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Later this morning, I am leading our congregation’s Teach In on White Supremacy, joining over 600 Unitarian Universalist congregations around the country in examining the larger cultural systems that even progressive organizations like ourselves don’t realize we’re perpetuating.

In this service, I am preferencing the words of people of color, letting their words inform and minister to my largely elderly, almost entirely white congregation. To pontificate myself would do a huge disservice, for how can I possibly speak for those whose pain, fear, anger, and sorrow I can never know?

Similarly, I find myself unable to talk much about this song, which holds such deep resonance for the descendants of enslaved Africans, for whom this song spoke of hope, salvation, and freedom. It may have been a coded song, although its origins in 1825 or so tell us it was being sung was before the Underground Railroad, and certainly before the US Colored Infantry and US Colored Troops, which some say the original lyric “soldiers of the cross” alludes to.

What I know is that there is a deep, soulful, melancholy to this song that I can never understand for myself but can hear from others, most powerfully, to me, from Sweet Honey in the Rock:

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
we are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
we are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
we are climbing on.

Ev’ry round goes higher, higher…

If I stumble, will you help me? …

Though the road is steep and rugged…

Amen.

—

Painting of Jacob’s Ladder is by Marc Chagall

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In the first semester of a masters of divinity program at Union Theological Seminary, you are required to take a course in the Old Testament (with New Testament in the spring). Along with thrice weekly lectures with the professor, you also have a 90-minute “tutorial” with a teaching fellow, where you and nine of your new best friends review and deepen knowledge of the material. In my case, it included some spectacular moments of insight, incredibly emotional explorations of troubling texts, along with some hysterical moments, out and out buffoonery, and cooing over new puppies.

While many moments from that tutorial stick out to me, the one that I am remembering now, and which actually relates to the hymn is when we were doing Isaiah. Now many of you are well educated and know that the Biblical texts were written by many different hands at many different times. But it may come as a surprise to some that some entire books were written by various people; this is the case with Isaiah, from which our lyric comes.

Our teaching fellow, Amy, helped us understand the reasons why texts might be attributed to an earlier writer or teacher, and that we could tell through linguistic study, along with theme and theology, which was the original Isaiah text, and which came after. Amy was gentle, saying she learned her lesson after teaching a Sunday school class at a Southern Baptist church while she was at a southern university.

“These poor old church ladies lost their minds when I told them about Second Isaiah – they couldn’t believe they’d been misled their whole lives. One of them went screaming down the hall to the pastor’s office. Another nearly fainted. As I watched them fall apart, I changed the next part of my lesson plan. I didn’t have the heart to tell them about Third Isaiah.”

This text is actually from Second Isaiah, or Dutero-Isaiah, a gorgeous affirmation to the exiled Judeans that their God would not abandon them.

And it’s helpful in these days, even for us with our various understandings of the Divine, as it turns our gaze back to the interdependent web and the lessons the earth can teach us.

O come, you longing thirsty souls, drink freely from the spring.
And come, you weary, famished folk, and end your hungering.
Why spend yourself on empty air? Why not be satisfied?
For everywhere a feast is spread that’s always at our side.

For as the rain and snow above fall not in vanity,
but for this purpose water earth: to feed humanity.
So shall the word of spirit serve as seed within our loam,
that we may bear so rich a yield as brings the harvest home.

For we shall go in peace secure and leave in joy sublime!
The hills outside will burst with song, the trees will clap in time!
No more shall thorns and nettles grow! The bay tree and the pine
shall sign for us th’eternal Name that makes the world a shrine.

This is the third time so far we’ve used Ralph Vaughan Williams’ tune Forest Green (see All Beautiful the March of Days and The Sweet June Days. It’s not the most familiar for me, but it’s quickly growing to be my favorite use, at least today. I return again and again to its gentle lilt and cheer. This is a lyric I find particularly well suited to the tune, as it invokes hope.

And lord knows, we could use a little hope these days.

 

You may wonder why I chose this drawing of three owls for this hymn. Well, first, owls are cool. But more, but I love that the artist, Isaiah Stephens, said, “I added a Snowy Owl and a Barn Owl to my original Owl Sketch.” First, Second, and Third Isaiah, indeed.

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This is one of those hymns that make you go “huh!” (And that isn’t a bad thing.)

First “huh” – it’s a Pentecost song, most definitely, stuck in the Worship section. And I go “huh, is that so we’ll use it, because some music directors and ministers will flip right by that liturgical season?”

Second “huh” – it’s a spiritual from the 18th century, with unknown origins. And I go “huh, check out that coded language in the second verse, pointing to the Underground Railroad!”

(Chorus)
Ev’ry time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart, I will pray.
Yes, ev’ry time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart, I will pray.

Upon the mountain, my God spoke,
o’er the mount came fire and smoke.
All around me looks so shine,
ask my God if all was mine.

(Chorus)

The River Jordan runs right cold,
chills the body, not the soul.
Ain’t but one train on this track,
runs to heaven and right back.

(Chorus)

Third “huh” – the first hit I get when putting this title into Google is Nat King Cole. “Huh, I didn’t know he did an album of hymns and spirituals…. is it sacrilege that I don’t like this version?”

Fourth “huh” I wonder if I can find a less late-50s-good-for-the-white-Ed-Sullivan-audience version on YouTube version to share with y’all, because “huh – this is a song you need to experience, not talk about.”

I did spend a long time listening to versions – and there are a plethora out there. But my eye was caught by the suggestion that the African American choral composer and arranger Moses Hogan did an arrangement of this song, and so I started listening to those. To be honest, there are a LOT of bad versions, mostly sung by high school and college ensembles. There’s the overproduced version by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, too, and men-only or women-only versions.

But “huh” happened again, when I found a version that really moved me, by the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines. Here they are, in some traditional garb (which is reflective of the Spanish influence on the indigenous culture, something I learned about during my CPE unit with a Filipino supervisor). I love this version, because there is such life and light in the soloist’s voice, demeanor, and eyes.

Enjoy. Feel the spirit.

 

Postscript: Sorry these are coming out so late these days – I seem to be experiencing a shift in my sleep habits since Easter. We’ll see if this is the new pattern or if I’ll go back to rising earlier.

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Hmm.

I’ve been staring at the screen for longer than is helpful, thinking about this hymn and what to say about it, wondering what it really is I feel about it that’s quantifiable. There’s something about it that bugs me, which actually makes me sad, as it’s perfectly suited for the beloved Hyfrodol hymn tune, and I’m always happy to connect the earth and our sense of the Divine.

I can see why, in 1993, it won a competition held by the Hymnal Commission, seeking new hymns. This lyric, by UU Quaker Roberta Bard, has everything you could want, for its time. And I say that, because as Jacqui James points out in Between the Lines, “her lyrics reflect her concern for gender-inclusive and spiritually-inclusive language.”

In 1993, I could see how this would be true.

And yet.

By now, you now I will point out the binaries, which 25 years ago was fine, but as we now know doesn’t accurately reflect our current understanding of a gender spectrum. (I recently saw someone brilliantly compare this new understanding to the relatively late human understanding of the color blue.)

But even that’s not quite what’s stuck in my craw.

I think it’s that I bristle against the use of the Genesis lens, the idea that earth was given to humans, as though we were so special that all of this is ours to do with as we wish:

Earth was given as a garden, cradle for humanity;
tree of life and tree of knowledge placed for our discovery.
Here was home for all your creatures born of land and sky and sea;
all created in your image, all to live in harmony.

Show to us again the garden where all life flows fresh and free.
Gently guide your sons and daughters into full maturity.
Teach us how to trust each other, how to use for good our power,
how to touch the earth with rev’rence. Then once more will Eden flower.

Bless the earth and all your children, one creation: make us whole,
interwoven, all connected, planet wide and inmost soul.
Holy mother, life bestowing, bid our waste and warfare cease.
Fill us all with grace o’erflowing. Teach us how to live in peace.

I know Bard tries to redeem it in the third verse, making sure we know we’re part of one creation, but it feels too little too late for me. I know it’s hard to say I don’t love this hymn, given that there’s a lot of good stuff within it, but it has an overall feeling of ‘ick’ to me. The parts do not make up a good whole.

One more thing – and this is something I would not have thought of except for a long conversation with my colleague Marisol Caballero, whose ancestors are from east Texas long before Europeans conquered the Americas. When we talk about discovery in connection to land, it reinforces a long and hard doctrine of discovery that dates back to the 16th century, which “sanctioned and promoted the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian territories and peoples.” This isn’t to say that discovery in and of itself isn’t important – Mari would likely agree with me that discovering new cures, new planets, and new species is pretty awesome. But ‘discovery’ of lands that are inhabited already and taking dominion over them? Not cool. And that first verse suggests we do just that with the entire earth.

(I should note that our memories are short – this is all we talked about just five years ago when we prepared for Justice GA in Arizona.)

So yeah. I’m not a fan of this hymn – despite some good parts, and despite its award-winning status 25 years ago. It’s proof that as times goes on, our knowledge and our faith evolves.

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Before the hymn, I want to address a comment: On the Facebook comments for yesterday’s post, a colleague noted with  surprise that I actually liked one, as though I hate our hymns and this is a chore.

I’m surprised that this came up, and maybe that colleague is the only one who thinks that, but it is absolutely worth addressing in case that colleague is the only one who felt brave enough to say it.

Do I hate our hymns? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, it is true there are hymns I am not fond of here, and occasionally one I out and out hate and would rip out of the book and sear from our memories if only I had that kind of power (and didn’t like the hymn on the next page). But there are many more I like, and yes, quite a few I adore.

And still, the ones I like and love may contain some problems, or quirks, or lead me to wonder about how others might perceive it. And yes, liking or loving or hating a song largely depends on the time of year, the news, external circumstances, or even just a mood. I am sure if I go back now to the morning songs I sang the week after the election, I might have different things to say. And if I knew how much people love Bring Many Names, I might not have been so harsh…no, wait, I really still dislike that one…

My point is this: if you only read this blog when I am critical, then you might think I hate our songs and this practice. But if you actually read the blog on a regular basis, then you know that I have a deep love for this practice,  our songs, and even the particular ones I hate I still have an affection for, because they are part of our expansive living tradition. I wouldn’t keep doing this practice if it didn’t do something for me, and frankly for many of my readers.

On the whole, I love our music. I love this critical evaluation from which incredible richness emerges – both my own and from those readers who comment here and on Facebook (and even a few times on Twitter). I definitely love this practice, as it brings focus – and music – to my days.  And I love the idea that something bigger may emerge from it.

Now, on to the hymns….

—

Where has this hymn been all my life?

Wow. It’s gorgeous. It is a loving, comforting song in a gentle, minor key. It’s pretty easy to pick up, singing wise, And I can imagine it being used in any number of situations, especially when some contemplation or gentleness or simply rest after a lot of busy-ness is called for (which is every Sabbath, really).

The lyrics alone, from Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, a leader in the Reform Judaism movement in the late 19th century, are amazing – a wonderful prayer to offer in the morning or evening (as noted by the optional ‘rising’).  But for me, the tune, by Abraham Binder, is what gives the lyrics a fullness and completeness.

Come, O Sabbath day and bring peace and healing on thy wing:
and to every weary one let a word of blessing come:
thou shalt rest. Thou shalt rest.

Welcome Sabbath! Let depart ev’ry care of troubled heart.
Now the daily task is done, let a word of comfort come:
Thou thalt rest. Thou shalt rest.

Work and sorrow cast away! Sabbath is for prayer and play.
With the setting* of the sun, let a cheering message come:
thou shalt rest. Thou shalt rest.

*or “rising”

If you use this already, huzzah! If you haven’t, please try it – I will be, for sure.

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I have stared at the screen for probably twenty minutes, unsure how to start today’s post.

Do I talk about how joyful this song is, in the midst of crisis? And how joy comes out of pains, sorrows, and troubles?

Do I talk about how the notes on this are so sketchy we really can only call it “traditional” in the hymnal and Between the Lines and it’s only in the internet age that we learn it is indeed a spiritual from slave times? And how seeing “Traditional” today feels like whitewashing?

Do I talk about how our General Assembly theme is “Resist and Rejoice” and this song seems to fit right in with that theme? (And do I talk about how hard General Assembly and Ministry Days might be?)

Or, do I take a moment and share some things I just learned about Sojourner Truth, for whom this tune was named?

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since I laid my burden down.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since I laid my burden down.

Feel like shouting, “Hallelujah!” …

Life is sweeter, so much sweeter. …

Feel like dancing, hallelujah! …

Love is shining all around me, …

Yeah, let’s do that.

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797; her father had been captured in his native Ghana and sold into slavery while her mother was the daughter of people captured in Guinea.

She spoke only Dutch until she was 9 years old. Why? Because she was a slave just south of Kingston, NY, which at the time was almost entirely inhabited by the Dutch.

While New York went through an abolition process starting in 1799 and ending in 1827, Isabella’s owner reneged on a promise to release her early, and so she left early anyway, with her baby daughter Sophia. “I did not run off,” she said, “for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.”

After conversion to Methodism, she heard a message from God that told her to go forth and speak the truth about slavery, and she adopted the name Sojourner Truth in response.

She spoke widely about slavery and suffrage throughout the Northeast. In 1850 her memoirs were published under the title The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. Truth dictated her recollections to a friend, Olive Gilbert, since she could not read or write, and William Lloyd Garrison wrote the book’s preface.

And now, here’s the real shame, as explained in a piece about her at biography.com,

In May of 1851, Truth delivered a speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. The extemporaneous speech, recorded by several observers, would come to be known as “Ain’t I a Woman?” The first version of the speech, published a month later by Marius Robinson, editor of Ohio newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle, did not include the question “Ain’t I a woman?” even once. Robinson had attended the convention and recorded Truth’s words himself. The famous phrase would appear in print 12 years later, as the refrain of a Southern-tinged version of the speech. It is unlikely that Sojourner Truth, a native of New York whose first language was Dutch, would have spoken in this Southern idiom.

Lord have mercy. Not only did this woman have to stand up to white women and argue that they were ignoring women of color (something that still happens, much to our shame), but she also had been turned into a caricature. So much so that in 1861, when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote for The Atlantic what editors of that magazine now call a “hyperbolic portrait of Truth [that] romanticized her in contemporary racial tropes and popularized an enduring nickname, the “Libyan Sibyl,” Stowe even cast her as having been a Southern slave.

Lord have mercy, what we did to this woman’s history and legacy. Because she was amazing, without all of the BS that was layered on her both during and after her life.

I am so sorry this happened.

And dammit, this kind of BS keeps happening.

In 2017.

Lord have mercy.

 

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Happy Two Hundredth Hymn-by-Hymn Post Day!

Only 290 more to go. Gulp.

That seems daunting, but then, holy cow, how are we 200 in already? Time does fly, friends, even through hard, dark days. Thanks to my regular, rather frequent, and occasional readers. And if you’re just discovering this today, welcome to my daily spiritual practice, which might become something more if the stars align properly.

And while I am still talking about things that aren’t actually today’s hymn, I am conjuring up an idea for a Hymn by Hymn event at General Assembly…stay tuned.

—

Now, on to the hymn – and it’s a doozy!

I can’t say I wasn’t a little excited about today’s hymn. While there are things about Martin Luther’s theology and personal beliefs I’m not keen on (that anti-Semitic thing was just awful, y’all), I do have a bit of affection for the guy. I mean, here’s someone who stood up and said to his superiors “Eine Minute, bitte…. there’s something wrong with how we’re doing things.” Which made the establishment mad. Which made Luther say “well, I’m so right I’m gonna do my own thing,” which, by the way, includes translating the Bible into his mother tongue and essentially creating Modern German, along with putting the scriptures in the hand of every day people.

And yeah, sure, some of them did strange things with it when they got their hands on it, and because of this, our guy Michael Servetus butts heads with John Calvin, who winds up burning Servetus at the stake (and yeah, Servetus was warned not to come back at Calvin, but ….Calvin did dare him, so…). And yes, the Bible in the hands of everyday people meant that some radicals who wanted a stricter interpretation than the newly formed Church of England would allow decided they couldn’t live there, so they left from Plymouth, and landed in…Plymouth, and yeah, they thought they’d discovered a new world and in their arrogance took over inhabited lands because, I don’t know, by then western Europeans were already chock full of white privilege and what else would they do. And yes, our guys – two separate groups of guys – got their hands on the Bible too and said “yeah, not so much with this three-god thing” and ‘really, a loving God would punish you? Not buying it” and the Unitarians and Universalists were born, and now five hundred years after our buddy Martin decided to air his grievances (the first Festivus?), we have modern Unitarian Universalism.

Phew.

So all that by way of saying, I’m kinda hip to Luther. If not for him, who knows what we’d be or where we’d be.

And this, likely his most famous hymn (because he wrote hymns along with massive volumes of books and that Bible translation), appears in our hymnal. For me, it’s a connection to our UU pre-history.

And it’s a pretty cool tune – an old drinking song that can swing, or be as stalwart as the lyrics. (Which aren’t half bad for those times you need a good muscular, strong divinity.)

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
our helper sure amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
with craft and power great; and, armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not an equal.

God’s word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
the spirit and the gifts are ours, through God who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still;
whose kingdom is forever.

So happy 200th post and happy Reformation.

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Artists of all stripes have a signature style, a turn of phrase or brush or pen or finger that marks them as distinctive, a common theme or mood that repeats throughout a body of work.

If we are seeing a representative sampling of Brian Wren’s hymns, then his signature is a propensity for expanding the labels we use for the Divine, in a Christian milieu. And while I don’t always like his hymns (much to the dismay of some of my colleagues), it is good that we have in musical arts (as with all art) a propensity to challenge the norms.

In this hymn, Wren goes a step beyond lists and offers an actual point: hush, shout, sing! Do a thing! Don’t just wax poetic (or is that pedantic?) about God, worship! Proclaim!

And because of this, I can forgive Wren his predisposition for lists.

God of many names, gathered into one,
in your glory come and meet us, moving, endlessly becoming:
God of hovering wings, womb and birth of time,
joyfully we sing your praises, breath of life in every people,

(Chorus)
Hush, hush, halleluia, halleluia!
Shout, shout, halleluia, halleluia!
Sing, sing, halleluia, halleluia!
Sing God is love, God is love!

God of Jewish faith, Exodus and Law,
in your glory come and meet us, joy of Miriam and Moses:
God of Jesus Christ, rabbi of the poor,
joyfully we sing your praises, crucified, alive forever,

(Chorus)

God of wounded hands, web and loom of love,
in your glory come and meet us, Carpenter of new creation:
God of many names gathered into one,
joyfully we sing your praises, moving, endlessly becoming,

(Chorus)

I will also say this is one of the more interesting tunes I’ve heard his lyrics set to – where Name Unnamed can feel very dull and pedestrian after half a verse, this melody by William Rowan has some interest, and the chorus has energy. It requires a bit of teaching/modeling before letting a congregation sing it, but it has definite potential, especially this week, as we have just celebrated Easter. (And maybe it is an Easter song?)

One final note: This is the first song of a new section, Jewish and Christian Teachings, under the heading Worship. Thus, I might have had a bit of whiplash, given that the congregation I serve is working through Buddhism this month in our Conversation with World Religions, and given that yesterday’s final hymn of the “Common Ground” section was a Hindu song of devotion. I thought to myself, after singing through,  “God of many names, eh? Well… God of many CHRISTIAN names…” because that’s what it is.

Anyway, lo and behold, a Brian Wren song that I don’t despise! Halleluiah!

 

Image; “A Heart So Big” by Jason Cianelli.

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It’s Disconnected Thoughts Day here at the Far Fringe!

Disconnected Thought number one: the words and melody were written by Rabindranath Tangore, whose poetry we also find in Your Mercy, O Eternal One and Now I Recall My Childhood. That we also now have one of his melodies here I think is cool.

Disconnected Thought number two: did anyone else think this was a love song at first? I mean, it’s not surprising – this is another in a line of devotional poems from the Hindu traditions. But my first thought was “wedding song.”

Disconnected Thought number three: I had a moment of anxiety when I got to the word “smite” because I thought this was heading in the direction of some of the Psalms from the Old Testament – “I love God, God loves me, now go smite my enemies” (which I oddly just sang to the tune of “This Old Man”).

Disconnected Thought number four: is this a Diwali song?

(Refrain)
There are numerous strings in your lute,
let me add my own among them.

Then when you smite your chords,
my heart will break its silence,
and my heart will be one with your song.

(Refrain)

Amidst your numberless stars,
let me place my own little lamp.

(Refrain)

In the dance of your festival of lights
my heart will throb and my life
will be one with your smile. (Refrain)

Disconnected Thought the final: I don’t really like this one. For all of my love of art/music metaphors, this doesn’t work for me. I thought at first that it might have been the oddly somber tone of the melody, but really, I think it’s the idea that I’m not one of the strings in the Divine’s lute already, like I have to work to become part of this creation.

Meh.

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Of the many metaphors we use for the Divine, I think Singer of Life is my favorite.

This metaphor taps into something we know about the earth, that it has its own vibrational hum…and when you add all of the living things that have their own hums (and voices and chirps and growls and sighs), not to mention all of the machines humans have built that have their own hums (and chugs and whistles and crunches and rumbles), well, the earth is a noisy place that responds to sound.

And – if quantum mechanics are right and it’s the waves and motion, not the matter, that is the stuff of the universe, then of course we need a Singer to bring us into resonance with ourselves, each other, and the divine.

This lyric, from a poem written in Nahuatl, from the Texcoco region of Mexico, elegantly captures this idea, reminding us to look to the earth to see ourselves.

Singer of Life, all flowers are songs, with petals do you write.
Singer of Life, you color the earth, dazzling the eye with birds red and bright.
Joy is for us! The flowers are spread! Singing is our delight!

Mortal are we, with all living things, with eagles in the sky.
Even all gold and jade will not last; singing alone, I know, cannot die.
Here in this house of springtime bestow songs that like birds can fly.

It is set to a tune from the Dakota tribe, which is haunting and intriguing and offers a level of mystery the text only hints at. It’s got a few intervals Western singers might find unusual, and again, it’s one I would introduce slowly to a congregation.

However, I find the metaphor and the connection to the interdependent web rather appealing, inspiring, and yea, even comforting today.

Singer of life – joy is for us!

Amen.