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Let me start off by saying I feel significantly better today, with just a leftover fog from the meds and sleeping a lot. Phew – what a weird siege that was. Yet even a clearer head and lack of pain won’t help me today.

Let me say for the record that I am glad we have a variety of hymns that speak to all theologies, including atheism. But it is also true that all I can come up with this morning is a smart ass thought: namely, I might be more inclined to love these atheist hymns if the tunes were more appealing.  I’m finding the melodies discordant, which isn’t helping me embrace the lyrics’ (a)theologies.

I mean, this lyric, from a sonnet by 20th-century poet John Mansfield, isn’t wrong necessarily, but I guess what I find hard to understand (and this is just me talking here) is why we would want to settle for these limits. Here is all that we can know” – where’s curiosity and discovery? And I’m not sure I get how one understands the universal mind when the flesh is all we know…

Here in the flesh is all that we can know,
all beauty, all wonder, all the power,
all the unearthly colors, all the glow,
here in the self which withers like a flower.

Here in the flesh is all that we will find,
swift in the blood and throbbing in the bone,
Beauty herself, the universal mind,
eternal April wandering alone.

I know I have thoughtful atheist friends who will not like that I struggle to understand atheism and one or two who might thing I’m dismissing them. I am trying to understand, and I think I do a good job as a religious professional of making space for them and those who identify with other theologies in my work. As an individual person, just sitting here on the sofa in my pjs with my first cup of coffee, however, I struggle with it.

I also wish to quibble with the phrase “beauty herself” – argh. Beauty isn’t female, it’s a quality. A thing. An it. Grrr….

Anyway.

This is not a hymn I’d use unless I heard that the song, written by STLT hymnal commission member TJ Anderson, was lovely and graceful and reasonable to sing – plunking out the melody on my phone didn’t help one bit.

—

And because I couldn’t come up with anything for a photo, I’ve chosen a pic of Fairy Glen on the Isle of Skye in Scotland (public domain).

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I’m not sure if it’s the muscle relaxers and anti-viral meds I’m on because of a weird virus that hit me late last week, or Charlottesville, or something else, but I just can’t grok this hymn this morning. I don’t get the tune (by Dede Duson, commissioned for this hymnal), and while I intellectually understand there is value in the lyrics by Unitarian Universalist minister John Godfrey MacKinnon, they speak not to my heart and soul at all.

Ye earthborn children of a star amid the depths of space,
the cosmic wonder from afar within your minds embrace.

Look out, with awe, upon the art of countless living things;
the counterpoint of part with part, as nature’s chorus sings.

Beyond the wonder you have wrought within your little time,
the knowledge won, the wisdom sought, the ornaments of rhyme.

Seek deeper still within your souls and sense the wonder there;
the ceaseless thrust to noble goals of life, more free and fair.

Ye earthborn children of a star who seek and long and strive,
take humble pride in what you are: be glad to be alive.

If I were feeling better, I might be able to interrogate them and consider the theological implications. Right now, a baffling tune and a cosmic lyric – combined with this spacy head and weeping heart – just don’t click for me.

Sorry, folks. You’re welcome to take a stab at it in my stead.

I will add this: the aurora borealis in the photo is named Steve. For real.

PS: This weird illness is also why I haven’t finished tagging all the hymns yet. In time, good friends, in time.

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I’ve been sitting here trying to troubleshoot a problem with the site in an attempt to avoid writing about today’s hymn.

But I know I must, so here goes.

I have problems with this hymn. Not because it’s set to an unfamiliar tune by noted Vietnamese composer Nguyễn Đức Toàn. (We also have from him the sad, haunting tune for Almond Trees, Renewed in Bloom.) And not because it’s weirdly repetitive. But because its lyrics, by Alicia Carpenter, is so godawful limiting.

I should note that Carpenter’s work has been and will again be praised in this series – she’s the author of Just as Long as I Have Breath, With Heart and Mind, We Celebrate the Web of Life, and several others. I mostly really like her work. A lot.

But this one really gets my goat.

We are children of the earth, children of the earth,
and we love our mother earth, love our mother earth.
From the mountain and the streams, from the flowing streams,
comes the fountain of our dreams, fountain of our dreams.

We dream of a village fair, of a village fair.
Laughing children playing there children playing there,
and our elders can be found, elders can be found,
here beside us safe and sound, always safe and sound.

There is nothing to desire, nothing to desire,
more than home and hearth and fire, home and hearth and fire,
in a village that we love, village that we love,
living side by side in peace, evermore in peace.

First verse, of course, is great. yay! Grounded eco-theology for the win. We’re earthlings, and we love where we come from.

Second verse, well, okay… sure, if we extend the metaphor of ‘village’ to be ‘wherever you most want to live’. And I like the multigenerational language – although the ‘safe and sound’ bit feels a bit patronizing.

Third verse: this is where it goes off the rails for me. All we want is home? Seriously? Are we so replete of aspiration that there is nothing more that we want? I mean, I get that for those without a home, a home is plenty. But even theologically, this doesn’t seem to work for me. It feels so limiting, so not aspirational – and for all the aspiration we have in our theologies, this is not it. It reminds me of a bit from Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill:

I grew up in the 70s, when the careers advisor used to come to school, and he used to get the kids together and say, “Look, I advise you to get a career, what can I say? That’s it.”

And he took me aside, he said, “Whatcha you want to do, kid? Whatcha you want to do? Tell me, tell me your dreams!”

“I want to be a space astronaut! Go to outer space, discover things that have never been discovered.”

He said, “Look, you’re British, so scale it down a bit, all right?”

“All right, I want to work in a shoe shop then! Discover shoes that no one’s ever discovered right in the back of the shop, on the left.”

And he said, “Look, you’re British, so scale it down a bit, all right?”

I want more. I want to wish for home and community, yes, but it’s not all I want And this lyric suggests I should only want those things. It’s most assuredly theological whiplash when you compare it to yesterday’s hymn, which celebrated human ingenuity and potential.

I MIGHT use that first verse someday, but not the rest.

I want more.

Like enough ingenuity to figure out why something here is broken.

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I don’t think I’m awake enough yet.

I’ve been puzzled by hymns before, but I’m not sure I’ve been baffled by them.

I swear, I am sitting here, having actually tried to sing this and wondering what just happened and can I get those five minutes back, please.

I know you’ve all come to expect pithy information and insight, but my experience with this hymn has wiped all of that clear out of my head and all I can do is furrow my brow and whisper softly under my breath “what the fuck….?”

Okay, so let’s get a few things clear. First, in a choral or other performative setting, I’m a fan of cacophony. (See GA2017 opening worship or GA2016 Sunday morning worship for some cacophony I love and either created or performed.) And generally, I am a fan of Ken Patton’s writing, as he often connects us to what is true within.

What I am not a fan of is even the hint of suggestion that a typical congregation could hold down an unusual melody in uneven meter while a cacophony happens around them. All while trying to get past the fact that we are singing about suckling (I should come up with a top ten weirdest phrases in our hymnals – this one would still rank lower than the cankerworm.)

Anyway, here are the lyrics:

The earth is home and all abundant, source of what was before we were,
and will be, till all life in ending, the final seed shakes in its burr.

She is our friend, our ancient mother; her fate and all her ways are ours;
each atom proves our common journey, bred as we were of dust and stars.

We suckle from the fount untiring, we children born of earth’s desiring,
for we and all our forward yearning are yet a spark in nature’s burning.

It is probably meaningful to some. It leaves me cold, filled not with awe but with ‘yeah, so…?”

And here is a sample of the tune – which was commissioned in 1973 by Trinity Church NYC for the Association of Anglican Musicians and written by William Albright.

I need more coffee.

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Confession: sometimes I sing a hymn and all I really have to say is, ‘yep, it’s great’ and then I look for more to say.

I love this hymn. It’s great. The melody, a late 15th century French tune by Franciscan monk Jean Tisserand, is lush and a bit bittersweet, and provides a perfect mood for these last three absolutely perfect verses of Christina Rossetti’s poem “What Good Shall My life Do to Me?”

O filii et filiae, Alleluia.

O ye who taste that love is sweet,
set waymarks for the doubtful feet
that stumble on in search of it.
Alleluia.

Sing hymns of love; that some who hear
far off, in pain, may lend an ear.
Rise up and wonder and draw near.
Alleluia.

Lead lives of love; that others who
behold your lives may kindle too
with love, and cast their lot with you.
Alleluia.

Two last notes, and then I’m heading on the last leg toward home from SUUSI.

The hymn tune is called O Filii et Filiae, which in Latin means “o sons and daughters” – and yes, it’s problematic now in terms of gender expansiveness. However, it is also the title of this rather famous-in-Catholic-circles tune, and I am not sure we can or should change it.

Also: this first line is the priest’s ‘get your attention’ line. It’s the “gather around and listen up” line. It absolutely sets the mood of the piece, too. If you use this as a congregational hymn, you probably want the song leader to sing the first line and then the congregation to sing the verses. Or, consider a song leader, then the choir on the verses, with everyone joining in on the ‘Alleluia.” or, drop that first line altogether and just do the verses. But know you have options, because this tune is somewhat unfamiliar in form, and it may prove to be a good way to teach it.

So this hymn? Yep, it’s great.

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Last night, friend and colleague Erika Hewitt brought a message of love to evening worship here at SUUSI. It was not an easy message – she challenged us to flex our heart muscles in new ways, to lean into empathy, to see love in part as being willing to look past events and out into the systems that cause events to occur, and to know that we have the power – by practicing love even when it’s hard – to change lives and live into our call as Unitarian Universalists. Quoting UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray’s pastoral letter about New Orleans, Erika asked, “Who’s outside the circle of love?” We replied, “No one is outside the circle of love.”

And because this spiritual practice has a keen sense of timing, today’s hymn is of course a setting of this amazing poem by 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching
or cool one pain,
or help one fainting robin
unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Sometimes we think we are called to solve all the world’s problems. But love, as Erika reminded us, uses plural pronouns; so no, I as an individual can’t do it, but we, all of us loving, can do it together. But it means I have to do it and you have to do it and the others too – and thus, if I can do one thing, help one person, ease one life, stop one heartache, show one kindness – I have contributed to the we.

And who doesn’t wanna do that?

Now what I don’t really want to do is sing this again. It’s not that the piece by Leo Smit, commissioned for STLT, is bad, it’s just super tricky. I first learned this tricky melody for a service a million years ago – a group of us sang it as a trio or quartet (I don’t really remember, as it was over a dozen years ago). I remember the harmonies being hard, the phrasing being tricky. And when I tried to sing it this morning, I fumbled and struggled. (Crazy part is that I’m on a college campus full of musicians but it’s too early to wake one up and ask them to play it for me.)

In other words, this is NOT for a congregation to sing unless you’ve spent a lot of time teaching it. And even then, the newcomer will be baffled (and rightly so). So put this in the not-for-the-congregation category, hand it to some seasoned singers, and see what magic happens.

Because what Dickinson’s poem – and Erika’s service – and really, our entire faith – says, is that we must show mercy and love, because that’s what it’s all about in the end.

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As with any art form, the more you engage it, the more familiar you become with those who practice it – sometimes it’s easy, like discerning Picassos in the Modern Museum of Art. Sometimes it’s less so, requiring some familiarity – signature dance moves mark the difference between Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse, signature word patterns mark the difference between David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin, and signature guitar licks mark the difference between Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

(Good lord, they’re all white men up there… well, sorry, y’all. Sometimes white men happen.)

But back to my point… such is the case too with choral music. There are some choral composers and arrangers that have signatures – I would bet many Unitarian Universalists could pick out a Jason Shelton piece in a heartbeat. Ralph Vaughn Williams has a signature sound (as we’ve talked about many many times already and probably will again because we’re not done with him), as do other modern and more classical arrangers/composers. If we’re singing as a soloist or chorister, we cheer (or groan) at the name on the score. But sometimes, we hear a piece and a few measures in can tell “this is a Moses Hogan arrangement” or “dear god, more Benjamin Britten.”

And when it comes to 20th century sacred music from the Jewish tradition, every single time I hear a piece and fall in love instantly, it’s Max Janowski.

An opulent “Akeinu Malkeinu” sung by Barbra Streisand? Max Janowski.

A lush “Sim Shalom” sung by the Zamir Chorale of Boston? Max Janowski.

This  gorgeous prayer? You guessed it. Max Janowski.

Every single time I find a beautiful piece of Jewish sacred music, it’s Janowski. Now I’m sure thre are other great composers of Jewish sacred music, and I’m fairly certain I have sung and loved singing them. but just the opening measures of this simple song, based on an English translation of the Hebrew prayer Yih’yu’l’ratzon,” screams Janowski to those who know his work.

The prayer, said at the end of the silent prayer portion of a service, is an incredible prayer of repentance and renewal.

Who can say, “I am free, I have purified my great heart?”
There are none on earth. There are none on earth.
A new heart I will give, not stone, but one that frees.
A new heart I will give, and one that frees.

May this day make us strong like a tree of life with good fruit.
Bless us now, amen. Bless us now, amen.
May we now forgive, atone, that we may live,
may we now forgive that we may live.
Amen.

“A new heart I will give.” Wow. As my colleagues are wont to say, “that’ll preach.” And I could, but I already waxed far too poetically about white men whose artistic endeavors I know and love (except for Britten – blech. I’ve only liked one of his pieces, a song from A Wealden Trio, but that may be more because of who I sang it with).

But the truth is, this piece moves me deeply, from the tips of my toes to beyond the top of my head. I feel this piece – the music and the prayer – deeply in my body. I have only ever sung it or heard it sung as a solo, and I think there is something about the solo voice on this that highlights the purity of this prayerful plea. And it’s possible I’ve gone on and on about Britten and Janowski because this almost doesn’t need any more words.

Amen.

Postscript: Listen to that Aveinu Malkeinu – you will weep from its beauty. I do, every. single, time.

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Image is of the Flame Nebula.

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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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I like it when I have eureka moments with hymns I have never sung – those moments when I wonder “where has this song been all my life” or at the very least “wow, did I need this lyric this morning.”

I am sorry to say there was no eureka today. Maybe a moment of “oh, these Asian melodies arranged by I-to Loh, which the hymnal commission used several times, are beautiful and so good to include” but no flat out eureka.

And why is there no eureka? Perhaps it’s because I’m personally a little annoyed with the Transcendentalists right now. Perhaps it’s because while I like Robert Louis Stevenson’s prose, I find his poetry stilted. Perhaps it’s the AAAB pattern that makes me long for a final rhyme. Perhaps…. and this may be most likely…. it’s that some days this daily practice gives me an overdose of themes that I wouldn’t get if I had randomized the singing practice, and I’m ready, if not eager, to move on.

Anyway, here are our lyrics, from Stevenson’s untitled poem:

Let us wander where we will,
something kindred greets us still:
something seen on vale or hill
falls familiar on the heart.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,
harvests ripen, flow’rs are fair,
and the whole round earth is bare
to the sunshine and the sun.

And the live air, fanned with wings,
bright with breeze and sunshine,
brings into contact distant things,
and makes all the countries one.

Anyway. This is again a melody you’ll have to teach a congregation – it may be better for a soloist or small group to start. And I can see it being useful for a particular kind of service.

I’m just not feeling the eureka.

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Today I offer a pic of a swallow, as it’s referenced in the first stanza of Stevenson’s poem.

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This is our happy, light Hymn.

Not.

A short post today, as I am traveling and typing this on my phone.

I will say that the tune was deceptively harder than I expected – the intervals didn’t flow gracefully for me, and were at times discordant.

Maybe that’s the point.

This lyric is clearly not meant to cheer but to make the point that if we don’t do our duty as stewards of the earth, we’re failing. Yet it feels manipulative – and I am not sure that given this is an unfamiliar tune that congregants singing it would pay attention – until they got to the word “cankerworm” – I’m sure that stops everyone in their tracks.

In the branches of the forest, in the petals of the marigold,
on the shoulder of the mountain, in the vastness of the sea,
you will find a brooding sadness over all the ancient watershed.
You will see it written plainly on the wind and in the sand.

There’s a blight upon the mountain, there’s a sickness in the evening sky,
and we ask the age-old question: can we purge us of this sin?
Can we save the little nestling from the venom of the cankerworm?
Can we clear the look of anguish from the soft eyes of the doe?

In the thunder new commandments sound a warning through the wilderness,
let the forest be untainted, let the streams be undefiled,
let the waters of the river as they flow down to the ocean
be as sweet as in the old days when the mountain stood alone.

The song is not wrong.  And in the right hands, it certainly makes a good point. I also think it is just a helluva thing to turn to after the energetic strength of yesterday’s South African call for justice.

So… there it is.