Before I begin today’s piece, I want to invite those of you not on Facebook to check out my posting of yesterday’s hymn, because it generated a fascinating discussion about the use of doxologies and changing them up. I am so happy when people engage my meandering thoughts on the songs we all think we know.

Now – approaching this one led to an interesting train of thought. Hop on… which requires first reading the lyrics, by Ken Patton:

Let those who live in every land
declare that fear and war are done —
joined by the labor of their hands,
in love and understanding, one.

I first thought, “huh, we really do have a lot of war and peace songs in this hymnal.”

Then, “well, this hymnal was developed at the end of the Cold War, when we talked about war and peace a lot.”

And then, “even so, this is a pretty odd thing to sing for a regular doxology. But maybe it wouldn’t have been then.”

And then, “interesting, we don’t talk much about that anymore. War seems so distant.”

And then, “oh wait. We are still at war. Have been engaged in war for thirteen years.”

And finally. “Oh crap. We forgot about it. I forgot about it. And now we could be facing a new war.”

And then, I turned back to the doxology:

Let those who live in every land
declare that fear and war are done —
joined by the labor of their hands,
in love and understanding, one.

And I thought, “Maybe we need to sing this every week again and remember we’re still at war abroad, as well as at home. Maybe we need to make declarations of peace across the board.”

Maybe. Maybe.

(Also – I instinctively sang this to Tallis Canon.)

 

So… this one confused the heck out me at first, because there is no such thing as a saffron tree. There’s a flower from which we get saffron that we use for cooking.

Until I realized that saffron here is a color – the color I saw all along the highways between here and northern Westchester County. D’oh!

As saffron trees now capture fire
and memories our hopes inspire;
we’ll praise imagination’s grace —
the human heart’s best resting place.

This anonymously written verse is lovely – I really like its imagery and especially the praise for imagination’s grace. But I will say that I don’t like any of our three tunes; in fact, when I first looked at the lyrics, I started singing them to the Danby tune (best known from For All the Beauty We Have Known), which I think fits them so much more elegantly and emotionally than any of our doxology tunes.

Anyway… I’m a fan of this one, but I suspect I’d only use it in the autumn. How much would it twist our congregations around if we switched up doxologies now and then? Hmmm……

We’ve kinda sung this before.

No, I don’t mean that in some UU congregations, the royal ‘we’ have sung it. I mean that on July 16th, we sang an adaptation of this in the hymn Creative Love, Our Thanks We Give. In the full hymn version, we sing these lyrics adapted by Beth Ide:

Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal may ever shine afar —
the will to reach it makes us free.

There’s only one word changed – “reach” instead of William DeWitt Hyde’s original “win,” which we then use here in the doxology section:

Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal may ever shine afar —
the will to win it makes us free.

And all of this makes me less likely to use it at all as a doxology, because now that I know it’s the last verse of a hymn we sing, it feels like reading just the last chapter of a novel and wondering what happened in the rest of the book. (Have you ever done that, though? Read a final chapter of a book you’re not likely to read all of, and then make up the story for yourself? Or is this just one of those quirky things I did because I was a bookish, lonely child?)

Anyway. I sang it to all three tunes (plus “Hernando’s Hideaway” as per my snarky friends on Facebook), and to me it fits best with Tallis Canon. But I’m not sure I would use it, because I’m still not sure I buy the theology or the privilege of it.

I thought a lot about how to approach the next 12 entries in our hymnal – three tunes, nine different lyrics – and while I could dive into all the words and let the music fall where it may, that seemed to discredit the music, which requires attention. So – today I’ll talk about the tunes, and then the next nine, hit each of the nine quatrains.

Now together, these pieces form one of 27 possible doxologies – a common liturgical element that comes out of the Christian tradition yet possibly based in the Jewish tradition. The doxology, or “words of praise,” is typically a short, communal song of praise that may be a sung response (such as a section of the Kaddish in a Jewish service or the “Gloria Patri” in a Catholic service) or as an affirmation of faith (such as “Glory be to the Father” in many Protestant services). Unitarian Universalist congregations sometimes use doxologies in similar fashion. They become the ‘best known hymn’ because we sing it every week.

Now what we sing it to… ah, that’s today’s question.

Most UU congregations that I have been in that sing a doxology use what STLT notes is the “modern form” of Old Hundredth. Where yesterday’s appearance featured the original key and rhythm – elongated ends of the phrases, a lush, singable key, the commonly used tune for modern doxologies is a shortened rhythm written in G major for reasons passing understanding. (Seriously, what’s wrong with D major?)

Yet our Hymnal Commission offers two other tunes that may be used – and I wish more did.

One is the Tallis Canon, a gorgeous piece written in the mid 1500s by English composer Thomas Tallis; I’ve waxed poetic about the tune before; here is our opportunity to truly make it a ringing-thru-the-sanctuary round.

The other is a tune I’m not as familiar with – Vom Himmel Hoch (“from heaven on high”), from the Geistliche Leider by Valentin Schumann. We sang this once before, but I was too busy getting ready to attend the Women’s March in NYC to actually notice the tune. It’s not as lush as the Tallis Canon, and certainly not as familiar as Old Hundredth, yet I suspect it will be a better match for some of the quatrains we’ve got coming up.

So… those are our tunes. All are readily available to listen to at Small Church Music. And tomorrow, I will begin singing the lyrics; my plan is to sing them to all three tunes and make suggestions as to which one I think works best.

Off we go!

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I couldn’t come up with a good image for today, so here are some decorative gourds for the season.