By |

I don’t even know where to begin, so I guess I’ll begin with this morning’s experience of singing.

As frequent readers know, I’m an Anglophile – a lover of British television, British film, the British Isles, and at least once, a British person. Knowing this was today’s hymn before I cracked open the hymnal, I started humming the tune (by English composer Walford Davies) in the shower, and it felt – feels – quintessentially British. I was transported to the Proms, and a scene from a Merchant-Ivory film, and it reminded me of Holst and Elgar and that early 20th century English classical music that seems an antidote to the romanticism of the French.

And as I shampooed, I remembered that the lyrics are troubling at best. Here’s what we have from the original by John Huntley Skrine, abridged and new words added by our man Carl Seaburg:

Rank by rank again we stand,
from the four winds gathered hither.
Loud the hallowed walls demand
whence we come and how, and whither.
From their stillness breaking clear,
echoes wake to warn or cheer;
higher truth from saint and seer
call to us assembled here.

Ours the years’ memorial store,
honored days and names we reckon,
days of comrades gone before,
lives that speak and deeds that beckon.
From the dreaming of the night
to the labors of the day,
shines their everlasting light,
guiding us upon our way.

Though the path be hard and long,
still we strive in expectation;
join we now their ageless song
one with them in aspiration.
One in name, in honor one,
guard we well the crown they won;
what they dreamed be ours to do,
hope their hopes, and seal them true.

Trust me, you don’t want to know Skrine’s original lyrics – which were written at the height of British Imperialism at the end of the 19th century. Seaburg did an okay job of softening the Empire language, and lines like “what they dreamed be ours to do” is inspiring. Sometime in the last 20 years, an additional verse was added by Kendyl Gibbons:

Never from that summons swerve;
Hark the prophets’ living chorus!
Truth and freedom still to serve
Show the present path before us.
As we dream, so shall we dare;
Hands to service, hearts to prayer.
Clouds of witness call us on,
That a nobler day may dawn.

It’s not bad, and “as we dream so shall we dare” is also a kick-ass line.

But oh, the problems. Empire. Abelism. And a song written, likely, for convocation (this appears in a handbook of songs for the University of Wales, compiled by Davies – with this tune, Reunion, written for this purpose). And of course at the time, we have men going to university in part to continue ruling the British Empire, which is already beginning to show signs of cracking in the wake of World War I. It’s not wonder this somewhat militarized tune and language would be used; even though in that context ‘rank by rank’ alluded to the various academic levels, rank also alludes to the military.

Surprisingly, information on this – especially the tune – was hard to find. A quick search for the tune turned up empty, and it took a while to even find reference to this song outside of our annual Service of the Living Tradition. I finally found a PDF of the hymnal it comes from (for those who want to follow along, click here – it’s on page 303 of the book and 345 of the PDF itself). The lyrics show up on Hymnary, but not the tune, which was a later addition. I finally found a recording of the tune here, in an obscure section of a folksinger’s website (Mary Ellen Wessels). I should also note that this was in Hymns of the Spirit and Hymns for the Celebration of Life, so it has a long history in our liberal religious tradition.

But the search, and my experience with this hymn, is frustrating and complex. And this is a hymn most of us sing once or twice a year. Has anyone sung this when they’re not processing at an ordination, installation, or Service of the Living Tradition? And most of us dislike the song but love the pomp and circumstance. A few still love it, and so it stays as part of our tradition. Can we redeem it? It seems that every year after General Assembly, we talk on Facebook about different lyrics – suggestions include

Rank by rank again we meet,
from the four winds gathered hither.
Loud the hallowed walls entreat
whence we come and how, and whither.

or

Rank by rank come we once more,
from the four winds gathered hither.
Loud the hallowed walls implore
whence we come and how, and whither.

or

We can get rid of it altogether for these handful of times a year, because while it is an historic part of our living tradition, we are easily able to preserve it (see the piles of old hymnals we have) and – because our living tradition CHANGES – we can choose something new. When I hear about how different the Service of the Living Tradition was not that long ago, it seems strange that we have such a fuss over changing the music we use. And if it makes us better as a result, why not?

And… I will still hum this tune now and then because it’s pretty good for a school processional.

—

Photo (via UU World) is of Rev. Cheryl Walker preaching at the 2017 Service of the Living Tradition.

By |

I started singing this morning before I opened the hymnal, because I knew what today’s song would be. “Bright morning star’s a-risin’…” I sang.

And then I looked at our lyrics – “Bright morning stars are rising” – and thought, huh? Isn’t there just one morning star – the sun, or if we go Christian on it, Jesus? And which one’s right? This led me down the inevitable rabbit hole of learning more about the origins of the song and its original lyrics and tune. Surely I could get there and enlighten us all.

There is no “there” there.

Origins are sketchy – maybe Appalachian, someone hinted at Native American, someone else wondered about the Shakers, still another pinned it back to Ireland. And lyrics are sketchier still – seems some versions have been lengthily written to talk more about Jesus as the bright morning star, other versions more grounded in work and toil. And of course, there’s a debate on whether it’s “bright morning star’s a-rising” or “bright morning stars are rising”…

Bright morning stars are rising.
Bright morning stars are rising.
Bright morning stars are rising.
Day is a-breaking in my soul.

Oh, where are our dear mothers…

They are sowing seeds of gladness…

Oh, where are our dear fathers…

They are in the fields a-plowing…

The good news is that because of it’s long folk history, we can change some of our lyrics to remove the gender binary or add more verses to include others.

I know this is the first of our Entrance songs, but it is so wistful and somber to me, I couldn’t imagine using it that way. This always seems to me a song of hard-won joy or a longing for release. The “day is a-breaking” reminds me of the moment I had a few days ago with the line “Dawn breaks in me too” from Golden Skies at Dawn…. a releasing moment of prayer.

So. No clarity on this one, so make it your own. And if you’re not sure you can do that, start with this beautiful version by the Wailin’ Jennys:

By |

Among the things I have learned in almost a year of doing this practice is that I am sometimes the outlier – sometimes I see something in a hymn others don’t see that makes me anxious or angry or bored. I know some of it is that I do this before the coffee’s kicked in, but really, there are times that I just don’t get why we would want to include a particular song as part of our living tradition, as it feels wrong to me.

I say all this because I suspect few will feel as I do about this hymn, with lyrics by Alicia Carpenter, set to the haunting Guter Hilte tune: This hymn is scolding me, the way a Hobbit might have scolded Bilbo or Frodo.

Will you seek in far-off places?
Surely you come home at last;
in familiar forms and faces,
things best known, you find the best.

Joy and peace are in this hour,
here, not in another place.
Here in this beloved flower;
now, in this beloved face.

I can’t even with this one. “Surely you come home at last” because of course family’s the best. What if family isn’t the best and is in fact harmful? What if we want to see the world? What if we are called to another place? What if home is a landscape with flowers that don’t inspire but far off is the one that comforts our soul?

Look. I get that this is about appreciating what we have around us, and if it’s true that Carpenter was inspired by a Walt Whitman poem I can’t seem to find (Between the Lines notes that it’s inspired by “Here and Now” – anyone know what poem it’s talking about?), then it’s got that whole transcendentalist thing happening.

But surely you shouldn’t scold me into staying where I don’t want to be, or looking for something more.

By |

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.

By |

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.

By |

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.

By |

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.

By |

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.

By |

Carpe diem. Que sera, sera. There’s no time like the present. You can’t turn back time.  Learn from yesterday, live today, hope for tomorrow. Time marches on. All the lyrics to this hymn.

Welcome, my friends, to the Henry Blake Cliché Festival (A M*A*S*H reference? Joe Cleveland’s right – I am old) … er, I mean, our hymn about time. John Andrew Storey sets to music (the McKee tune, which we last sang in Freedom Spans both East and West) the cliché of all clichés, that of time marching on and us living in the present.

I mean, it’s a fine sentiment, and useful at those moments when we must haul out all the old wisdom about time marching on; I imagine this would be useful after a significant hardship, or at the New Year, or in services about the eternal Now.

The ceaseless flow of endless time no one can check or stay;
we’ll view the past with no regret, nor future with dismay.

The present slips into the past, and dreamlike melts away;
the breaking of tomorrow’s dawn begins a new today.

The past and future ever meet in the eternal now:
to make each day a thing complete shall be our New Year vow.

But it surely is a bit of a cliché.

Not saying I won’t use it, but only if it truly serves the service.

By |

On December 9th, this tune first appeared, and I suggested that “later in the hymnal, we sing the usual words.” Well, that ‘later’ is today, and while the first three words are the same as the usual words, that is where ‘usual’ ends. And so I stand here in my wrongness being wrong.

And thank all that is holy that I am.

You see, the original words – from a Dutch hymn written in the 1600s, when they were fighting for their independence from the Spanish – are quite different:

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

The original is a song of liberation, and gets tagged onto Thanksgiving only around World War I, as it appears in American hymnals only around 1903. The lyrics continue, by the way, in the same “God is on our side in this conflict” vein. Which makes its association with the Thanksgiving holiday even more awful. ::::shudder::::

So much for the usual song with the usual words.

Thankfully, two modern-day Unitarian Universalists, Dorothy Caiger Senghas and Rev. Robert Sengas, wrote new lyrics, for a Thanksgiving Sunday.

We gather together in joyful thanksgiving,
acclaiming creation, whose bounty we share;
both sorrow and gladness we find now in our living,
we sing a hymn of praise to the life that we bear.

We gather together to join in the journey,
confirming, committing our passage to be
a true affirmation, in joy and tribulation,
when bound to human care and hope — then we are free.

Now this is a Thanksgiving hymn I can get behind. Sure, it’s in the Hope section, but it is definitely worth putting on the Thanksgiving list too. And if you really want to do it right, sing the first verse as your opening words and the last verse as your closing words, because they would frame a message of gratitude calling us together and calling us onwards to the work of our faith.