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“I have no response to that.”

— Angelica, Joe Versus the Volcano

Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh,
shadows of the evening steal across the sky.

Now the leafless landscape settles in repose,
waiting for the quiet of the winter snows.

Now as twilight gathers let us pause and hear
all the slowing pulsebeats of the waning year.

May the season’s rhythms, slow and strong and deep,
soothe the mind and spirit, lulling us to sleep.

Sleep until the rising of another spring
keeps the ancient promise fall and winter bring.

Huh. So…

I suppose it’s right for the season, but my only real thought is it feels like something to be sung in welcome for a Yuletide vespers.

And I sit here really having not much more to say today. I didn’t like or hate it, I didn’t find it moving or annoying, the tune just is. I really feel like one of Meg Ryan’s characters (she plays three) in Joe Versus the Volcano (which you should watch). Truly, I have no response to this hymn.

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Sometimes simple is best.

Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire,
and have not love, my words are vain as sounding brass and hopeless gain.

Though I may give all I possess, and striving so my love profess,
but not be given by love within, the profit soon turns strangely thin.

Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control, our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed; by this we worship, and are freed.

This is such a familiar old tune, and such a familiar old Bible passage, it would be easy to sing it without much attention. Something I am sure I have done countless times.

But it is so rich, and deep, and full – and thanks to its simplicity, easy to access, if you’re willing.

Let’s start with the lyrics – a gorgeous, poetic interpretation of I Corinthians 13, the famous Love passage from Paul’s epistle. I have found myself returning to the passage again and again, certainly once I realized it wasn’t about romantic love but about community. And I’ve preached on it, more than once, most explicitly in a sermon called Sharing the Love. This is a powerful passage, and in this interpretation, it becomes a personal call – “let inward love guide every deed; by this we worship, and are freed.” Wow. Beautifully put. We hear “if I have not love, I am nothing” all the time, but this puts it into a frame we can see.

So that’s the words. Now let’s layer in the music.

This tune – from the British Isles, with an expectedly complex history – is perhaps best known as the folk song “The Water Is Wide.” It starts out as a love song… but it doesn’t end there. It’s about love gone wrong, a break of trust, a test. It expresses the complexity of relationships, of the first blush of love that ‘fades away like morning dew.’ It’s a hard song, a song of sadness, loss, indignance, and still a glimmer of hope.

It may seem odd, but pairing these words and this tune delights me.

Love is hard. Love takes a lot of work. In the passage from Paul, he outlines all the things that love is not, because it’s so easy to mistake those things for love or to let those things obscure love. And if you sink into it, love – even the deep, holy, sacred Love that we express with a capital L because it is bigger than any one Greek term – love can fade away like morning dew.

Love with a capital L takes work. And in this last weekend before the American presidential election, love is sometimes hard to come by, so it’s even more important that we lean into it. Deeply. Whole-heartedly. And if you have questions about how to turn the ‘what love is not’s into ‘what love is, read (or listen to) this from Kendyl Gibbons. Because what Love IS helps us through all the times when we are confronted with what Love isn’t.

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A song that evokes memories..

Over my head I hear music in the air.
Over my head I hear music in the air.
Over my head I hear music in the air.
There must be a God somewhere.

Over my head I hear singing in the air…

Over my head I see trouble in the air…

Over my head I feel gladness in the air …

Over my head I see angels in the air …

This hymn. Feeling all the feelings, thinking all the thoughts, and wishing I had a better memory.

From a purely music and lyrics standpoint, this gets right to my heart, that part of my soul that wonders about God, that part of my spirit that feels lonely and afraid. Even when I’m feeling reasonably okay, this one cuts through all the noise to bring me voice for my fears and comfort for my soul.

And I am just a middle aged white woman in the 21st century. I cannot imagine what this song meant to the enslaved Africans who sang it in the fields, or the black Americans in the crosshairs of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. For them – I cannot imagine how meaningful a song like this must be, how much hope it must bring.

A few years ago, I remember the amazing songstress, scholar, and friend Kim Harris telling a story about this song, about how a young girl in the civil rights era South sang it in church while the cops were trying to come in. In my incredibly faulty memory, that girl is Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, but the details are gone and I can’t trust this memory of a song. I am hopeful that when I ping Kim on Facebook, she’ll be able to fill in the details.

But I bring it up because of this song’s power to signal, to comfort, to communicate. Even to a middle aged white woman, for whom this song was never meant to be.

That’s the power of music.

And it is a gift.

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Another edition of “why didn’t I know this one before?”

I am that great and fiery force
sparkling in everything that lives;
in shining of the river’s course,
in greening grass that glory gives.

I shine in glitter on the seas,
in burning sun, in moon and stars.
In unseen wind, in verdant trees
I breathe within, both near and far.

And where I breathe there is no death,
and meadows glow with beauties rife.
I am in all, the spirit’s breath,
the thundered word, for I am Life.

This is gorgeous. Everything about it is gorgeous – Hildegard of Bingen’s paean to the immanent God, the elegantly simple Renaissance tune by Josquin des Prés (Ave Vera Virginitas).

What I love most is that Hildegard has taken the God of Exodus 3 – the burning bush that declares “I am that I am” – and put that God in context with the whole of creation. Of course God is in the burning bush, because God is in everything, because God is everything, because – as she concludes – God is life.

Gorgeous. Powerful.

And for me, on a morning when I am full of doubts about my call, my spiritual life, my place in the world – this hymn has brought me home.

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Bring many names, beautiful and good;
celebrate in parable and story,
holiness in glory, living, loving God:
hail and hosanna, bring many names.

Strong mother God, working night and day,
planning all the wonders of creation,
setting each equation, genius at play:
hail and hosanna, strong mother God!

Warm father God, hugging ev’ry child,
feeling all the strains of human living,
caring and forgiving till we’re reconciled:
hail and hosanna, warm father God!

Old, aching God, grey with endless care,
calmly piercing evil’s new disguises,
glad of new surprises, wiser than despair:
hail and hosanna, old, aching God!

Young, growing God, eager still to know,
willing to be changed by what you’ve started,
quick to be delighted, singing as you go:
hail and hosanna, young, growing God!

Great, living God, never fully known,
joyful darkness far beyond our seeing,
closer yet than breathing, everlasting home:
hail and hosanna, great, living God!

In my opinion, this hymn needs to be retired.

To be honest, I groaned when I turned to the page and saw which hymn it was.

First, it is a fairly annoying tune to repeat seven times – and it’s hard to omit a verse because then you’re omitting an aspect of god. But ugh – it’s such an annoying tune I stopped after three and then just sang the last line to end on a resolved chord.

Second, it’s got some troubling stereotypes: “Strong mother God, working night and day.” Really? The father God is warm, “hugging ev’ry child” – Dad’s being loving and kissing the hurts away while Mom is toiling away at creation? Are you kidding me? No. Just no.

I’m not that thrilled with how the lyrics paint young and old, either, as though only the old ache and only the young learn?

There are admittedly a few lovely moments – the last verse is terrific – “joyful darkness far beyond our seeing” is a nice turn of phrase. But I am not going to praise an entire hymn because it stumbles into poetic once or twice.

And yes… I get why this might be important for some people coming in to this faith from others who painted a vengeful, controlling image of a strong male God. But there are so many other hymns that explore the ways Unitarian Universalists understand the Divine, without using stereotypes and an annoying, kill-me-now tune.

I don’t want to talk about aching Gods and overworked housewife Gods, I want to talk about a God that can’t be described in trite stereotypes but needs expansive and gorgeous language to give a hint of what God might be.

I want to talk about all that might be God even if we can’t or won’t name it as God because of all the damage that word has done.

I want to talk about what God means to how we live with and among one another.

I want to talk about how we live on this amazing planet in this amazing time of the creative humans and see what we can do together to be together, work together, love together because that is God.

I want to take hikes in the woods and sit on beaches and picnic by streams and gaze out at changing leaves and talk about the emanating from the rocks and lakes and trees and birds God.

I want to talk about inspiring, creative, love beyond all measure, bigger than us but seen constantly in us and among us, present whether we notice or not God.

I want to talk about God without needing to believe in God.

I want to see God in you, and I want to see God in me.

I don’t want to categorize God. I want to experience God.

 

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The lone, wild bird in lofty flight
is still with thee, nor leaves thy sight.
And I am thine! I rest in thee.
Great spirit come and rest in me.

The ends of earth are in thy hand,
the sea’s dark deep and far-off land.
And I am thine! I rest in thee.
Great spirit come and rest in me.

I’m not sure I have much to say – I love the tune (Prospect) and have sung it in numerous settings, most beautifully in a choral setting of Michael Dennis Browne’s “The Road Home” arranged by Stephen Paulus.

The lyrics are much more theistic than its title would suggest. This stealth theism delights me a bit today…especially as I begin planning November’s services and programs, which are all about humanism.

That’s it really. A short, delightful little hymn with more than meets the eye and a lush memory.

 

(PS: The image above is of a tundra swan. Cool, eh?)