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The synchronicity of this song being today’s hymn, on the eve of the Women’s March, is not lost on me.

Thus, I was going to do a bit of digging to learn more about the background of the phrase “bread and roses” and the poem, knowing it all sprung up a little over 100 years ago during the time of labor and women’s movements – and became popular during the demonstrations after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and during the Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile workers’ strikes. On the list of top hits was an article from, of all things, Epicurious, who is normally focused on food and entertaining. The entire article, by Sam Worley, is worth a read – it recounts the history, but also adds the perfect notes to connect it to today. This sentence in particular caught my eye:

But if the last few months have been a reminder of anything, it’s that the darker elements of our past are closer than they ought to be, and perennially in danger of catching up; that there are many dark things we have not, despite optimistic pieties, put behind us; and that vigilance against this darkness is constantly required.

Please read the entire article, because Worley draws some amazing connections between the movements that sparked the slogan (and the poem our lyrics today come from), food justice, economic and racial justice, women’s rights, and, of course, bread. And it’s hopeful – he ends with a line that reminds me of this verse from a powerful Judy Grahn poem:

the common woman is as common
as good bread
as common as when you couldnt go on
but did.
For all the world we didnt know we held in common
all along
the common is as common as the best of bread
and will rise
and will become strong–I swear it to you
I swear it to you on my own head
I swear it to you on my common
woman’s
head

Now to the hymn:  the tune we have here is not the tune we all grew up with, because we all grew up with Judy Collins singing it to the tune written by Mimi Farina. You can listen to that version, although I like Pat Humphries’ version better.

I’m not sure when the version we have, by Caroline Kohlsaat, was composed – there’s some research to suggest the poem itself faded away until the end of World War II, when working women were being pushed out of the factory to make room for soldiers returning from war.

And so here it is. On the eve of the Women’s March, with a lot of the same problems (including some of the same troubling views of women – see verse 2, line 2), fighting for some of the same things. We’ve made progress since then, but it has been and will continue to be a long, hard road.

And still we rise.

As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
a million darkened kitchens, a thousand workshops gray,
are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses:
for the people hear us singing, “Bread and roses, bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
for they are women’s children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes:
hearts starve as well as bodies — give us bread, but give us roses!”

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
go crying, through our singing, their ancient song of bread!
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew:
yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days:
the rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
but a sharing of life’s glories — bread and roses, bread and roses!

(Image is from the Women’s Suffrage Procession, March 3, 1913.)

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I swear I didn’t set this up this way, but I am so glad that I’m singing this hymn today.

It’s not my favorite melody (as much as I love Tom Benjamin and have waxed poetic about him before). But if we don’t sing a paean to the prophet souls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when should we? King’s words and ministry are more needed than ever right now: we need his prophetic words about racial and economic justice. We need his model of hope and resistance.

When these lyrics were written, King was just a kid; but they speak truth about him now too: “though dead, they speak today: how great the cloud of witnesses encompassing our way.” Dr. King joined that great cloud of witnesses in 1968, and he continues to point us toward truth and justice, showing us that everyone, no matter how scared, or unsure, or flawed, or struggling, can make a difference if we set our course toward freedom, justice, and compassion.

From age to age how grandly rise the prophet souls in line;
above the passing centuries like beacon lights they shine,
like beacon lights they shine.

They witness to one heritage, one spirit’s quick’ning breath,
one widening reign from age to age of freedom and of faith,
of freedom and of faith.

Their kindling power our souls confess; though dead they speak today:
how great the cloud of witnesses encompassing our way,
encompassing our way.

Through every race, in every clime, one song shall yet be heard:
move onward in thy course sublime, O everlasting Word,
O everlasting Word.

A quick postscript: Hulu has the film Selma for viewing – along with the MLK episode of Black-ish, which is both right on point and pretty hysterical. Watch them. (Along with all the other good stuff out there – Luke Cage, if you like superhero stuff; Twelve Years a Slave, in case you haven’t cried in a while; 13th, because we all need an education. And more…this is just the off-the-top-of-my-head list.)

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Welcome to another edition of Hymns I Have Never Sung and Plan To Use Now.

We have now entered the next section of our hymnal; for those keeping track, we’ve finished the First Source songs and are now entering the Second Source, Words and Deeds of Prophetic People. (I hear you saying “people? Isn’t it women and men?” Oh yes, that is how the sources read now; but there is a motion to change the source as written in the bylaws to read “prophetic people” in order to be more inclusive. And I should note, this campaign was started by my colleague Jami Yandle and others at our Toledo, Ohio, congregation.)

Anyway, back to the hymn. We now are talking exemplars and pioneers – and what better exemplars to start with than the Christ and the Buddha?  These elegant lyrics, by English Unitarian minister John Andrew Storey, are intriguingly set to a tune by I-to Loh, a professor of liturgy in the Philippines – and what I love is that even though there are other Western tunes this could easily be set to, the choice of this Eastern tune removes a sense of Western domination. It is subtle to be sure, but it is a brilliant choice that preferences a culture other than our own and still speaks to us.

We the heirs of many ages, with the wise to guide our ways,
honor all earth’s seers and sages, build our temples for their praise.

But the good we claim to cherish, all that Christ and Buddha taught,
unrepentant hearts let perish, spurning truth most dearly bought.

Centuries of moral teaching, words of wisdom, ancient lore,
all the prophet souls’ beseeching leaves us heedless as before.

Late in time, may we, forsaking all our cruelty and scorn,
see a new tomorrow breaking and a kinder world be born.

And lest you think the Asian tune means it’s hard to sing, it’s most assuredly not. It has a couple of intervals that are, to my Western-trained ears, a little unusual, but they would be easily learned by anyone, I think.

So why have I never sung it? I suspect in some cases, for other minsters it wasn’t the right message, or it seemed too foreign to introduce to ‘a congregation that doesn’t sing’ (which is code for “I don’t have anybody who can – or I don’t want to take the time – to teach them.”)

But here’s another reason it probably gets bypassed, and certainly got bypassed by me: it faces Abide With Me, and a title like We the Heirs of Many Ages makes a connection to memorials and funerals – if you don’t look, it seems like another of the same ilk, and for the most part (although colleague Christian Schmidt is about to prove me wrong), nobody uses Abide With Me except at memorials and funerals, so why would we give another funeral song a glance? And of course, we’d be wrong.

The worst part is that there have been times that this would have been the perfect hymn, and I blew those chances. But I’ll remember it now, as I revel in the openness and poetry of word and music.

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It’s Christmas Eve – time for another litany of things that are cool about the earth, and oh, before we forget, a little of humanity too, because we’re not actually part of nature.

Sigh.

I know why we have this World of Nature section, and why we have these hymns that praise said nature. And yes, some of them have been incredibly inspiring and beautiful. But I can’t deny a little joy at the prospect of turning the page and getting into the meditation and mystical songs tomorrow. I will say that one of my colleagues was right: this is why we don’t just sing through the hymnal in order on a regular basis; when taking the 15,000 foot view, I can see how it’s good to have some options that we might dip into. This is the downside of this spiritual practice – all the hymns of one kind in one fell swoop.

Now let’s look at the lyrics: these are the words of famous Unitarian activist John Haynes Holmes, founding minister of Community Church of New York, and who, among other things, helped found the NCAAP and the ACLU. I’m glad I get to talk about Holmes briefly, but I wish it were in a different setting, because he’s not exactly known for writing hymn lyrics. They’re lovely, but I prefer Holmes when he’s being prophetic and railing against war. Hymn writing was not his strong suit.

This land of bursting sunrise, all lavender and blue,
its cloud-strewn, light-swept day skies flow, and every day renew.
To east the glow of dawning, to west the blaze of night,
‘round all the long horizon’s rim, the everlasting light!

This land of open vistas, life rooted deep and free,
thy canyoned plains, thy mountains vast, plumb earth’s immensity.
Here in life’s fragile balance, the sun and stars above,
find hand in hand, and heart to heart, the everlasting love.

The lyrics are set to a modern tune by David Johnson that is rolling and minor and has all of those unusual chord progressions that make you focus on the singing and then lead you to wonder why, other than meter, this pairing exists. There’s a disconnect here for me that I can’t quite parse. If you’re going to talk to me about the loveliness of nature and the loveliness of us being hand in hand and heart to heart, then I want a lovely melody. Yes, it’s set in 6/8 and rolls in the accompaniment, but even that, to my ear, isn’t enough to save it.

Curious as always, of course, I then turned to the internet to see what it could tell me, all the while wishing I could just sing an easy Christmas carol and be done with this juxtaposition of definitely-not-holiday-music and holiday-on-nauseating-repeat.

What the internet told me is that the original lyrics to this hymn are as Christmas Eve as they come:

A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.

Subsequent verses tell of Jesus’s life story, because we need a reminder I guess, and wraps up back at the night of his birth.

So there it is. This slog through the World of Nature landed me right where we actually are. Whodathunkit?

(Yes, faithful readers: there will be a reflection tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite hymns coming up – feels like a Christmas present to me!)

 

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Wherein I think about process, relationship, and resistance – set to a quaint tune.

I don’t know how many congregations sing this hymn. I know that my home congregation sang it exactly once a year – at flower communion, a ritual devised by Unitarian minister Norbert Čapek in Prague in the 1920s and later brought to the US by his wife Maja in the 1940s.

The tune is, for lack of a better word, quaint. Old fashioned, but not in a ‘stand the test of time’ sort of way. And that’s okay, because it does make it a song of its time, perfect for hauling out once a year so we can tell the story of Capek’s ceremony and his subsequent martyrdom at the hands of the Third Reich.

But this hymn is so much more. And there’s a prescience to the lyrics that make me admire Čapek the theologian even more. You see, this is a very process-theology hymn, yet Čapek had been executed in Dachau several years before Charles Hartshorne wrote The Divine Relativity, which established this new theology, based on a philosophy, based on mathematics and physics.

In this remarkable lyric, we discover a growing God – a creating creator, inviting us to not just notice creation, not just be part of creation, but to be part of creating. All of earth and its earthlings = God’s vision growing. Especially those last two verses that make it clear that WE are God’s vision growing. We are the creation and the creators of reality, though our actions, through our being, in relationship, moving in harmony.

Color and fragrance, magical rhythm,
sweet changing music will change us with them:
life within life, inner light gently glowing,
surely you seem to be God’s vision growing.

O starry heavens, worlds of all splendor,
suns without number, new life engender:
wheel in a wheel with the light brightly glowing,
moving in harmony, God’s vision growing.

Hand full of pebbles, high mountain passes,
depths of the ocean, dew on the grasses:
great things and small, with the light gently glowing,
word of the wordless song, God’s vision growing.

Delicate beings, lacewing and sparrow
in field and forest, clover and yarrow:
life greeting life with the light brightly glowing,
none are too small to be God’s vision growing.

In human eyes burns the soul of living,
illumines altars of loving giving:
greeting, we meet, seeing light brightly glowing,
share in a greater life, God’s vision growing.

Shaper of all things, to us you’ve given
our chance to keep here on earth, a heaven.
Moving in harmony, light gently glowing,
may we be, gratefully, God’s vision growing.

Now as kind of a postscript, but not really – I’m writing this the day after the electoral college, in my opinion, failed democracy. We’re heading for several rough years as we resist the soul-crushing, life-threatening changes that may come. I have been wondering how we will manage, and more, how we can make sense of our faith (and my own process-relational perspective) without it turning into an unrealistic Pollyanna-like fairy tale. Am I asking too much of this positive, creative approach to life, thought, and divinity?

Of course, an answer appeared. As I sat down to write and hunt for the links for this piece, I encountered this quotation from process theologian Bob Menke:

Relational power takes great strength. In stark contrast to unilateral power, the radical manifestations of relational power are found in people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus. It requires the willingness to endure tremendous suffering while refusing to hate. It demands that we keep our hearts open to those who wish to slam them shut. It means offering to open up a relationship with people who hate us, despise us, and wish to destroy us.

It’s about relationships. Not just to what some call God, but to each other, to events, to power, to suffering, to our enemies and our friends, to the earth, to growth. It’s about relationships – because in the end, that’s all we have.

It won’t be easy. In a piece called “How will they change their minds?” blogger and friend Doug Muder explores what it will take (and how minds have changed in the recent past). It requires patience, resistance, and most of all, relationships.

It won’t be easy. But it is what we’re called to, if we are ever to see “God’s vision growing.”

 

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Let’s just tuck right in, shall we? This is a pretty and light tune (albeit with an odd harmonic choice in the second phrase), and it accompanies pretty and light lyrics, almost.

Because while everything is lovely and wonderful in nature, from star to sea, from earth to sky, apparently our lyricist, John Greenleaf Whittier, thinks people are terrible: “nature’s signs and voices shame the prayerless heart within.”

REALLY? You’re shaming me and my alleged prayerless heart? Seriously? Is this supposed to be a wakeup call to humanity? Is this “consider the lilies of the field” taken to its cynical conclusion? Or is this another of those gross misinterpretations of Thoreau? There is a negative attitude about humanity in that last verse that really gets under my skin.

I’m not saying we’re the best and screw the earth – not that at all. We have a sacred duty as earthlings to care for the planet and all that lives on it. But we are here, and we have developed to have these creative, emotional, innovative, self-reflective, self-saving and sometimes self-destructive minds. We are here, with hearts that are full of prayers whether we name them such or not. We have hopes and dreams and wishes and worries. To indict us as prayerless in a paradigm where nature is both separate from us and better than us? Not having it.

The harp at Nature’s advent strung has never ceased to play;
the song the stars of morning sung has never died away.

The prayer is made, and praise is given, by all things near and far;
the ocean looketh up to heaven and mirrors every star.

The green earth sends sweet incense up from many mountain shrines;
from folded leaf and dewy cup now pours the sacred wine.

The blue sky is the temple’s arch, its transept, earth and air;
the music of its starry march, the chorus of a prayer.

So nature keeps the reverent frame with which all years begin;
and nature’s signs and voices shame the prayerless heart within.

Seriously not having it.

(I am willing to concede there may be another interpretation, but I’m really struck by that final phrase and how turned off I am by it, so even a well-intentioned corrective won’t lead me to use it. I’m just not with this hymn.)

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I’ve been watching the series The Crown on Netflix – it’s the story of the first few years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, told in that predictably sweeping BBC style that endears to us such shows as Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife. It’s full of beautiful scenery, palace intrigue (literally in this case), and lots of traditional music intertwined with the glorious score written for the show. As expected, several scenes happen in religious settings (state funerals, royal weddings, coronations – just regular stuff), and thus the familiar English hymns make prominent appearance.

And so it is with this mental backdrop that I approach this hymn today. It is set to a tune called “St George’s Windsor” – which made me think immediately of the Royal Family, knowing that in the House of Windsor there have been a couple of Georges (although I doubt many would consider them saints). And sure enough, the composer George Elvey was the organist at the Windsor Chapel, hence the name. (Elvey also wrote “Crown Him with Many Crowns” – which is another staple in mainline Protestant churches).

This is, as the Psalter Hymnal Handbook describes, “a serviceable Victorian tune.”

Talk about damning with faint praise.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise a song of harvest home:
fruit and crops are gathered in, safe before the storms begin;
God, our Maker, will provide for our needs to be supplied;
come to God’s own temple, come, raise a song of harvest home.

All the world is but a field, given for a fruitful yield;
wheat and tares together sown, here for joy or sorrow grown:
first the blade, and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
God of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

Now here’s the truth for me: it’s not a hymn that gets my blood moving or my spirit soaring. It’s not a hymn that comforts me or inspires me. And yet, I really like it. It appeals to that part of me that cries every time I hear Holst’s Planets, or the English hymn Jerusalem (click on that link – it’s a stunning rendition). It is a lovely English melody tinged with pomp and circumstance, and for some reason, that works for me. As unstuffy as I am, I very much appreciate this tune.

I realize I haven’t talked lyrics today. It’s not that they’re not interesting – they are. The metaphor of harvest for human goodness is an intriguing one worth unpacking some day. I don’t know that I’ve actually read the lyrics before (because it’s possible to sing the words but not actually read the lyrics), but I’m intrigued. I have no conclusions yet… but there’s something aspirational about “grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be”…and maybe a little unattainable. But just as we will never get close to the crown by watching The Crown, we will never get to pure by singing about it. But it sure is nice to think that we’re working on it.

—

Update, November 15, 2017:

A few days ago, my colleague Kendyl Gibbons offered this new set of lyrics. She wrote, “It occurs to me that a re-do of the traditional Thanksgiving hymn Come Ye Thankful People that I have been using for a while may be of use to others as we plan for the next few weeks.  The adaptation is mine; please use freely.”

Come, ye thankful people, come;
Raise the song of harvest home.
All is safely gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin.
Earth is bounteous to provide
For our wants to be supplied;
Come, in glad thanksgiving, come;
Raise the song of harvest home.

These our days are as a field
Sweet abundant fruit to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the bud and then the ear,
Then the full corn shall appear.
Live so that at harvest we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.

Field and furrow, heavy grown;
Yours to tend but not your own.
Bread of life shall ye restore
To your neighbors evermore.
Gather all the nations in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin.
Let the world in gladness come;
Share the joy of harvest home.

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I’m not sure I have much to say about this one – partly because I’m jetlagged and got too little sleep thanks to a trip to Phoenix. Yay.

What I know is that the lyrics are fine – another praise for spring. Yay. This set is from the Renaissance, so it’s historical. Yay.

And I know that the tune is lovely – almost as lovely as the man who wrote it, Tom Benjamin. I met Tom at UU Musicians Network conferences, and he was sweet and kind to me.

The year we were in St. Paul, I organized a series of lunchtime salons, where various musicians could perform a piece – sometimes on instruments they don’t normally play, sometimes music they can’t use in worship, sometimes putting together ad hoc combos. I hosted each day’s offerings, knowing that I would close the whole series with Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” because I’m a huge fan of the American Songbook. I put out a call to get some musicians to play with me, and I was blessed to have Vicki Gordon on piano, Matt Meyer on drums, Dana Decker on bass.

The one that surprised me though, was a meek request from Tom, who asked if he could play clarinet. Now understand: I had been a fan of his for a while, and I was just some random chick who didn’t play an instrument and didn’t compose music, so who the hell was I? And here he is, asking permission to play with me! Well of course I said yes, and we worked out an arrangement where he got to shine. It was amazing. I loved the alchemy of the group, even for that one song. And more, I loved how real, and gentle, and insanely talented Tom is. As a result, I love singing hymns that he wrote – especially when we can use the Yaddo tune while in Saratoga Springs, NY, because Tom wrote it when visiting Yaddo, which is about a mile down the road from our congregation.

So – yeah. Sometimes our spiritual practice doesn’t go the way we expect. Sometimes it takes us to a memory that gives us joy and comfort.

Anyway, here are the lyrics. Yay.

Spring has now unwrapped the flowers, day is fast reviving,
life in all her growing powers toward the light is striving.
Gone the iron touch of cold, winter time and frost time,
seedlings working through the mold now make up for lost time.

Herb and plant that, winter long, slumbered at their leisure,
now bestirring green and strong, find in growth their pleasure.
All the world with beauty fills, gold the green enhancing;
flowers make glee among the hills, set the meadows dancing.

 

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This hymn has genuinely surprised me.

First, let’s talk tune: it’s set to an Hasidic melody that holds in its phrases a secret and unspoken longing – certainly an intriguing choice for a hymn called “When the Daffodils Arrive.”

I will also say that at first, I plunked it out fairly slowly – but then I took it at tempo, and learned its other secret: it is a dance.

When the daffodils arrive in the Easter of the year,
and the spirit starts to thrive, let the heart beat free and clear.

When the pussy willows bloom in the springing of the year,
let the heart find loving room, spread their welcome far and near.

When the sweet rain showers come, in the greening of the year,
birds will sing and bees will hum. Alleluia time is here.

Now there is something to make you go “hrm” here – it’s an Hasidic tune, talking about Easter. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that… it’s another juxtaposition that makes you wonder what the hymnal commission was thinking. But, here it is, Easter in an Hasidic tune.

And yet I love the lyrics. And I love the tune. I’m just not quite sure I would use this because of the jarring collision. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t either… the jury’s still out.

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I love being surprised by a hymn.

I opened the page and groaned a little at yet another hymn I don’t know – wild bells? Clouds? Frosty light? Oy vei. Here we go again, I thought. Another fairly fluffy lyric that doesn’t go anywhere. And oh, look, another tune I have never sung.

I decided to tackle the tune first, which I discovered is a remarkable little melody with graceful lines and a touch of melancholy. That in hand, I turned to sing.

And I discovered the fluffy lyrics don’t last long at all.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild, wild sky,
the flying cloud, the frosty light:
the year is dying in the night;
ring out, wild bells, and let it die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
ring, happy bells, across the snow:
the year is going, let it go;
ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
for those that here we see no more;
ring out the feud of rich and poor;
ring in redress to humankind.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
the civic slander and the spite;
ring in the love of truth and right;
ring in the common love of good.

In fact, holy cow, this hymn was written for today.

I did finally realize this is a setting of an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem, which I immediately looked up. There are a few more verses, all equally powerful statements against greed, abuse, hatred, and callousness – and ends with a plea for peace, kindness, compassion, and “the Christ that is to be.’

Wow. Why are we not singing this hymn every week? Are others using this hymn right now in this strange time in our history and I’m just late to the party? Are they waiting to use it in December? I’m thinking now about how this would fit in, because we need to ring out a lot of things right now to make room for “truth and right” and “the common love of good.”

It’s time to ring the bells.