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Our English ethical culturist is back – this time with a more or less decent song of thanksgiving (puzzling placed in the Here and Now section). Good old Perceval Chubb… who once wrote an article stating that Americans ‘have an incapacity for leisure’ and whose O We Believe in Christmas felt pretty empty and apologetic.

I don’t mind this hymn too much. The first three verses are fine, and if you need an unremarkable lyric set to a square Elizabethan tune that is good for a service on gratitude, then this is a perfectly serviceable song.

We lift our hearts in thanks today for all the gifts of life;
and, first, for peace that turns away the enmities of strife.

And, next, the beauty of the earth, its flowers and lovely things,
the spring’s great miracle of birth, with sound of songs and wings.

Then, harvests of its teeming soil in orchard, croft, and field;
but, more, the service and the toil of those who helped them yield.

And, most, the gifts of hope and love, of wisdom, truth, and right,
the gifts that shine like stars above to chart the world by night.

Where I bristle is the fourth verse. “Wisdom, truth and RIGHT”?!? I checked, it’s not a typo. Not in our hymnal nor in the original. I struggle with this – it feels arrogant to me. Maybe I’m over-sensitive to any show of arrogance or ego these days, but this line screams out to me in a way that makes me shudder.

I don’t know what more to say. I don’t love this hymn, largely because it feels dull and uninteresting and a little arrogant. But it’s not utterly offensive, and if it works for you, cool.

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This is a very long song.

I suppose it has to be, given that it’s about life, death, and the whole schmear. But it is a long song, made longer by accompanists who drag it out – and lordy, there seems to be a compulsion amongst some of our accompanists to draaaaag thiiiiiis ooooone ouuuuuut so that we think we’ve lived a full lifetime from the opening laugh to the final answer.

I suppose that, plus the weird compulsion that turns waltzes into drinking songs, makes Shelley Denham’s song a killer. Oh, plus the fact that there’s a battle in the pews between the rhythm written on the page and the rhythm people want to sing. And to Betsy Jo Anglebranndt’s credit, she tried to enforce a most-certainly-not-a-drinking-song syncopation through her arrangement. Too bad so many folks don’t notice.

And did I mention that it’s a long song?

Now I suspect I have 354 haters reading this right now, but bear with me. Do me a favor and read these lyrics as though they are four separate movements in a concerto:

We laugh, we cry, we live, we die; we dance, we sing our song.
We need to feel there’s something here to which we can belong.
We need to feel the freedom just to have some time alone.
But most of all we need close friends we can call our very own.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love;
and we have found a need to be together.
We have our hearts to give, we have our thoughts to receive;
and we believe that sharing is an answer.

A child is born among us and we feel a special glow.
We see time’s endless journey as we watch the baby grow.
We thrill to hear imagination freely running wild.
We dedicate our minds and heart to the spirit of this child.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love;
and we have found a time to be together.
And with the grace of age, we share the wonder of youth,
and we believe that growing is an answer.

Our lives are full of wonder and our time is very brief.
The death of one among us fills us all with pain and grief.
But as we live, so shall we die, and when our lives are done
the memories we shared with friends, they will linger on and on.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love;
and we have found a place to be together.
We have the right to grow, we have the gift to believe
that peace within our living is an answer.

We seek elusive answers to the questions of this life.
We seek to put an end to all the waste of human strife.
We search for truth, equality, and blessed peace of mind.
And then, we come together here, to make sense of what we find.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love,
and we have found a joy being together.
And in our search for peace, maybe we’ll finally see:
even to question, truly is an answer.

Taken individually, these verses are quite something. Denham has captured something of the UU experience here that I haven’t found anywhere else.

So what do we do with it? First of all, we do not sing all four verses in one sitting. Because unless you have an accompanist who can both take it at a good tempo and maybe change it up with modulations and alternate accompaniments AND a congregation that can sing it well, it just goes on forever and the answer just might be losing the will to live. In other words, choose wisely. Don’t sing the third verse unless there’s been a death in the congregation, maybe don’t sing the second either unless there’s a new birth, the start of an RE year, or a child dedication. Seriously, verses 1 and 4 are plenty and get us to some of the best lines in our hymnody.

Is this a favorite? Nope. Is this on the Nope list? Nope. Am I glad we have it? Absolutely.

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I’m sorry to say I didn’t know this video from May existed until today, but in this amazing piece, First Portland’s music director, DeReau Farrar offers powerful testimony about what it means to sing spirituals in white spaces.

There is no embed code, so please click on this link to watch this video.

We have so many of these songs in our hymnals, and I think this should be required viewing before choosing any of them. In fact, I might link to the video on each post for these songs, just in case you forget.

Because this matters. As uncomfortable as his words may make us, this matters.

 

 

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The Art of Meaning

Art has power to move us and change our lives. But what is it about the arts? We’ll examine the ways viewing, performing, and making art helps us make sense of our lives, our communities, and all of creation.

Sunday, October 15 at 10:45am

Second Congregational Society, Unitarian Universalist
11 Orange Street
Nantucket MA 02554

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Welcoming Worship

Unitarian Universalists are called to draw the circle of welcome ever wider, knowing (as UUA president Susan Frederick-Gray has said) “No one is outside the circle of love.” But how welcoming is our worship to people of color? Together, we will examine the presumptions of sameness our very Protestant worship makes and how to decenter whiteness in the precious hour we spend together each week.

Shaping Change:
Sponsored by the New York State Convention of Universalists  and the Hudson-Mohawk UU Cluster

Saturday, October 21 from 9am-4pm

First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany
405 Washington Ave
Albany, NY 12206

 

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Reclaiming My Time

A recent Teen Vogue headline reads “Most Women You Know Are Angry — and That’s All Right.” What are we angry about? How long have we been angry? And what does our Unitarian Universalist faith suggest we do about it?

Sunday, October 8 at 10:30am

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Westchester
236 S. Bedford Road
Mount Kisco, NY 10549

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Making Worth

Parker Palmer writes that “The journey toward inner truth is too taxing to be made solo.” What does it mean to seek spiritual connection and deepen our faith with others? How do we understand the very human process of worth-making in community?

Sunday, October 1 at 10:30am

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Poughkeepsie
67 South Randolph Avenue
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601

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I wasn’t expecting to have a moment with this hymn.

I don’t know what I was expecting – perhaps a morning of wading through information, or trying to ignore my personal exhaustion with nature metaphors (a product of this practice, to be sure – they don’t come barreling down in normal time), or a struggle with yet another unfamiliar-to-me tune. And admittedly, the first verse rolled on as expected. A translation of 20th century Chinese theologian TC Chao, they are poetic, but after all the hymns that have gone before in this practice, nothing moving this gloomy morning.

But then I got to the last couplet of the second verse, written by John Andrew Storey (hat tip to the Hymnal Commission for an intriguing mashup). “Dawn break in me too.”

Woah.

Golden breaks the dawn; comes the eastern sun
over lake and lawn, sets its course to run.
Birds above us fly, flowers bloom below,
through the earth and sky life’s great mercies flow.

As the spinning globe rolls away the night,
nature wears a robe spun of morning light.
Dawn break in me too, as in skies above;
teach me to be true, fill my heart with love.

Because now we have shifted from a “yay, interdependent web” to prayer – and not just any prayer, but the prayer of one who is ready to let go but isn’t sure how.

This is just stunning, breaking my own heart open as I realize how much grief – personal, professional, and global – I am holding on to. It brought first a lump in my throat, then a tear to my eye, then a heaving sob, and finally a time of crying in prayer.

These are the moments we long for in spiritual practice – those moments of opening, epiphany, release, and awe. they don’t happen every day; in fact, the more we seek them, the more elusive they become. But when we just practice, occasionally the Mystery creeps in and makes Its presence known, and we remember why we do this.

Woah.

—

I should mention the tune, Le P’ing, by Hu Te-ngai (no information available); it was unfamiliar to me but it’s quite lovely and easy to pick up.

—

Photo by Jan Shim.

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I love this prayer.

Seriously, this meditative, prayerful hymn – lyrics by Carl Seaburg, set to a Transylvanian folk tune – is absolutely in my top ten list. I love the haunting, minor key of the tune as well as the phrasing. Some might say the third phrase is too high, but that’s what transposition is for.

I also love the three-part invitation in the lyrics; especially that first one, to find, hold, and then let the stillness carry me. It’s a prescription for prayer and meditation. Find it, hold it, and let it do its work in us. I mean, really, the whole thing just knocks me out:

Find a stillness, hold a stillness, let the stillness carry me.
Find the silence, hold the silence, let the silence carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit, with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.

Seek the essence, hold the essence, let the essence carry me.
Let me flower, help me flower, watch me flower, carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit, with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.

Wow.

I sometimes sing this to myself as a prayer to help me pray. But it is effective for a congregation to sing – although always with an invitation to pray this hymn, which leads directly into a time of silent meditation.

And if you’re not a fan yet, consider singing this to yourself before you enter a time of prayer or meditation in your personal spiritual practice. I suspect you’ll notice – as I have – its helpful welcome and invitation to the Mystery.

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So… yesterday I kinda made fun of the whole “time cliché” thing. And this morning I realized we’re in the Here and Now section, so of COURSE we are singing songs about time and being present. I don’t regret yesterday’s post – it did feel a little cliché to me.

This one feels less so, because, I suppose, it isn’t advice, really, but rather describing a moment of decision and determination. This stuff is hard, but if I’m going to thrive, I must keep going. It reminds me a little of my mother, who, after my father died, decided to sell our large farmhouse in the country and move to a condo on the Outer Banks. She wanted to thrive, not just survive. And while she’d made a home there, and her grandchildren were nearby, she needed to do what was necessary to grieve and find life again.

A long, long way the sea-winds blow across the sea-plains blue,
but longer far my heart must go before its dreams come true.

And work we must, and love we must, and do the best we may,
and take the hope of dreams in trust to keep us day by day.

A long, long way the sea-winds blow — but somewhere lies a shore —
thus down the tide of time shall flow my dreams forever more.

This is set to a Southern Harmony tune called Liverpool; I’m having a hard time finding this one and not another tune by the same name, but because it’s Southern Harmony, it’s fairly simple and rich.

I realize as I am trying to conclude this that there are tears streaming down my face again; these hymns lately are reminding me of my parents, a heady mix of mourning and celebration. And add in a dose of joy, as we celebrated the marriage of my dear friends Lindsey and AJ Turner yesterday. So… emotions are running deep. I’m glad to have this practice to give me space to feel and think.

—

The image is of the Elizabeth II, a small ship that is moored in the bay across from where my mother’s condo was in Manteo, North Carolina.