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For some people, Christmas is nothing but joyful – everything goes well, the right people are in the room, the right presents are under the tree, the right food is on the table, the right music is in the air.

For others of us, Christmas is more complex. We’re not where we want to be or who we want to be with, gifts are too little or too callous, we are struggling in any number of ways, or there are difficult relationships that will likely result in difficult moments.

I wonder, with Rob Eller-Isaacs “Litany of Atonement” set to music as the hymn today, if it might not be more helpful to go in to the day’s celebrations with a spirit of forgiveness instead of an expectation of dread. What happens when we begin our possibly fraught Christmasses with forgiveness and love?

[spoken] For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference …

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For each time that our fears have made us rigid and inaccessible …

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For each time that we have struck out in anger without just cause …

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others…

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For the selfishness which sets us apart and alone…

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For falling short of the admonitions of the spirit…

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For losing sight of our unity…

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

[spoken] For those and for so many acts both evident and subtle which have fueled the illusion of separateness…

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

It never would have dawned on me to sing this to myself on Christmas morning – except here it was when I opened the hymnal today, and I realized that I was already bracing for what could be some frustrating moments later today. Singing/speaking this to myself helped. I realized how much anxiety I was holding and was able to breathe it out a bit. How long it lasts, I can’t say. But I can say that in this moment, with the day of celebration ahead, I feel better about what will come, and maybe I can at last find some of that Christmas spirit.

For this gift – a beautiful sung response with gorgeous accompaniment by Les Kleen to a rich and meaningful litany – I give great thanks.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

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About 12 years ago, I was honored to be one of ten people asked to pilot a new credentialing program through the UU Musicians Network; it was so exciting to be part of this group, to be deepening and learning and seeing a possible future serving our faith in this way. Among the ten was Widdy, a joyful, funny, and caring music director from Wisconsin, who made me feel welcome even though I’d only joined the UUMN a year prior.

Thus, it made me sad when only a year in, he announced he would be leaving the program to enter seminary – I was going to miss him a lot. Of course, I had to drop out myself, a only a few short months later due to health concerns, and then of course found my own way into seminary a couple of years after that. But I always felt great fondness for him, especially when singing this song. Widdy – known to most as Rev. Ian Riddell – doesn’t know this, but just seeing his song on the page and rejoicing in our friendship does as much for my feeling peaceful and at ease as does this graceful setting of a Buddhist meditation.

May I be filled with loving kindness. May I be well.
May I be filled with loving kindness. May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be whole.

May you be filled …

May we be filled …

I have used this in so many different settings and for so many topics – because we need the reminder. Over and over. Between this and Sarah Dan’s Meditation on Breathing, we have the makings of a chant cycle to get us through all of these hard times – times when we need to be brought back to ourselves and reminded of our interconnectedness.

May we all be whole.

—

The image is the not-yet-updated seven principles wheel; Ian had developed this new way of examining the principles and handwrote it. After he shared it on Facebook, I set it graphically. There are some updates to be made, and one day we’ll get it printed on things, but for now, it is what it is, and I’m glad Ian let me play with his grand idea. I will say this: it preaches really well, this new way to look at the seven principles.

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I woke up this morning with white women on my mind.

Specifically, white women who exist in a different paradigm than I (also a white woman) do, one that says a woman is made for a man and made to support and please him. A paradigm that says feminism is evil and that suffrage was a terrible thing. A paradigm that says the only reason to use this tool of evil (voting) is to support your husband’s opinion. A paradigm that says abortion is worse than murder, war, and sexual abuse.

It’s hard to wrap our theologically progressive minds around, no less our politically progressive minds. Where they see strict rules and hierarchies, we see many truths and equanimity. Where they see clear lines of right and wrong, we see many shades of gray. Where they see a world order set up the day Adam and Eve entered the garden, we see a world eager to shift and change and grow.

The women who voted for Roy Moore cannot understand for a moment why anyone would support a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ Democrat, just as we struggle to understand why they would support someone who is a known sexual predator of teenaged girls and who refutes the rule of law in favor of a singular interpretation of a sacred text. They do not understand us, and we don’t understand them.

And yet, if we are, as yesterday’s song suggested, build bridges between our divisions, we must find ways to listen to one another, to be willing to listen to one another.

Which brings me to today’s song, a beautiful, simple, two part canon that is my favorite thing Nick Page has written.

Now I know it was written as “a reaction to the buildup of the invasion of Iraq” but I can’t help bring this song into this moment in our history, when the country is so strongly and deeply divided, so much so that we’re not even getting the same news, no less having the same ideologies. We are fighting with one another in a different kind of civil war (although ideologically connected to the war in 1861-65) in ways that widen the chasm between us. We are not living in peace in this country, and haven’t for a long time. And it’s getting worse.

So what will it take for our love to break boundaries?

When will the fighting cease?
When will we live in peace?
When our love breaks boundaries.

Da pacem Domine,
Do pacem Domine,
in diebus nostris.

(translation: “Give peace, Lord, in our time.”)

And so the work now is to figure out how to do this in ways that don’t demonize but rather hold those who are on the other side of the chasm. It’s hard, this progressive Universalism, and it calls us to do things that seem anathema; it calls us to love those who perpetrate evil – and to figure out what love looks like in those situations; it calls us to work tirelessly in the face of hate; it calls us to extend a hand to those who would bite it. But most of all, it does, as our pithy tshirts say, call us to love the Hell out of this world. The more we do that, the smaller the chasm becomes.

May we always use the tools of love – open hearts, open ears, open minds – to reach out and break boundaries.

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Hmm.  Welcome to another edition of “I want to like this one.”

I hate when I get to these moments in this practice; I often wonder if I’m being too critical, or too obtuse, or too…something. But this prayerful round, written by UU composer Henry Flurry, feels like a camel – a horse built by committee. All the parts are there, but they don’t quite seem to work together for me.

One issue I have is with how the lyrics land rhythmically on the melody – it feels unnatural to put emphasis on the wrong syllables; this piece asks us to sing “o-PEN my HEART TO all THAT i give” where in natural speech we’d say “O-pen my HEART to ALL that I GIVE.” I think that it’s rare that songwriters can get away with that sort of thing – Alanis Morrisette is about the only one I can think of off the top of my head – and it’s hard to learn a song when it doesn’t sit naturally.

The melody is fine, but with the words it poses – for me – a struggle.

And speaking of the words, I’m not 100% sure I agree with the theology. Now I know that the last time I suggested I didn’t like the theology of a song, I got a raft of angry comments and emails, so I am exceedingly gunshy at the moment. But I’m not sure I like the implication of the second line that I am not already part of the love. It sits wrong on my heart. I’d rather my prayer be one of helping me express the love, or pass on the love, or feel the comfort and healing of the love.

Open my heart to all that I seek;
Let me be part of the Love You give.

Anyway… I look at this song and think it’s so close, I want to like it and use it… but I probably won’t.

 

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There’s a wonderful podcast called Song Exploder, where host Hrishikesh Hirway invites songwriters to talk about the origins and construction of their songs; they ‘explode’ the song apart to share insights about the ideas for the song, and about the various parts as it goes from hummed melody and chords on a piano to fully arranged and produced.

Much like that process, there is a process here at Hymn by Hymn too; I am gonna explode my own process for a few minutes – break it apart and explain how I get from spiritual practice to post. (I should note that it didn’t start this way, but curiosity led to this process after a few short weeks).

It starts with coffee. Or at least the making of… I get the coffeemaker set up, press on, and then sit down nearby with my hymnal. Flip, flip, flip to the right page, and I start to sing. If I’m lucky, I know the hymn, or at least the tune (I’m getting a lot better at recognizing tunes by their name because of this). If I don’t, I do a search through various hymn tune sites…maybe YouTube… and as a last resort, open the keyboard app on my phone to plunk out the melody. And I sing.

I really do sing the song, folks. Sometimes it’s quietly, sometimes it’s begrudgingly, sometimes it’s joyfully, sometimes it’s robustly … but I always sing it. I do that because I know that singing shifts our bodies energetically – it gets something moving in our bodies and our souls. And singing lyrics wakes up the mind, too.

Out of the singing comes some experiences, some questions, some affirmations. It might be a lyric that stops me, or a melodic phrase that captures me, or questions arising about its origins. I think about those questions, as well as my opening line, while I prepare the first sacred cup of the holy brew.

Then I sit down to the computer.

Sometimes I know just where I’m going and I begin writing. Other times, my curiosity leads me to a bit of research, which helps me frame my post for the day. I will often have half a dozen tabs open as I look at the hymn’s usage, origin stories, the composer’s bio, alternate lyrics. Sometimes there’s a poetry page or two, and often some YouTube examples of the song. Sometimes (like yesterday) there’s an email or text conversation with the composer or a member of the hymnal commission to offer further insights.

By the time I’ve done a bit of work, I have a pretty good sense of how to proceed – how to explore my own experience of singing, my own thoughts about the musicology, poetry, theology, spirituality, and liturgy reflected in my experience. I write, then find an image (often from Pixabay but sometimes from other sources), tag it, and publish it. By that point I’ve finished my first cup of coffee and can get on with my day. And a second cup of coffee.

—

Now I tell you all this because the experience I had singing this round today does not match the subsequent research I did before I sat down, and I stared at this screen for several minutes trying to find a way to explain what happened from first sung notes to first words on the post. And I probably wrote that whole piece above as a way to avoid the inevitable.

As we have Shlomo Carlebach’s round here, it’s a gorgeous invitation to return to ourselves, to remove the masks, to get back to what we know is true about ourselves. Return to the home of your soul… gorgeous. As I sang it I felt a bit of release, comforted by this reminder.

Return again, Return again,
Return to the home of your soul.

Return to who you are,
Return to what you are,
Return to where you are
born and reborn again.

But of course it also made me wonder about Carlebach, and if there are recordings of the piece for those who are unfamiliar. So I googled, and I discovered in listening to him perform the song that the lyric has been changed; the original is “return to the land of your soul.”

Of course that makes sense; Carlebach (known as “The Singing Rabbi”) was writing and performing songs specifically for a Jewish audience, writing songs that speak about the Divine in ways that “make other rabbis uncomfortable.” And given that, “Land” makes sense, with its significance to the Jewish people and their millennia’s-long desire to be home in Israel. The idea that the returning again is to a physical place – the land of your soul – is as important as and is maybe equal to/more resonant than returning to a sense of self.

Now I can see how the original lyrics might offer some resonance with people whose lands were stolen by greedy Europeans, or with people who were taken from their lands by greedy Europeans – I can’t speak for them but I suspect a Latinx or an African American might find some connection to the original lyric. However, as a descendant of greedy Europeans, I have no right and no standing to sing Carlebach’s original “land of your soul” – it seems like an affront.

Now I wouldn’t have had any of these thoughts if I’d not followed my process. And maybe I’d have been happy to continue using this song to focus on personal spiritual growth.

But now – even with the changed lyric that makes it less obviously about physical place – I struggle. I know the hymnal commission contacted Carlebach’s estate to get approval for the lyric change, but it still feels like, well, like we whitewashed the song.

And I don’t know what to do with that. Until this morning, and through the original singing, I loved this piece and have used it.

Now, I’m not so sure.

It’s still beautiful and lush, and I’m glad it’s here. But I’m just not sure about it anymore.

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Among the many things I have learned in this practice is that while on one level, hymns are communal, they are in fact highly personal; a song one might love is the very one that another hates with the fire of a thousand suns. Some of my favorites have been met with derision, and some of the hymns on my nope list have been defended so strongly that I have felt like a pariah.

But then there are some pieces that are not only widely beloved but also become useful tools for pastoral care, community building, and spiritual practice – like today’s amazing piece by Sarah Dan Jones.

I asked Sarah Dan if we could chat (and maybe produce a Hymn by Hymn Extra) but her schedule wouldn’t allow for it; she did, however, share some of the background:

I wrote the song just after September 11th. (You can hear the full song here). I was so filled with despair, and I needed to channel that into some hope.  When the call came for Singing the Journey, I decided to submit the chorus as a chant.  Susan Peck helped me set it (she actually wrote the descant line).

The song has since taken on a life of its own.  It was sung at a student vigil after the Virginia Tech shootings (I know that because of an article in the Washington Post that someone brought to my attention.  The text was listed, but no attribution).. It has been sung at rallies all over the place – Phoenix GA (and before, when folks were arrested protesting Arpaio). I have given permission for its use at camps, congregations who put together their own “hymnal”, and youth groups. I have had requests from all over North America, and Europe.  I have no idea how and where it is being sung, so I have to let that go.

When folks talk to me about it (like when I sing it when visiting out), they range from parents using it to sing their kids to sleep, adults using it in meditation, hospice choirs.  Once, a man told me about how he and his husband had purchased two pigmy goats – they were in the back seat being driven to their new home and making all kinds of noises.  The men starting singing the chant and the goats calmed down (I often tell that story and note how the chant it multi-species!!).

Yes. Sometimes a song is just timeless. And while the verses of the full song are in some ways specific for its origins (although some days, it seems perfect for the moment), the chorus, which we sing, is timeless.

When I breathe in,
I’ll breathe in peace.
When I breathe out,
I’ll breathe out love.

Breathe in, Breathe out,
Breathe in, Breathe out

I will say this one thing: the rhythm of the drone (Breathe in, breathe out) is not square, and congregations are wont to square it up, which throws the other two parts off and before you know it, the whole song’s gone pear-shaped. It is really important to have strong voices hold that syncopation down and fight against the squaring off… because when it’s done right, it’s simply amazing.

What a gift this piece is – to our movement and beyond.

 

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This song speaks the truth in my heart.

This song allows me to cry.

This song is a balm to my soul.

Composer Jeannie Gagné wrote it to give voice to “those things which are not expressed, kept within the silence of our hearts” (as noted here) – that moment after spoken joys and sorrows, to honor the unspoken. And more than once, I have needed the quiet strength this song provides; its tender melody matching its tender lyrics.

I am worn, I am tired,
in my quiet sorrow.
Hopelessness will not let me be.
Help me.

I won’t speak of this ache
inside, light eludes me.
In the silence of my heart,
I’m praying.

I keep on, day by day,
trusting light will guide me.
Will you be with me through this time,
holding me?

You’re my hope when I fear
holding on, believing.
Deep inside I pray I’m strong.
Blessed be.

I could – and did – spend a long time with this hymn this morning. But much like the music, the moment demands not so much my words as my silent witness.

Amen. Blessed be.

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Sometimes you have stories you just tell. Othertimes, you have stories that definitely have titles. I call this one “Snoring for God.”

Our scene unfolds as my then boyfriend, Carl, and I are driving in New England. We’d started in White Plains (where Carl’s flight landed), drove over to Connecticut and hopped on Route 7, stayed overnight in Bennington, headed eventually to Rutland, then finally back into New York and home. Carl had had a busy few weeks, and  while I navigated the rolling turns of the road, Carl viewed the beauty of the Green Mountains through his eyelids. In the quiet, I began humming some of my favorite spirituals: “Over My Head, I Hear Music in the Air” … “There Is More Love Somewhere.” Eventually I landed on this piece, by Mimi Bornstein:

 

Comfort me, comfort me,
comfort me, oh my soul.
Comfort me, comfort me,
comfort me, oh my soul.

Sing with me, sing with me…

Speak for me, speak for me…

Dance with me, dance with me…

Now I got through the first two verses easily, but instead of singing Bornstein’s lyric “speak for me,” I began to sing “speak TO me”….

And God said, “I have been. I never stopped. You are the one who stopped.”

Blink.

Look over to Carl.

Sleeping soundly.

Radio isn’t on.

Phone hasn’t rung.

Blink.

And so I asked, “I haven’t heard you. How have you been speaking to me?”

God’s answer came immediately as the napping Carl let out a loud, forceful snore.

Which made me realize – though tears and light so strong that I had to pull over – that God always speaks, through the divinity in each of us. Through long conversations with trusted friends and colleagues… through poetry and music that makes us weep from their beauty… through books and ideas and sermons and films and television…  through the little moments of grace we witness and are blessed with. All of them, messages from the Mystery, all of them hoping that in the spirit of Kierkegaard, we would recognize them in retrospect.

For me, this was a key moment in my call narrative – because it was opening myself up to direct experiences of transcending awe and wonder that would result in some sense of communication (prayer?) that helped me deepen my faith and my sense of vocation. It allowed me to hear other messages that pointed me to ministry.

This song, y’all.

And it’s a beauty. Easy to sing, lush and gorgeous in its construction, soulful and meaningful. And I’m not just saying that because God speaks through it to me; I’ve found this to be a useful, helpful, healing song in many circumstances.

But I also can’t sing it without a part of me quietly chuckling.

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Programming Note: Look for a short Hymn by Hymn Extra later today.

Last night, I attended a concert, honoring 50 years of folk  music at the Eighth Step in Schenectady, NY. The show was – if you’re into regional and national folk – rather a star-studded event: Reggie Harris, Annie and the Crackpots, Brother Sun, and Holly Near. Over and over again, we heard not just great music but about how strong the folk community is and how places like Eighth Step and Café Lena, along with festivals like Old Songs, really make a difference in bringing people together. Over and over again, the people in the audience were recognized as being integral to the power of this music, that folk is a collaborative event between performer and listener, and how we all bring gifts to the moment to create something sacred.

And then I turn to today’s hymn, a short piece with lyrics by Methodist-turned-Unitarian minister Horace Westwood, set to a very square yet surprisingly moving tune (Hamburg). “We bring ourselves as gifts”… Yes. Yes.

Spirit of truth, of life, of power,
we bring ourselves as gifts to thee:
oh, bind our hearts this sacred hour
in faith and hope and charity.

It reminds me of discussions we have sometimes about the three elements of stewardship: time, talent, and treasure. We get treasure and talent pretty easily, but time is harder to suss out. I think this hymn is about the giving of our time, because it is about the giving of our whole selves in that moment, that ‘sacred hour.’ Just as the attendees and the performers and the tech crew and the volunteers all gave of their whole selves for those two sacred hours last night, we can give the same to our sacred gatherings.

May we always remember we are a gift, and we bring ourselves together as gifts to one another.

 

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One of the blessings of my seminary experience was getting to know the remarkable singer and scholar Kim Harris; she was finishing her PhD while I was getting my MDiv. She became a friend and confidant, a mom when I was going through the worst of my heart troubles, a singing partner, and at least once formally, my teacher.

That semester, she taught a class on Spirituals; the class wasn’t just about the history, however; it was also about using the spirituals to deepen our own spirituality. By chance, the group was entirely women, a perfect mix of ages, sexual identities, and racial identities. We learned together,  and we sang together, and often our singing was a prayer together.

This song, with its original words “Come By Here” was particularly meaningful, as Kim tossed aside the whole “kumbayah” mythos and modern meaning and brought us back to the deep, mournful hope of this song. We prayed this more than once as a group, hands on each other’s shoulders, tears rolling, connections to ourselves, each other, and the Divine made real.

I almost hesitate to keep the “kumbayah” lyric in here, except it is in our hymnal and I can’t deny its existence.  But after the lyrics, I’ll share an excerpt from a 2010 New York Times article that talks more about the song and how it got corrupted.

Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.
Oh, Lord, kum ba yah!

Someone’s singing, Lord…

Someone’s laughing, Lord….

Someone’s weeping, Lord…

Someone’s praying, Lord …

Kum ba yah, my Lord …

This article sprang up because “kumbayah” had made its way into the political discourse, but it’s been in the pop culture discourse for a few decades. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but I feel it necessary to share this bit:

“Come By Here” in its original hands appealed for divine intervention on behalf of the oppressed. The people who were “crying, my Lord” were blacks suffering under the Jim Crow regime of lynch mobs and sharecropping. While the song may have originated in the Georgia Sea Islands, by the late 1930s, folklorists had made recordings as far afield as Lubbock, Tex., and the Florida women’s penitentiary.

With the emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, “Come By Here” went from being an implicit expression of black liberation theology to an explicit one. The Folkways album “Freedom Songs” contains an emblematic version — deep, rolling, implacable — sung by the congregation at Zion Methodist Church in Marion., Ala., soon after the Selma march in March 1965.

The mixed blessing of the movement was to introduce “Come By Here” to sympathetic whites who straddled the line between folk music and progressive politics. The Weavers, Peter Seeger, the Folksmiths, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary all recorded versions of the song.

By the late 1950s, though, it was being called “Kumbaya.” Mr. Seeger, in liner notes to a 1959 album, claimed that America missionaries had brought “Come By Here” to Angola and it had returned retitled with an African word.

Experts like Stephen P. Winick of the Library of Congress say that it is likely that the song traveled to Africa with missionaries, as many other spirituals did, but that no scholar has ever found an indigenous word “kumbaya” with a relevant meaning. More likely, experts suggest, is that in the Gullah patois of blacks on the Georgia coast, “Come By Here” sounded like “Kumbaya” to white ears.

So a nonsense word with vaguely African connotations replaced a specific, prayerful appeal. And, thanks to songbooks, records and the hootenanny boom, the black Christian petition for balm and righteousness became supplanted by a campfire paean to brotherhood.

“The song in white hands was never grounded in faith,” Professor Hinson said. “Its words were simplistic; its tune was breezy. And it was simplistically dismissed.”

Go read the whole thing… and please, use this song with care.

—

Kim and Reggie came to the Keys while I was doing my internship; we took a photo together at this great place for Cuban sandwiches.