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Not sure I am ready for hope yet…

The morning hangs a signal upon the mountain crest,
while all the sleeping valleys in silent darkness rest.
From peak to peak it flashes, it laughs along the sky,
till glory of the sunlight on all the land shall lie.

Above the generations the lonely prophets rise,
while truth flares as the daystar within their glowing eyes;
and other eyes, beholding, are kindled from that flame;
and dawn becomes the morning, when prophets love proclaim.

The soul has lifted moments, above the drift of days,
when life’s great meaning breaketh in sunrise on our ways.
Behold the radiant token of faith above all fear;
night shall release its splendor that morning shall appear.

But when I am, this is the hymn I might turn to – because if nothing else, the middle verse reminds us that others have gone before and struggled against tyranny and hate, and we can turn to them and their loving example.

But that day is not today. I’m not there in the process yet. But it’s kinda nice to know this hymn is here for when I am.

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The timing of this hymn is awful, and I am not in a mind to find the bigger purpose today.

Bring, O morn, thy music! Night, thy starlit silence!
Oceans, laugh in rapture to the storm-winds coursing free!
Suns and planets chorus, praise to Thee, Most Holy —
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Life and death, thy creatures, praise thee, mighty Giver!
Praise and prayer are rising in thy beast and bird and tree:
Lo! they praise and vanish, vanish at thy bidding —
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Life nor death can part us, O thou Love eternal,
Shepherd of the wandering star and souls that wayward flee!
Homeward draws the spirit to thy Spirit yearning —
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

I’m struggling to sing today. This tune is so cheerful (Nicea – known as Holy, Holy, Holy) and strident, it’s feeling utterly off key.

And that’s about all I have to say.

Some of the shock is wearing off and the reality is setting in, and taking a broad view of creation feels terribly ineffective right now. Things are bad on the ground, in reality. Looking skyward doesn’t help one bit.

 

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I don’t feel much like singing today. And in fact, I considered skipping today – hoping you all would understand that for those of us who regularly answer the call of love and justice, the American presidential election results have at least temporarily silenced the music.

But here I am, and this spiritual practice today brought me a prayer:

God who fills the universe from the atom to the stars,
make firm my changeful heart so I may do my part
and bring joy to all the earth.

God who webs the universe with amazing mysteries,
make glad my fragile soul so I can see life whole
and bring hope to all on earth.

God who keeps the universe by the truths of living love,
make strong that love in me so I can set it free
and bring peace to all on earth.

I am grateful for the tune’s minor key and gentle phrases.  I am grateful for the spaces in the lyrics for fear, anger, sadness, and vulnerability.

Today, that is enough.

May each of you find gentleness and space for all your emotions. Take care of yourself, beloveds.

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A meta celebration.

When in our music God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried Alleluia!

How often, making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound Alleluia!

So has the church, in liturgy and song,
in faith and love, where centuries of wrong,
borne witness to the truth in every tongue, Alleluia!

Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always Alleluia!

I don’t know what I expected when I turned the page to this hymn – something with a hint of a justice and compassion hook, maybe…. something to reflect the importance of this day (American presidential election day). What we have is a song about singing.

Totally meta.

And completely appropriate.

There are few things that cut so perfectly through all of the ideologies and theologies as music. There are few things that draw us together into intentional harmony as music. There are few things that vibrate our every essence so completely as music. There are few things that give so pure a voice to our spirit as music.

Music invokes deep memory. Music fills our empty spaces. Music speaks when words cannot. And music is universal – everywhere there is humanity there is music, and while musical styles sometimes feel foreign to us, there are some basic truths about music that cut across culture. I love the example Bobby McFerrin gives in a panel at the World Science Festival in 2009:

It’s amazing how much music brings us together.

And so, on this day which is all about choices, divisions, winners and losers – it’s a joy to be reminded of something that hooks our very souls into that something greater.

Music.

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In case you forgot our Christian roots…

Unto thy temple, Lord, we come
with thankful hearts to worship thee;
and pray that this may be our home
until we touch eternity:

The common home of rich and poor,
of bond and free, and great and small;
large as thy love forever more,
and warm and bright and good to all.

May thy whole truth be spoken here;
thy gospel light forever shine;
thy perfect love cast out all fear,
and human life become divine.

This is a very Christian hymn.

It is also a very Unitarian Universalist hymn.

Christian, because it imagines a transcendent, omnipresent, loving Divine… because it proclaims the message of Jesus… because it reflects on the kingdom of heaven….and yeah, because it references the gospel.

Unitarian Universalist because it imagines God as Love….because it affirms our first principle… because it reminds of us our call to help heal the world.

I point out the obvious in my processing this morning, because sometimes its helpful – especially in ecumenical and interfaith settings – to point out that we hold dear the core of Jesus’s ministry and that it informs who we are today. I like to say we take the assertions to their inevitable conclusions. For me, this hymn makes that connection clear. Yeah, at first I went “huh” at the language, especially seeing a “Lord” where that word has been so carefully excised elsewhere. But when you take a longer view, it may not be the specific theology of a plurality of UUs, it certainly reflects our theological foundations. And in these days of the run up to the election, its kind of nice to start the day with a hymn that reminds me of that greater truth – perfect love casts out fear. Yes.

Plus, the tune (Duke Street) totally works with this one.

 

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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 post that is hardly about this hymn at all, but it’s fine.

Sovereign and transforming Grace,
we invoke your quickening power;
reign the spirit of this place,
bless the purpose of this hour.

Holy and creative Light,
we invoke your kindling ray;
draw upon our spirit’s night,
as the darkness turns to day.

To the anxious soul impart hope,
all other hopes above;
stir the dull and hardened heart
with a longing and a love.

I feel like I’ve been on a tune rant – one of the consequences of singing while clergy, I suppose, is that part of my mind is always thinking about how a congregation receives and participates in the music. And I wonder, more so lately, if we should be thinking about our collections of music differently.

My hunch is that there are hymns in STLT, and maybe even in STJ, that we want to keep, want to remember, believe are a crucial part of our theology, our tradition, our body of work. And yet, they aren’t necessarily songs a congregation would sing on even a remotely regular basis. What happens if we create a worship professionals’ guide to the hymnals, a commentary of sorts, that not only talks about the origins of the hymns (like we have in Between the Lines), but also comments about tempo, style, choral v. solo v. congregational choices, tips for teaching, etc.? Surely we have enough musicians in the UUMN, along with musical clergy, who could shed some light onto these hymns. Surely we could help those in small congregations without music professionals, or without musical clergy, so that good choices could be made AND hymns that get flipped past regularly find new life through different means of presentation in worship.

Am I asking too much? I mean, I look at a hymn like this – the lyrics are really good. It’s got a fairly square meter (7.7.7.7.). But the tune requires some teaching so that the lyrics shine and not get lost – as they did originally for me – in favor of figuring out how to sing it.

And yes, the musical among us will say “we already do that – we know what should be sung by a soloist or choir and what will work for group singing.” But I am realizing many don’t – or wish they had a clue.

Is this a crazy idea? Or one that just might work?

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That time I remembered my patrilineal ancestors were Lutherans…

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
who wondrous things hath done, in whom this world rejoices;
who from our parents’ arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;
the one eternal God, whom earth and heaven adore,
for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

While my parents were Unitarians, Mom grew up in the Anglican church, and Dad grew up a Lutheran. And Mom’s first husband was the son of a Lutheran minister,  I dated a Lutheran minister for a while, and two of my closest friends from seminary are Lutheran… so there’s something Lutheran/attracted to Lutheran in my DNA.

I don’t think about that a lot, but singing today’s hymn brought it to mind. This very German song, with these very Lutheran lyrics.

It’s probably surprising to many modern Unitarian Universalists that there are congregations among us who sing this, but I bet there are some – those who are comfortable with God language, those who embrace a transcendent, omnipresent Divine. And some days, in my own personal theology, I’m totally down with that. In my Universalist view of process theology, it makes sense some days to thank a Creator God who is involved in and should be thanked for this amazing creation.

And for those who might argue against this one, I would remind you that this is pretty much the same theology found in For the Beauty of the Earth – just with the G word and a little more explicit greater-than language.

I like it. My Lutheran DNA likes it.

This hymn brings me joy.

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So….

(Chorus) Name unnamed, hidden and shown, knowing and known. Gloria!

Beautifully moving, ceaselessly forming,
growing, emerging with awesome delight,
Maker of Rainbows, glowing with color,
arching in wonder, energy flowing in darkness and light:

(Chorus)

Spinner of Chaos, pulling and twisting,
freeing the fibers of pattern and form,
Weaver of Stories, famed or unspoken,
tangled or broken shaping a tapestry vivid and warm:

(Chorus)

Nudging Discomfort, prodding and shaking,
waking our lives to creative unease,
Straight-talking Lover, checking and humbling
jargon and grumbling, speaking the truth that refreshes and frees:

(Chorus)

Midwife of Changes, skillfully guiding,
drawing us out through the shock of the new,
Woman of Wisdom, deeply perceiving,
never deceiving, freeing and leading in all that we do:

(Chorus)

Daredevil Gambler, risking and loving,
giving us freedom to shatter your dreams,
Lifegiving Loser, wounded and weeping,
dancing and leaping, sharing the caring that heals and redeems.

… after what became a three-day discussion about Bring Many Names, I know this kind of hymn was and still is important for those who need to re-imagine God.

And truthfully, even the lyrics here – for the most part – are pretty decent. I like the premise, that there are still many names for God that we don’t know and only discover through time and experience. And some of Wren’s names are pretty awesome – Daredevil Gambler, Spinner of Chaos, Weaver of Stories – I’m totally in. Not so much with Lifegiving Loser, although I understand where that comes from and why it’s there. And as some have pointed out, some of the names can be problematic.

Maybe my problem is less with lyrics in Wren’s hymns and more with tunes; as my colleague Thom Belote rightly noted, the tune for Bring Many Names is “pure treacle.” This tune feels awkward and unwieldy – again, maybe good for a soloist or choir, but clunky for a congregation. There’s no way I’d spring this on people on a Sunday morning without an incredible amount of preparation.

My other quibble is that Wren’s lyrics are seemingly endless – in an effort to broaden and expand, they go on…and on… and on. They seem like nothing more than a list. Nothing, really, happens in any sort of progression. It’s recitation (albeit poetic and different), with no movement.

And maybe that’s the real problem with a hymn like this. It’s hard to sing and we get bored. At least I did.

I’m gonna use some of these names for God, though.

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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.