his coming of age process when he discovers things might not be as they seem. The long and short of it is that he ends up running away from his home town with his dog (Manchee), and finds a girl (Viola)... a girl with no "noise".
As we join the story with this quote, Todd has witnessed destruction of newly discovered towns and truths at the hands of the army who are chasing him. He's tired, injured, hungry, and confused, and finds himself staring down at a plain of legions of unknown "creachers", in a herd as far as the eye can see.
The noise coming from this herd is different to what he's heard before:

---

It's weird, Noise, but almost wordless, cresting the hill in front of us and rolling down, single-minded but talking in legions, like a thousand voices singing the same thing.
Yeah.
Singing.
"What is it?" Viola asks, spooked as I am. "It's not the army, is it? How can they be in front of us?"
​"Todd!" Manchee barks from the top of a small hill. "Cows, Todd! Giant cows!"
Viola's mouth twists. "Giant cows?"
"No idea," I say and I'm already heading up the little hill.
Cuz the sound --
How can I describe it?
Like how stars might sound. Or moons, But not mountains. Too floaty for mountains. It's a sound like one planet singing to another, high and stretched and full of different voices starting at different notes and sloping down to other different notes but all weaving together in a rope fo sound that's sad but not sad and slow but not slow and all singing one word.
One word...
... one word binding 'em all together, knitting 'em as a group as they cross the plain.
"Here," Viola says from somewhere off to my side. "They're singing Here."
They're singing HERE. Calling it from one to another in their noise.

HERE I am.
HERE we are.
HERE we go.
HERE is all that matters.

HERE.

It's --  Can I say?

It's like the song of a family where everything's always all right, it's the song of belonging that makes you belong just by hearing it, it's a song that'll always take care of you and never leave you. If you have a heart, it breaks, if you have a heart that's broken, it fixes.

It's -- WOW...

(As they travel through the herd)

... HERE.
HERE.
We're HERE and nowhere else but HERE..

It's so safe inside the HERE we can talk about any dangers we like.

(and on the other side of the herd)

I still feel a little calm, if you wanna know the truth, tho I probably shouldn't. The song of HERE still feels like it's being sung, even if I can't hear it, even if it's miles away back on the plain. I find myself humming it, even though it don't have a tune, trying to get that feeling of connectedness, of belonging, of having someone there to say that you're HERE​.

I guess the reflection is too simple...
Where do you find your HERE?
Or maybe where do you find you're HERE?

Can we find more ways to make the church both sing and hear the song that unites us, that knows the comfort of the herd, but with an active shepherd?

Can we sing a song that makes people feel they belong just by hearing it?

Can we sing a song that both breaks and fixes hearts?

After all, I think that's what the Father's song is about.

I think God's song could probably be summed up in the same single word: HERE.

HERE I am.
HERE we are.
HERE we go.
HERE is all that matters.

HERE.