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I don’t wanna do this any more if it means I have to be eloquent and insightful about hymns like this one.

Now I am sure there were good reasons for the Hymnal Commission to include it. The lyrics – written by Unitarian minister, professor at Meadville, and church historian Charles Lyttle – are indeed a tribute to our frontier congregations: this was written for the centennial of the Unitarian Society in Geneva, Illinois. It contains a lot of personal-to-them metaphors and phrases. And I’m sure, the commission felt it important to honor that part of our living tradition, especially since we can be so Boston-centered.

I get it. I really do.

But here is another example of a hymn that goes nowhere, and worst of all, is set to that damn Nicea tune (Holy, Holy, Holy). And you KNOW I have opinions about that one.

Anyway, here are the lyrics:

Bring, O Past, your honor; bring, O Time, your harvest,
golden sheaves of hallowed lives and minds by Truth made free;
come, you faithful spirits, builders of this temple:
“To Holiness, to Love, and Liberty.”

Ring, in glad thanksgiving, bell of grief and gladness,
forth to town and prairie let our festal greeting go.
Voices long departed in your tones re-echo:
“Praise to the Highest, Peace to all below.”

Shrine of frontier courage, Sinai of its vision,
home and hearth of common quest for life’s immortal good,
stand, in years oncoming, sentinel of conscience,
as through the past your stalwart walls have stood.

Church of pure reformers, pioneers undaunted,
company of comrades sworn to keep the spirit free;
long o’er life’s swift river preach th’eternal gospel:
faith, hope, and love for all humanity.

To be honest, sitting in my temporary digs at SUUSI with a view of the Smoky Mountains, having already heard and sung inspiring music (and we’ve hardly gotten started yet), I am not in a good headspace to be singing the praises of this plodding hymn that, yes, I sang all four freaking verses of because I’m dedicated to this damn practice.

But I really don’t want to wax eloquently about this one, because… ugh.

—

Photo is of the Unitarian Society in Geneva, IL. A pretty church.

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Proof that this spiritual practice has changed me: Whenever I see an adaptation note at the bottom of the page now, I first go hunt down the original lyrics, because there’s a very good chance we did more than adjust some God, gender, and empire language. And there are times when I find that frustrating, because we’ve changed the meaning and intention, and that does dishonor to the original composer/lyricist. (See, for instance, my frustration with Holy, Holy, Holy.)

However, sometimes the adaptation is welcomed – and in the case of this hymn, quite well done by Beth Ide, who was a minister of religious education.

I’m actually going to start with the original lyric, written by William DeWitt Hyde, a Congregationalist minister who long served as president of Bowdoin College:

Creation’s Lord, we give Thee thanks That this Thy world is incomplete;
That battle calls our marshaled ranks; That work awaits our hands and feet.

That Thou hast not yet finished man; That we are in the making still,
As friends who share the Maker’s plan As sons who know the Father’s will.

Beyond the present sin and shame,  Wrong’s bitter, cruel, scorching blight,
We see the beckoning vision flame, The blessèd kingdom of the right.

What though the kingdom long delay, And still with haughty foes must cope?
It gives us that for which to pray, A field for toil and faith and hope.

Since what we choose is what we are, And what we love we yet shall be,
The goal may ever shine afar—The will to win it makes us free.

Rough, eh? I think so. It screams to me of that awful theology based on the Revelation of John that suggests there’s a metric shit-ton of hell to pay at Armageddon; on the plus side, this is saying “Jesus is coming, better get busy doing the ministry while we wait” and not – as modern Dominionists suggest – “Jesus is coming and we’re gonna make the conditions favorable to bring down Armageddon.”

Hyde’s hymn isn’t scary as all that, but it is most certainly not about the god of process theology, who Ide saw in Hyde’s text and in our own theologies. And thus, with some careful editing and some creative loving (see what I did there?) we now have an amazing, if still difficult hymn:

Creative love, our thanks we give that this, our world, is incomplete,
that struggle greets our will to live, that work awaits our hands and feet;

That we are not yet fully wise, that we are in the making still —
as friends who share one enterprise and strive to blend with nature’s will.

What though the future long delay, and still with faults we daily cope?
It gives us that for which to pray, a field for toil and faith and hope.

Since what we choose is what we are, and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal may ever shine afar — the will to reach it makes us free.

Now just because Ide changed the language to reflect a creator god rather than an omnipotent god, this doesn’t mean it’s all light and fluffy. No – this is serious. Here’s what she’s saying: We’re glad there’s work to be done. We are grateful there are still problems in the world for us to respond to.  We’re glad to be part of creating the world we want to see. We’re glad the moral arc of the universe is long so we can help build the beloved community, not just benefit from it.

No really, this is what Ide’s adaptation is saying. Think about this for a minute. I know I keep pausing as I write to think about it. That first verse… lord have mercy.

And here, I pause, and I wonder if this is a privileged stance to take.

How would I feel about this if I were a person of color? Would I stop at the first line and say “no, not so much with the incomplete…I’m tired now.” Or…would I approach it with side-eye and an “oh, so you finally figured this out, eh?” Or… would I approach it with some other view, including but not limited to that which I first approached with – the “oh, we get to be part of this creation and try to reach for the big goal.”

I don’t know, but as I write this, I recognize the traps this one may have left for us. (I welcome comments and commentary on this.)

A quick note about the tune, another gorgeous, lush, beautiful melody arranged by the master, Ralph Vaughan Williams. If you don’t know it, listen to the original setting here – the original carol is part of a longer piece called “Fantasia on Christmas Carols.”

 

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I am in danger of overusing this hymn.

You see, it expresses to me perfectly so much of what we believe and so much of what we are trying to do every week – getting folks to see themselves as an active part of creation, creators one and all in the today we live in and the tomorrow we dream of.

And whether I am preaching about a topic of justice, or spiritual growth, or community, at some point I find myself talking about our role in building the beloved community. I talk about being architects of fate:

All are architects of fate,
working in these walls of time;
some with massive deeds and great,
some with ornaments of rhyme.

For the structure that we raise
time is with materials filled;
our todays and yesterdays
are the blocks with which we build.

Build today, then, strong and sure,
with a firm and ample base;
and ascending and secure
shall tomorrow find its place.

Now our lyrics are from our favorite Longfellow’s more famous brother Henry – from a longer poem entitled “Builders.”  I appreciate the hymnal commission’s cutting from nine verses to three; indeed, the other six don’t add much new but rather emphasize Longfellow’s point in his typical eloquent verse.

Anyway  I really like this hymn. I love singing it and I love the theology it harkens to. And…who doesn’t love a Tom Benjamin hymn tune? Woodland is so gentle, and it’s lilting lines are as aspirational as the lyrics.

This one is a real winner. As long as I don’t overuse it.

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Yesterday morning, I spent an hour with friend and colleague Chip Roush planning one of the services for SUUSI, the Southeast UU Summer Institute (where fellow hymn geeks can geek out with me about hymns). We looked at one whose words were fantastic but whose tune just won’t work for this casual, folky, funky crowd. I said to him “maybe we can find someone to make it a little less German.”

He laughed, realizing that the tune was most assuredly a German hymn tune, as so many post-Reformation hymn tunes are. And while I love good German hymn tunes (see: my Lutheran DNA), sometimes the German-ness of a tune obscures a lyric’s import.

Such was my experience this morning singing this hymn. Truth be told, the title never grabbed me – either I bypassed it because it was too militant about faith or I realized two lines in this wouldn’t be good for an Independence Day service.

But I tucked in this morning – Bastille Day, by the way – way to go, storming the castle, boys – anyway, I tucked in this morning and felt the German-ness of the hymn take center stage. I wasn’t really paying attention at first, wondering why we have a hymn talking about ‘liberty’ and ‘loyalty’ and noticing with concern ‘monarch and creed’…

And then I really started hearing the lyrics.

Faith of the larger liberty, source of the light expanding,
law of the church that is to be, old bondage notwithstanding:
faith of the free! By thee we live —
by all thou givest and shalt give our loyalty commanding.

Heroes of faith in every age, far-seeing, self-denying,
wrought an increasing heritage, monarch and creed defying.
Faith of the free! In thy dear name
the costly heritage we claim: their living and their dying.

Faith for the people everywhere, whatever their oppression,
of all who make the world more fair, living their faith’s confession:
faith of the free! Whate’er our plight,
thy law, thy liberty, thy light shall be our blest possession.

Holy cow.

Seriously. Look at those words, by Unitarian minister and hymnodist Vincent Silliman (for whom a major UU songwriting contest is named). Lyrics that remind us the costs of a free faith. Lyrics that remind us of all who have died and all who may die in the fight for a just and compassionate world. Lyrics that stand up to oppression and remind us there is a cost. Lyrics that inspire our commitment to our principles.

In a very German sort of way.

In this case, I mean strong, forthright, heart-stirring, commanding. And this is a good thing. We have a propensity to be more lovely in our tune choices – as I recall, I’ve gone on about this whole thing before, that the tune must match the lyric and often we lean toward lovely when we need strong. I am grateful both to Silliman for writing these strong lyrics to this strong tune, and to the hymnal commission for keeping it this way.

I didn’t expect to be surprised by this hymn, but I am. And I’m grateful. After several days of cynicism and frustration, it’s nice to have a YES again.

—

The pic is of the First Universalist Church in Yarmouth, Maine, where Silliman served for over 25 years.

 

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Programming Note: If you are going to be at SUUSI, drop me a note – I’d love to sing and talk about hymns with you!

—

Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks of this when flipping past this page of the hymnal:


But silliness aside, I never really looked at this hymn until today – in part because I am not a huge fan of modern pieces that forego time signatures when there’s nothing unusual about it, and in part because I’ve not ever really done a service on silence.

But then, that’s not really what this one is about, is it.

I started singing the song, by Jim Reilly (“a musician,” as Between the Lines says succinctly)… and the first verse is pretty good. I could have used it for my sermon last week on prayer. 

A core of silence breathes beyond all words,
or else the words have little worth;
to “Heart” or “Soul” or “Spirit” it comes forth
(the words we name them matter not).

Second verse – ah, yes, the artistic verse, and yes, pauses is where the music happens, white space is where the words speak. Good. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have been bypassing this hymn all these years.

And half the music lies within the pause
between the arches of the heart;
the print upon the page means less than ink
unless the white and black both speak.

And so now, with some renewed interest, the third verse:

The “True Religion” gathers up its text:
“In the beginning was the Word.”
But I seek quietness behind that start
and name it nothing, much less “God.”

All the Nopes in Nopeland.

Are you kidding me? No wonder UU Christians felt like they had to hide in the back corners at coffee hour, tentatively confessing even an appreciation of the teachings of Jesus in hushed tones.

I am shocked to find scare quotes in our hymnal.

I am shocked to find disdain aimed at a word many of us use to describe the mystery.

And yet I’m kinda not – I am certain that the Hymnal Commission included this one in good faith, making more space for atheists in our hymnody. But ugh, this third verse takes a perfectly good song and ruins it for me.

Here’s what I would love to see happen:

First, everyone take black sharpies and mark out that verse.

Second, some of our poets get together and write a third verse that expresses how much bigger the Word is than the words without insulting Christians.

Third, we acknowledge that, true to our assertion that revelation is not sealed, that in the past 25 years our understanding of our theologies has changed and grown, and that while all UU atheists are humanists, not all UU humanists are atheists.

Fourth, we get some time signatures and bars up in that score. (Seriously, was that some sort of theological statement too? It makes not-very-musical people not very likely to even give it a second glance.)

Anyway. An odd and strange experience this morning.

At least I got you to watch a bit of Get Smart.

 

 

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In case we didn’t get enough of Psalm 104, we have another setting – another classic hymn, widely used, apparently.

I’m feeling quite cynical about it.  I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to praise that which I call God – but I don’t know… right now I feel like hymns such as these are disconnected from reality. I’m having a hard time pausing to praise and worship right now. Perhaps I need a vacation.

But, for whenever we need a hymn of praise, we have this perfectly serviceable hymn, with words by Sir Robert Grant, set to the Lyons tune attributed to Haydn.

I feel like I am letting you all down, dear readers. I’ve hit a weird slump in my spiritual practice – hoping maybe a shift out of the Psalms, starting tomorrow, will help. Meanwhile, make of this what you will. Maybe someday it’ll inspire me more.

Here are our recast of Grant’s lyrics:

We worship thee, God, below and above,
and gratefully sing thy power and thy love.
Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days
pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

We tell of thy might and sing of thy grace,
enrobed by the light and crowned by space.
Thy zeal for the just the deep thundercloud forms,
and dark is thy path on the wings of the storm.

The earth with its store of wonders untold,
thy power and care has founded from old,
established nature’s unchanging decree,
and round it has cast, like a mantle, the sea.

Though children of dust, as feeble as frail,
by thy endless trust we fear not to fail.
Thy wing with its sheltering touch does us mend,
for thou art our maker, redeemer, and friend.

I admit, it took longer than I expected to figure out what the original hymn was. Fortunately, the Google Fu was strong with me this morning, and I found the original hymn text; when Jacqui James says this has been recast, she isn’t kidding:

O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, Whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, Thy power hath founded of old;
Established it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.

Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.

O measureless might! Ineffable love!
While angels delight to worship Thee above,
The humbler creation, though feeble their lays,
With true adoration shall lisp to Thy praise.

I won’t bother sharing the text of Psalm 104, as I shared it yesterday, and it’s long.

Today’s featured image is of a thundercloud, because I had no idea what else to use, and thunderclouds are mentioned, so why not?

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As regular readers know, one of my hymnody pet peeves is a lyric that is essentially a list and doesn’t go anywhere. Brian Wren does this, but we’ve also seen it in that seemingly endless stream of spring and summer songs early on. Look at all the things! The things are awesome.

And here we go again. A hymn, and a psalm (104) that essentially says look at all the things God does! Look! The things are awesome even if we aren’t (because let’s not forget to smite those who don’t believe the way we do… charming paradigm, eh?).

Look. I appreciate that a poet – Ridgley Torrence – recast the psalm. We did that exercise in our Old Testament class and it was amazing. And I appreciate that instead of trotting out another old tune, the hymnal commission found this one, by UU musician Robert Sanders. And more, I appreciate that this is one of the ‘modern’ carryovers from the blue hymnal (Hymns for the Celebration of Life).

But … it’s a list:

Praise, O my heart, to you, O Source of Life,
you are my tide of joy, my sea, my shore,
my field of sky with stars that never set;
now I will learn your wonders all my days,
and my vain ways in darkness be no more.

Your glory is forever, and with dance
you move among your works and they to you.
You look upon the earth, and at your glance
it sways with trembling, and above the hills
a smoke ascends where you have touched their rest.

They wait for you alone, all living things,
to have their food from you, and they are fed.
When your hand opens they are satisfied;
you give; they gather. When they think you far
a trouble comes upon them and a dread.

They go again to be the dust they tread.
You breathe upon the dust, they rise and are.
I will sing praises to you while life fills
my flesh with breath; as long as life shall stream
from you within me, I will sing your light.

Yay for all the things God can do. The things are awesome.

And seriously, it doesn’t get any better in the psalm itself. Here’s what inspired Torrence’s lyric:

Bless the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honour and majesty,
2   wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
3   you set the beams of your* chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your* chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
4 you make the winds your* messengers,
fire and flame your* ministers.

5 You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.
6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they flee;
at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.
8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys
to the place that you appointed for them.
9 You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.

10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills,
11 giving drink to every wild animal;
the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By the streams* the birds of the air have their habitation;
they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to use,*
to bring forth food from the earth,
15   and wine to gladden the human heart,
oil to make the face shine,
and bread to strengthen the human heart.
16 The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has its home in the fir trees.
18 The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.
19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons;
the sun knows its time for setting.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
21 The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they withdraw
and lie down in their dens.
23 People go out to their work
and to their labour until the evening.

24 O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
creeping things innumerable are there,
living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships,
and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

27 These all look to you
to give them their food in due season;
28 when you give to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
30 When you send forth your spirit,* they are created;
and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord endure for ever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works—
32 who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Praise the Lord!

Yay for all the things you do – including smiting my enemies. The things are awesome.

Sigh.

Maybe I’m asking too much of a hymn. Maybe it’s okay to have a reminder of all the things, and to sing about it.

I realize that this might be my musical theater bias showing – I’m of the belief that a piece of music in anything we perform – a worship service, a play, a musical, a ritual – should help the entire performed piece along. Something should be different at the end than it was at the beginning. And list songs like this don’t do any of that. To me, they’re the footnotes of the piece. (And yes, while some of those kinds of songs in musicals aren’t terrible – like “Seven Deadly Virtues” from Camelot – they still bug me.)

So yeah. I may be asking too much of a hymn. I’m just not inclined to pause to say “yay for all the things! The things are awesome.”

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Occasionally, I will remark on Facebook that I have nothing interesting to say, and at least thrice, it’s happened on the same day in August (the 7th), and my friend and colleague Tim Atkins actually meme’d it for me.

But I also recognize that there is more than one Nothing Interesting To Say Day, because today is most certainly one of them.

You see, I could go on and on about the very Enlightenment lyrics, or wondering why we’d have a bastardized version of Josef Haydn’s “The Heavens Are Telling” (from his oratorio The Creation), or grousing about how strangely the lyrics scan with the melody.

But the truth is, I don’t find any of that very interesting, and I’m not sure you would either. None of it feels original or insightful. I am offering no depth of theological thought or brilliant musical analysis. It’s a hymn. Based on a Psalm. Adapted from a chorus that adapted the Psalm a lot better.

The one thing I can say is that its lyrics are very accessible to modern Unitarian Universalists:

The spacious firmament on high, with all the blue ethereal sky,
and spangled heavens, a shining frame, their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun from day to day does its Creator’s power display;
and publishes to every land the work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, the moon takes up the wondrous tale,
and nightly to the listening earth repeats the story of its birth;
whilst all the stars that round it burn, and all the planets in their turn,
confirm the tidings, as they roll and spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound amid their radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice, and utter forth a glorious voice;
forever singing as they shine, “The hand that made us is divine.”

With the exception of replacing “her” with “its” to talk about the moon, the lyrics are as written by 17th century English politician, poet, and hymn writer Joseph Addison. The lyric is based on Psalm 19:1-6:

To the leader. A Psalm of David.
1 The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament* proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice* goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In the heavens* he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hidden from its heat.

Which, of course, is the basis of Haydn’s piece as well.

I know this is, at its heart, a spiritual practice for me. And while I enjoyed listening to the Haydn – a piece I sang with a chorale in Key West – nothing about this moved me one way or the other. Who knows – another day, I might feel inspired. Another day, I might dig into some process theology. Another day, I might feel strongly about the classical connections. But today, it was just a task.

Today, I have nothing interesting to say.

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Once upon a time, there was a psalm.

This psalm, numbered 148, is a song of praise for the universality of God. It asks humans, rocks, cedars, even cattle and sea monsters and frost and fire to praise God.

This psalm inspired a Victorian theologian of Irish descent, Stopford Brooke, to write a hymn.

This hymn was full of monarchical and military language. Kings and warriors feature prominently.

The hymn lived happily ever after.

Except.

This hymn was too much for even modern Presbyterians, who recast Brooke’s hymn to get rid of all the warrior stuff.

The hymn lived happily ever after.

Except.

The Presbyterian recast was too short, however, for the Unitarian Universalists, who went back to Brooke’s text and found a few more lines that worked well and could be recovered.

Those same UUs also went back to the psalm (remember the psalm? the one that kicked this whole thing off?) and grabbed back the birds and the ocean.

They left the sea monsters where they were.

And in the process, they managed to write a wonderful hymn based on Psalm 148 that borrows a lot from Brooke’s hymn – particularly the opening phrase, and which reflects a process theology. (I especially like verse three.)

The hymn lived happily ever after.

Except.

We in 2017 get to the second verse and realize we still have ‘men and women’ – a phrase much needed in 1993 but that we now know doesn’t include everyone.

The moral of the story is: happily ever after always needs tweaking.

Let the whole creation cry, “Glory be to God on high!”
Heaven and earth, awake and sing, to your God your praises bring.
Sun and moon, uplift your voice, night and stars, in God rejoice;
sunshine, darkness, cloud, and storm, rain and snow in praise perform.

Chant in honor, ocean fair; earth, soft rushing through the air;
birds, with morn and dew elate, sing with joy at heaven’s gate.
Let the blossoms of the earth join the universal mirth;
men and women, young and old, raise the anthem manifold.

You to whom the arts belong, add your voices to the song;
bards of knowledge and of law, to the glorious circle draw.
From the north to southern pole let the mighty chorus roll:
“Holy, holy, holy,” cry; “Glory be to God on high!”

The tune is St. George’s Windsor – we sang it last as Come Ye Thankful People, Come.

And by the way, here’s the original psalm, complete with creeping things and sea monsters:

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his host!

3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars!
4 Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for he commanded and they were created.
6 He established them for ever and ever;
he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.*

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you sea monsters and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and frost,
stormy wind fulfilling his command!

9 Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Wild animals and all cattle,
creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
12 Young men and women alike,
old and young together!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his glory is above earth and heaven.
14 He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his faithful,
for the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!

—

Bonus points if you can name the show the image came from, and who the kid is.

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My god but I love Eddie Izzard.

This brilliant, English, marathon running, gender-bending atheist is one of the best comedians living today. He shares brilliantly, funny ideas from pop culture, high culture, history, science, and everyday life – with a wit that doesn’t talk down but rather lifts up. I’ve seen him in person as well as the many terrific comedy specials. And he can act too – I love his performance as Chaplain in The Cat’s Meow. If you haven’t seen his work, go now – start with Dress to Kill, on Amazon Video. (But read the rest of this blog first.)

Now the reason Izzard comes to mind is that I can’t even think about today’s hymn without thinking about this bit:

I recommend watching the whole clip, although the moment this hymn brings to mind starts around 3:45.

If you watched, then you know my problem with this hymn – it was square and boring even before I saw Izzard, and more so now. A simple 4/4 time signature makes it march along. What if it were in a 6/8, with the extra beats extending the second and fourth notes? Just as Whitney Houston expanded The Star Spangled Banner from 3/4 to 4/4, and just as we have both 3/4 and 4/4 settings of Amazing Grace, we could easily have a 6/8 of this one. It would give us room to feel the help and comfort this setting of Psalm 90 aims to offer.

Seriously, these are not words to march through:

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home:

Before the hills in order stood, or earth received its frame,
from everlasting thou art God, to endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away:
we fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
be thou our guard while troubles last, and our eternal home.

This magnificent hymn – considered by some to be the greatest hymn written in English – is nearly complete and unchanged here as late 17th century minister Isaac Watts wrote it. Only a verse of Empire is omitted- and really, you’re not missing much. Otherwise, nothing is changed.

Here’s the Psalm – number 90 in your programs; it’s a fair bit harsher than Watt’s hymn though:

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling-place*
in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn us* back to dust,
and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

7 For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end* like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span* is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

11 Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you.
12 So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.

13 Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

I want to love this hymn more than I do. I love the lyrics – they ground and comfort me, reminding me of what is transient and what is permanent. It is a hymn of letting go. It is a hymn of comfort.

I’ll love it more if it’s reset with a more expansive time signature. Because otherwise, I sing it like Izzard, and that’s probably not appropriate in the pulpit.