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It is easier to write about things you care deeply about, whether for good or for ill, than it is to write about things that are, well, fine, and don’t really bother you one way or the other.

Such is the case here. This is a fine hymn. Sure. It works. It’s got decent lyrics but not ones I’m swooning over. Oddly, the tune sounds like an introit, and I can imagine using the last verse exactly that way. It’s a bit weirder singing it four times – I can’t imagine if we sang all six verses; for what it’s worth, the two verses omitted are inspired by the Lord’s prayer but certainly are not out of line for our theologies:

Hallow our love,
hallow the deaths of martyrs,
hallow their holy freedom,
hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,
your Spirit turn to language,
your people speak together,
your Spirit never fade.

So…yeah. Decent modern hymn from two Canadians; what’s funny is that in Between the Lines, James has a nice biography of the composer, Robert J. B. Fleming. And for the lyricist? “Francis W. Davis (1936-1976) was a Canadian.” So there’s that. Sorry.

Anyway, here’s our decent hymn, for which I have no real feeling one way or the other.

Let there be light,
let there be understanding,
let all the nations gather,
let them be face to face.

Open our lips,
open our minds to ponder,
open the door of concord
opening into grace.

Perish the sword,
perish the angry judgment,
perish the bombs and hunger,
perish the fight for gain.

Let there be light,
open our hearts to wonder,
perish the way of terror,
hallow the world God made.

(Disclaimer: I know all Canadians are not Doug and Bob McKenzie, but I just could not resist. Plus, it got you to click….)

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I’m not sure I have much to say on this one today, short of what I muttered as I finished singing, and as poured my coffee, and I walked up the stairs to the office, and as I opened up this page: “Hmmm. Well.. okay.”

I hoped for more insight from Jacqui James – but all I learned is that Fred Kaan, a congregational minister in England, wrote this for the opening service for the Christian World Conference on Life and Peace in 1983. I suppose that explains the “for children unborn” line… and the cold war sentiment of “energy wasted on weapons of death.”

The tune is unfamiliar but not difficult, although there are some intervals that challenge a pre-coffee, pre-warm-up voice.

I’m not sure why I am so ambivalent about this one – I mean, short of the annoyance I have at the idea that “life” and “death” would rhyme (except metaphorically). Maybe it’s because I don’t need another prayer – I need action and answers. I guess I’m finding this a bit unsatisfactory today. Oh well. Here are the lyrics:

We utter our cry: that peace may prevail!
That earth will survive and faith must not fail.
We pray with our life for the world in our care,
for people diminished by doubt and despair.

We cry from the fright of our daily scene
for strength to say “no” to all that is mean:
designs bearing chaos, extinction of life,
all energy wasted on weapons of death.

We lift up our hearts for children unborn:
give wisdom, O God, that we may hand on,
replenished and tended, this good planet earth,
preserving the future and wonder of birth.

Hmmm. Well… okay.

—

The picture today is another unrelated image because nothing came up for me visually. Instead, here’s a beloved covered bridge in Arlington, Vermont, which I was reminded of during a conversation with my friend and colleague Elizabeth Assenza. It’s pretty, isn’t it?

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Here’s another hymn I might have noticed if the title wasn’t just the first few words – and one I now plan to use.

One of my regular readers, Kaye, has remarked more than once that using the first line rather than the actual (or at least more meaningful) title often leads us to ignore good hymns because the first few words don’t capture what the hymn is really about. I agree.

What I also didn’t know is that if you’re theologically minded, this is kind of a shit-stirrer of a hymn. Remember when we sang all those nature songs and talked about nature is the gateway for the Transcendentalists to find truth and meaning? Well, Hosea Ballou II, grandnephew of the Universalist theologian he was named for, shoots an arrow into that perspective, saying ‘yeah, as cool as nature is, it’s nothing compared to compassion and service to others. Take that, tree huggers.’ Okay, maybe he didn’t exactly say that – but close. He definitely brings us back to humanity in a gorgeous counterpoint to the ‘nature’s everything and we are nothing’ sentiment that sometimes shows up (I’m lookin’ at you, Whittier).

Bright those jewels of the skies which in sable darkness glow.
Brighter in compassion’s eyes are the silent tears which flow.

Sweet the fragrance from the fields where abundant spices grow.
Sweeter far is that which yields comfort to the sick and low.

Grateful are those gentle dews on the greening grass which fall.
Far more grateful what renews comforts to the poor who call.

What I like about this is it isn’t ‘screw the earth, people are all that matter’ – it’s ‘wow, this planet is so amazing, and how more amazing still is compassion? yeah!’ … all set to a medieval French melody that’s lovely and sweet to sing.

I’m a fan. And I had no idea.

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Sometimes I know what I think about a hymn before I start singing, and let the experience of singing affirm or shift those thoughts. Sometimes I don’t know, and I let the experience of singing take me somewhere, and as a result some of my posts have been more theological, or musical, or silly, or timely, or emotional.

Sometimes I leave the singing with really, no concrete thoughts at all, and on those occasions need to learn a bit more about the hymn.

Welcome to my experience today.

Yes, of course I smiled at noting the lyrics were written by Mark Belletini, a poet and minister I greatly admire and am glad to be getting to know a little. And I knew if I read the lyrics again, I’d see its powerful message, with a second verse that could have been written for today.  Let’s look at the lyrics, and then I’ll continue.

O liberating Rose, that glows on ragged stem,
your beauty helps all hearts lose power to condemn.
Your buds are tight with prophecy;
your thorns, a tougher poetry:
you sign the whole and Gift of life.

O liberating Fire that calls for cleansing rage
whenever hurtful lies distort our present age.
Your dancing dreams our liberty
to challenge each indignity:
you sign the whole and Faith of life.

O liberating Song whose echo now we sing,
your lyric, swelling line rekindles strengthening.
Your harmonies portray the time
when seeds we sow shall bloom sublime:
you sign the whole and Hope of life.

O liberating Love, we hear you in a sigh;
we glimpse you when we see a wet or weary eye;
we touch you when our hands extend
to soothe, or to embrace a friend:
you sign the whole and Source of life.

So good lyrics, right? But they honestly, to me, need to be read, not sung, to get their full effect. But that’s me. Still, I had no real clue about how I felt, because I couldn’t see its arc and direction.

I felt similarly clueless about the tune – it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me: it’s one part late 19th century hymnody, one part mid-20th century modern, wholly confusing.

And so, feeling a bit adrift on this one, I turned to Jacqui James’ Between the Lines, and learn the following:

Belletini’s text was written for the dedication service of a home for people with AIDS, supported by Seattle’s University Unitarian Church. The words are based on conversations Belletini had with Canadian Unitarian minister Mark DeWolfe, for whom the home was named, before DeWolfe’s death.

Suddenly. the pieces of the lyric fit – the conversations the two Marks had about new kinds of theistic language became poetry, became new ways of expressing the Divine, and became liberative. Wow.

So now, the tune, which oddly (to me) is named Initials. According to James, the tune is a present from composer Larry Phillips to his father, with the pitches chosen by a formula using the initials of the family members and connecting them to the pentatonic scale.

No wonder it’s got odd jumps and feels both old and modern – it’s as much an art song as anything. And I’m sure the meter was meant to match Belletini’s poem – no one just decides to write a 6.6.6.6.8.8 for fun.

So…now what do I think? I think that sometimes we write in memory of someone or to honor someone, and this hymn accomplishes that on two fronts. It isn’t maudlin or sentimental – but rather a bit of something old and something new. Old ideas in new language, old forms in new patterns.

I’m not sure I would use it without a good deal of preparation and learning, but I really appreciate this one now.

And herein lies the lesson: sometimes it’s okay to not know immediately what you think of a thing, but rather let it sit, learn more, explore. It’s really okay to take time for slow thinking.

—

The picture is of a quilt made on a Liberated Log Cabin pattern, specifically a Liberated Log Cabin Rose. Quilter Gwen Marston created the style, showing you can liberate traditional patterns and create original quilts result that engage the quilter’s intuition and emotion as well as technical skills. The resulting quilts are modern, funky takes on traditional forms. This particular quilt was created by Maree at the blog Block Lotto.

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This one nearly speaks for itself – it asks the question many of us ask of those who seem to take a perverse joy at the suffering of others. Over and over, in the face of laws and judgments that seek to punish the victims, the oppressed, the suffering, we ask of those people: what if it were your daughter? what if it were your child? what if you were in need of sanctuary? what if you had nothing to eat, no roof, no comfort?

And, discomfortingly, these are questions we have been asking for centuries, if not millennia. William Blake’s poem, “On Another’s Sorrow”, from which our hymn is deftly crafted, asked this in the 18th century. How hard-hearted have humans been! How cold, calculating, and disdainful humans have been!

And this makes me weep. In my heart of hearts, I believe that humans are essentially good, that we are born good. And yet, over and over, there is evidence not only that evil exists in the world but also that some may have a propensity for it – or at least a lack of empathy that allows evil to flourish. This, more than anything, is what causes my weltschmerz – my world weariness.

This hymn – and the longer Blake poem – are intended to swell the mystic chords of memory by the better angels of our nature. To me, the hymn is a sad, haunting reminder of how few actually hear those mystic chords.

Can I see another’s woe,
and not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
and not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
and not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child weep,
nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no, never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

The tune is another favorite – another delicious melody from the 16th century. Its minor key and flowing lines are solemn and bittersweet. A perfect match for these words.

—

The image is also by William Blake, illustrations created for an illuminated edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Learn more here.

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There are some who consider this to be THE UU Hymn – it is perhaps the best well known of the insider songs, used throughout the denomination as an invocation, a sung response to joys and concerns, a hymn of meditation, even a song of welcome to membership (in my home congregation, if someone signed the book outside of a membership Sunday ritual, those who were near would gather to speed-sing this to the new member).

I’m not so sure we’re using it right. Carolyn McDade purposely wrote this as a personal prayer. In a 2007 interview in UU World, McDade reflects with contributing editor Kimberly French on the initiating event, a meeting for Central American solidarity:

What she remembers most clearly was the feeling she had. “When I got to Pat’s house, I told her, ‘I feel like a piece of dried cardboard that has lain in the attic for years. Just open wide the door, and I’ll be dust.’ I was tired, not with my community but with the world. She just sat with me, and I loved her for sitting with me.”

McDade then drove to her own home in Newtonville. “I walked through my house in the dark, found my piano, and that was my prayer: May I not drop out. It was not written, but prayed. I knew more than anything that I wanted to continue in faith with the movement.”

And thus, this prayer was written. A request for support, for rest, for renewal, for perspective.

Not, as it happens, a declaration of theology.

Because as a declaration of theology, it stinks. It’s incredibly self-serving, individualistic, narrowly focused. As a prayer, it is clear and focused and perfect for its intention. But it should never have become The Song. For the … oh, who am I kidding, I don’t have any readers who don’t know this one… but here are the lyrics anyway – look at them as though you are reading a statement of belief:

Spirit of Life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close; wings set me free;
Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.

See what I mean? Great lines, focus on compassion and justice, inclusive name of that which some call God, but it’s all ME ME ME ME. I recall a conversation with fellow Unionite Ranwa Hammamy about this, where we wondered: what happens when you make it a collective prayer?

Spirit of Life, come unto us.
Sing in our hearts all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold us close; wings set us free;
Spirit of Life, come to us, come to us.

Still not a theology, but a beautiful communal prayer, and maybe on the right path …shifting from the individual to the beloved community, a struggle we’ve been having our entire existence (certainly since Emerson shocked the establishment with his commencement speech at Harvard Divinity lo those many years ago).

And maybe praying for us, instead of me, will help us get out of our own way. As Nancy McDonald Ladd described at General Assembly last year, we must stop focusing on the “fake fights we waste our time on,” as others struggle against injustice. Instead, we should be focused on “real struggles and real battles” and not “confined by the smallness of our loving.” She said,

“The world does not need another place where like-minded liberals hang out and fight about who is in charge. … we need to lean into the real fights of our age. … And we cannot do that holy work together unless we are really willing to set aside our own need to win and reach out our hands and seek the deeper understanding that comes with difference.”

Spirit of life, come to us… Come to us.

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Fellow Whovians will understand why I chose the photo I did. For everyone else, it requires a geek confession: I opened the hymnal, started to sing, and instantly thought of Doctor Who. In particular, the episode called “Gridlock” where, in order to keep the residents of earth safe, they are told to go on massive freeways underground – and have been in a decades-long traffic jam by the time Martha Jones and the Doctor show up. One of the ways they are kept hopeful (and obedient) is through hymns, piped into the sound system; The Old Rugged Cross is one of them, and Abide with Me is another.

But that’s not at all the reason I like this hymn, nor should we ever consider it a tool of our alien protectors. No, in the real world, this is a sweet and comforting “old timey hymn” – a piece that some might find puzzling and out of place. But I am glad this is in our hymnal.

It’s an old hymn that likely appears in every Protestant hymnal in the country (and maybe beyond), speaking as it does about death and glory. Even though we only use three of the eight verses, there remains in what we sing a hopeful and comforting sense of something greater than ourselves being with us in those final hours. (The final verse, often found in Christian hymnals, is probably too explicitly Christian for most Unitarian Universalists, although we seem to have no problem with implicit Christianity…a topic for another time.)

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; still with me abide.
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
change and decay in all around I see:
O thou who changes not, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if thou abide with me.

And I’m not putting any extra meaning on this – the lyrics were written and set to an English tune in 1847 by Henry Francis Lyte, while he lay dying from tuberculosis. He survived less than a month after completing it.

This is absolutely a final call for comfort from the Divine on the eve of death. And it offers comfort to those who are mourning – that something we might call heaven, or the light, or glory, or simply rest welcomes our beloved.

Not exactly something we’d put in regular rotation.

But I am glad it’s in our hymnal.

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I fell asleep last night thinking about the questions about end of life stuff that my sister raised about one of my cats, who is about to have major surgery to remove a malignant tumor (Shea is with her, five hours away, so I won’t be there the day of surgery if things go awry).  In my dreams, with death on my mind, I dreamed of my mother in her final hours and how heartbreaking it was to see her go.

Needless to say, I was not at all prepared to open the hymnal to this first hymn in the Transience section, and I cried through the singing.

I cannot think of them as dead who walk with me no more;
along the path of life I tread they are but gone before,
they are but gone before.

And still their silent ministry within my heart has place
as when on earth they walked with me and met me face to face,
and met me face to face.

Their lives are made forever mine; what they to me have been
has left henceforth its seal and sign engraven deep within,
engraven deep within.

Mine are they by an ownership nor time nor death can free;
for God has given to love to keep its own eternally,
its own eternally.

These lyrics are lovely, and I think for many – Unitarian Universalist and otherwise – they would be equally comforting. And what made it possible for me to cry was a simple but beautifully crafted tune (“Distant Beloved”) by Frederick Wooten. This gentle melody  both matches the lyric and gets out of the way of the lyric so that the meaning can rise up and spill out – in my case, literally spill out as tears.

(Fair warning: the next few days may feature some powerful memories and unleased sentimentality… such is the power of music. )

 

 

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“Sweet” is the word I would use to describe this hymn.

Sweet lyrics, sweet sentiment, sweet tune. It’s not saccharine sweet, but rooted, old timey sound and wisdom sweet. It’s the kind of tune (another shape note tune, this time from the collection Missouri Harmony) you’d hope to hear played by a guitar, or maybe a violin, or perhaps even a banjo as you walked past a creek from that little cabin tucked in the woods up in the distance.

I don’t have a lot more to say about this sweet little hymn – except maybe a reminder of its message: take time to notice. Take time to meditate. Take time for spiritual practice. Take time.

What is this life if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare —
no time to stand beneath the boughs
and stare as long as sheep or cows;

No time to see, when woods we pass,
where squirrels hide their nuts in grass —
no time to see, in broad daylight,
streams full of stars, like stars at night;

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
and watch her feet, how they can dance.
A poor life this if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare.

Amen.

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As I dig deeper into this section of Mystical and Meditation Songs, I realize how much I love these songs – and need them. Right now, the congregation I serve only uses two hymns, so there is no contemplative hymn in the middle of the service. And oh, how I miss that. We still have a time of meditation, but we don’t sing together an intentional time of quieting. And there’s something about that moment that is… well, somehow sacred.

This is another of my favorites, period. Not just of this type of song, but a favorite hymn. It is evocative and gentle, set to the lovely Coolinge melody. in Between the Lines, Jacqui James notes that lyricist Monroe Beardsley wrote this for a service designed to show the meaning of silence.

From all the fret and fever of the day,
let there be moments when we turn away
and, deaf to all confusing outer din,
intently listen for the voice within.

In quietness and solitude we find
the soundless wisdom of the deeper mind;
with clear harmonious purpose let us then
bring richer meaning to the world again.

Mmmmm. Yes.

And knowing that one of the members of the Hymnal Commission also wrote a meditation book called Sonata for Voice and Silence, I suspect Rev. Mark Belletini may have had a hand in this being included… because the truth is, we are people of the word, but we’re so busy talking we often forget to listen. Mark’s meditations – and this hymn – call us back to silence, to be quiet for a moment, to “intently listen for the voice within.”

May we all find richer meaning – in our silence, in our encounters, and in our new year… which we hope, in the words of Sherman T. Potter (M*A*S*H), will “be a damn sight better than the old one.”