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I started singing this morning before I opened the hymnal, because I knew what today’s song would be. “Bright morning star’s a-risin’…” I sang.

And then I looked at our lyrics – “Bright morning stars are rising” – and thought, huh? Isn’t there just one morning star – the sun, or if we go Christian on it, Jesus? And which one’s right? This led me down the inevitable rabbit hole of learning more about the origins of the song and its original lyrics and tune. Surely I could get there and enlighten us all.

There is no “there” there.

Origins are sketchy – maybe Appalachian, someone hinted at Native American, someone else wondered about the Shakers, still another pinned it back to Ireland. And lyrics are sketchier still – seems some versions have been lengthily written to talk more about Jesus as the bright morning star, other versions more grounded in work and toil. And of course, there’s a debate on whether it’s “bright morning star’s a-rising” or “bright morning stars are rising”…

Bright morning stars are rising.
Bright morning stars are rising.
Bright morning stars are rising.
Day is a-breaking in my soul.

Oh, where are our dear mothers…

They are sowing seeds of gladness…

Oh, where are our dear fathers…

They are in the fields a-plowing…

The good news is that because of it’s long folk history, we can change some of our lyrics to remove the gender binary or add more verses to include others.

I know this is the first of our Entrance songs, but it is so wistful and somber to me, I couldn’t imagine using it that way. This always seems to me a song of hard-won joy or a longing for release. The “day is a-breaking” reminds me of the moment I had a few days ago with the line “Dawn breaks in me too” from Golden Skies at Dawn…. a releasing moment of prayer.

So. No clarity on this one, so make it your own. And if you’re not sure you can do that, start with this beautiful version by the Wailin’ Jennys:

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Among the things I have learned in almost a year of doing this practice is that I am sometimes the outlier – sometimes I see something in a hymn others don’t see that makes me anxious or angry or bored. I know some of it is that I do this before the coffee’s kicked in, but really, there are times that I just don’t get why we would want to include a particular song as part of our living tradition, as it feels wrong to me.

I say all this because I suspect few will feel as I do about this hymn, with lyrics by Alicia Carpenter, set to the haunting Guter Hilte tune: This hymn is scolding me, the way a Hobbit might have scolded Bilbo or Frodo.

Will you seek in far-off places?
Surely you come home at last;
in familiar forms and faces,
things best known, you find the best.

Joy and peace are in this hour,
here, not in another place.
Here in this beloved flower;
now, in this beloved face.

I can’t even with this one. “Surely you come home at last” because of course family’s the best. What if family isn’t the best and is in fact harmful? What if we want to see the world? What if we are called to another place? What if home is a landscape with flowers that don’t inspire but far off is the one that comforts our soul?

Look. I get that this is about appreciating what we have around us, and if it’s true that Carpenter was inspired by a Walt Whitman poem I can’t seem to find (Between the Lines notes that it’s inspired by “Here and Now” – anyone know what poem it’s talking about?), then it’s got that whole transcendentalist thing happening.

But surely you shouldn’t scold me into staying where I don’t want to be, or looking for something more.

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This is a very long song.

I suppose it has to be, given that it’s about life, death, and the whole schmear. But it is a long song, made longer by accompanists who drag it out – and lordy, there seems to be a compulsion amongst some of our accompanists to draaaaag thiiiiiis ooooone ouuuuuut so that we think we’ve lived a full lifetime from the opening laugh to the final answer.

I suppose that, plus the weird compulsion that turns waltzes into drinking songs, makes Shelley Denham’s song a killer. Oh, plus the fact that there’s a battle in the pews between the rhythm written on the page and the rhythm people want to sing. And to Betsy Jo Anglebranndt’s credit, she tried to enforce a most-certainly-not-a-drinking-song syncopation through her arrangement. Too bad so many folks don’t notice.

And did I mention that it’s a long song?

Now I suspect I have 354 haters reading this right now, but bear with me. Do me a favor and read these lyrics as though they are four separate movements in a concerto:

We laugh, we cry, we live, we die; we dance, we sing our song.
We need to feel there’s something here to which we can belong.
We need to feel the freedom just to have some time alone.
But most of all we need close friends we can call our very own.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love;
and we have found a need to be together.
We have our hearts to give, we have our thoughts to receive;
and we believe that sharing is an answer.

A child is born among us and we feel a special glow.
We see time’s endless journey as we watch the baby grow.
We thrill to hear imagination freely running wild.
We dedicate our minds and heart to the spirit of this child.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love;
and we have found a time to be together.
And with the grace of age, we share the wonder of youth,
and we believe that growing is an answer.

Our lives are full of wonder and our time is very brief.
The death of one among us fills us all with pain and grief.
But as we live, so shall we die, and when our lives are done
the memories we shared with friends, they will linger on and on.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love;
and we have found a place to be together.
We have the right to grow, we have the gift to believe
that peace within our living is an answer.

We seek elusive answers to the questions of this life.
We seek to put an end to all the waste of human strife.
We search for truth, equality, and blessed peace of mind.
And then, we come together here, to make sense of what we find.
And we believe in life, and in the strength of love,
and we have found a joy being together.
And in our search for peace, maybe we’ll finally see:
even to question, truly is an answer.

Taken individually, these verses are quite something. Denham has captured something of the UU experience here that I haven’t found anywhere else.

So what do we do with it? First of all, we do not sing all four verses in one sitting. Because unless you have an accompanist who can both take it at a good tempo and maybe change it up with modulations and alternate accompaniments AND a congregation that can sing it well, it just goes on forever and the answer just might be losing the will to live. In other words, choose wisely. Don’t sing the third verse unless there’s been a death in the congregation, maybe don’t sing the second either unless there’s a new birth, the start of an RE year, or a child dedication. Seriously, verses 1 and 4 are plenty and get us to some of the best lines in our hymnody.

Is this a favorite? Nope. Is this on the Nope list? Nope. Am I glad we have it? Absolutely.

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I love this prayer.

Seriously, this meditative, prayerful hymn – lyrics by Carl Seaburg, set to a Transylvanian folk tune – is absolutely in my top ten list. I love the haunting, minor key of the tune as well as the phrasing. Some might say the third phrase is too high, but that’s what transposition is for.

I also love the three-part invitation in the lyrics; especially that first one, to find, hold, and then let the stillness carry me. It’s a prescription for prayer and meditation. Find it, hold it, and let it do its work in us. I mean, really, the whole thing just knocks me out:

Find a stillness, hold a stillness, let the stillness carry me.
Find the silence, hold the silence, let the silence carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit, with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.

Seek the essence, hold the essence, let the essence carry me.
Let me flower, help me flower, watch me flower, carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit, with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.

Wow.

I sometimes sing this to myself as a prayer to help me pray. But it is effective for a congregation to sing – although always with an invitation to pray this hymn, which leads directly into a time of silent meditation.

And if you’re not a fan yet, consider singing this to yourself before you enter a time of prayer or meditation in your personal spiritual practice. I suspect you’ll notice – as I have – its helpful welcome and invitation to the Mystery.

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This hymn almost got ruined for me in 2009.

That spring, Saratoga Springs’ minister, Linda Hoddy, went on sabbatical, leaving a congregation well prepared to hold the fort down. As chair of the worship committee, I was also on the sabbatical team, and after a fall spent ensuring we had all our ducks in a row, our meetings were usually ten minutes of checking in on everything, then another half hour or so of general chatter.

Our longest meeting was the one about halfway through the sabbatical, when we all realized that while as a team the worship committee was doing a good job of attracting a wide variety of speakers and tending the scope of topics over the six-month period, we failed to track the week-to-week use of music, and we had been singing Gather the Spirit extremely frequently – easily two out of every three weeks. I know why it was chosen – it’s popular, it’s general in its scope, and – unless it’s played like a dirge – it’s a joy to sing.

But we were singing it a LOT. And it didn’t help that as we were gearing up for our first cluster-wide worship service, the obvious choice for the opening processional hymn was… Gather the Spirit. As worship coordinator for the service, I gulped, wondered if we could find another song, but realized that no, this was exactly the right hymn.

Back in Saratoga, we started waving speakers off this hymn, asking them to choose something else (and eventually offering a few other options that the congregation was familiar with and do the same kind of work). And as I stood at the stairs of the stage our choir and speakers processed onto in the cluster-wide service, I didn’t need any lyrics, because I realized I knew them all. Because we just. kept. singing. this. song.

I still know them by heart, partly because of that spring, but also because it really is a terrific song. And while some of UU songwriter Jim Scott’s pieces can be complex and tricky to sing, this one gets it right.

Gather the spirit, harvest the power.
Our sep’rate fires will kindle one flame.
Witness the mystery of this hour.
Our trials in this light appear all the same.

(Chorus)
Gather in peace, gather in thanks.
Gather in sympathy now and then.
Gather in hope, compassion and strength.
Gather to celebrate once again.

Gather the spirit of heart and mind.
Seeds for the sowing are laid in store.
Nurtured in love, and conscience refined,
with body and spirit united once more.

(Chorus)

Gather the spirit growing in all,
drawn by the moon and fed by the sun.
Winter to spring, and summer to fall,
the chorus of life resounding as one.

(Chorus)

This is a song of warm, open welcome.  Just don’t overuse it… and by all that is holy, do not play it as a dirge! It is meant to dance in a gentle waltz, ushering us in with gentleness and love.

And I am glad it didn’t get ruined for me.

—

Photo is of our first joint service in 2009, with members of the four congregations (Albany, Schenectady, Glens Falls, and Saratoga Springs) coming together for the first time to worship. We asked each congregation to bring their chalices, from which we lit a common chalice. Then St. Lawrence District Executive Tom Chulak (pictured) joined Tom Owen-Towle as our first speakers. The cluster has now expanded, and we continue to hold a service each year, featuring an outside speaker (past speakers have included Thandeka, Kim and Reggie Harris, and Scott Alexander). This year, our service will feature the amazing Glen Thomas Rideout – and I am privileged to be back as worship coordinator.

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I feel like an apostate for saying this, but I do not care for this hymn.

Now let me be clear: I like the tune (an initially tricky Swiss folk tune called Solothurn). And I like Wendell Berry’s poetry. And I don’t even mind the two together – they seem to fit well, with some musical phrasing that matches the poetic meter beautifully.

I think my problem is this – and it’s something I’ve encountered before in this practice but didn’t quite have words for until this moment (which is nearly an hour coming…this has been a hard write today): I want hymns to move the plot, not describe the scene. And I know that’s unreasonable, since every good musical has at least one descriptive song, usually in the beginning (“Fugue for Tin Horns” from Guys and Dolls, “Another Openin’, Another Show” from Kiss Me Kate, “Six Months” from Damn Yankees); of course, even those set up the situation or the setting (New York gamblers, theater people, baseball fanatics). This hymn doesn’t even do that. It just describes a particular part of the interdependent web.

It does describe that part beautifully, of course:

O slowly, slowly, they return
to some small woodland let alone:
great trees outspreading and upright,
apostles of the living light.

As patient stars they build in air
tier after tier a timbered choir,
stout beams upholding weightless grace
of song, a blessing on this place.

They stand in waiting all around,
uprisings of their native ground,
downcomings of the distant light;
they are the advent they await.

Receiving sun and giving shade,
their life’s a benefaction made,
and is a benediction said o’er
all the living and the dead.

In fall their brightened leaves, released,
fly down the wind, and we are pleased
to walk in radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised.

I just don’t know why it’s a hymn. And I don’t know why it’s in the Insight and Wisdom section, and not the World of Nature section. And again, I don’t know that a congregation singing this will get the grace of Berry’s poetry unless they spend time with it. And I don’t know where or when I’d use it as a hymn. As a reading, absolutely. But this doesn’t do the work of a hymn, in my opinion.

Perhaps it’s a failing of imagination on my part. But I am not feeling it.

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I am in a Lichtenstein painting: “Oh no! I forgot to read George Santayana!”

And I’m a bit embarrassed, largely because he wrote about spirituality and aesthetics, and this is the area of my ministry and while God knows I have read a ton of literature in my area of ministry, how is it I’ve never read – or frankly, been directed to read – Santayana. What’s crazy is that I know more about Orlando Gibbons, the 16th century English composer of our tune, than I do about 20th century Spanish philosopher Santayana.

Sometimes this spiritual practice of mine is an unexpected wake up call.

What it isn’t, today, is a love of this particular hymn. Now hear me out: I love the tune (Song 1) – partly because it’s Gibbons and partly because it’s another Vaughan Williams arrangement. And I love the lyrics. And I don’t even mind them together (their mood matches). What I don’t love is the same thing I didn’t love about our setting of Frost’s poem in O Give Us Pleasure in the Flowers Today: I want time to savor and explore and think deeply about the words, not rush through them because of the demands of the music. Seriously, take a few moments to delight in these words:

O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
and on the inward vision close the eyes,
but it is wisdom to believe the heart.
To trust the soul’s invincible surmise
is all of science and our only art.

Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
that lights the pathway but one step ahead
across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine
by which alone the mortal heart is led
unto the thinking of the thought divine.

And this leads me to wonder whether this should have been included instead as a reading – would it be used more, or less? I honestly have never used it nor remember ever singing it, but I wish I’d been more aware of it before now – not just because I haven’t read enough Santayana, but because I would have used it in at least three different services.

Grateful, however, for this practice.

Now off to read some Santayana.

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I am in Peterborough, New Hampshire, preparing to lead a retreat with dear friend and colleague Diana McLean. And as I was preparing to write today, I waxed a little poetic about the Blake poem this hymn tune (Jerusalem, by Charles H.H. Parry) was written for.

And I burst into tears. Like, not just a weepy lump in my throat, but full on, reaching for the Kleenex, now I have to reapply my makeup tears. Which got worse when I read the lyrics we have in our hymnal.

I’m tellin’ ya. Ugly cry.

I’m not sure why the Blake lyrics gets to me – it’s very pro-England, very pro-Second Coming, very cliché. So cliché it’s inspired books, films, and tv shows.  And I’m a bit embarrassed by my reaction. Yes, I’m an Anglophile – I love British tv and film, I love English history, I love the English countryside, and once I loved an Englishman (who broke my heart). But why does this hymn – and not so many others that scream out my personal theology – make me burst into tears?

Anyway… makeup adjusted, tissues discarded… here’s our hymn. The tune is soaring and lush, and very fitting for these words by Don Marquis. And as much as our last encounter with Marquis frustrated me, this encounter draws me directly into the mystery of life and death and Mystery itself.

Have I not known the sky and sea put on a look as hushed and stilled
as if some ancient prophecy drew close upon to be fulfilled?
Like mist the houses shrink and swell,
like blood the highways throb and beat,
the sapless stones beneath my feet turn foliate with miracle.

And life and death but one thing are — and I have seen this wingless world
cursed with impermanence and whirled like dust across the summer swirled,
and I have dealt with Presences
behind the veils of Time and Place,
and I have seen this world a star — bright, shining, wonderful in space.

Gorgeous. Simply divine, really. And as I contemplate the lyrics, and my reaction, I realize this should probably be sung at my memorial service.

No wonder I had such a strong reaction.

I end with this beautiful choral arrangement of Jerusalem – not with our lyrics, but the Blake – sung by the West Point Cadet Glee Club (the song starts at 0:26):

And now I’m crying again. Where’s the Kleenex?

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Welcome to Hymn By Hymn After Dark!

Sorry, there’s no sexy R&B played by Venus Flytrap, or suggestive storylines, or anything anywhere near close to that. I’m in a tshirt and leggings, hair a mess, a Stuff You Should Know podcast on my phone. But it’s dark! And it has been a long day, since the early rising sing as I dried my hair, through last minute preparations for a closing ceremony, packing, cleaning, saying tearful goodbyes, processing, packing, cleaning, and finally battling summertime traffic on the Garden State Parkway  and the New York State Thruway to finally arrive home. But it’s been good.

As is this hymn. Now I’m not a big fan of the tune, Brother James’ Air, which is a little complicated to sing. But the lyrics, by William Oliver and adapted by Waldemar Hille, are a good and delightful celebration of humanity. I like that it is framed as gifts (rather than commodities) because whether or not you believe there is something beyond us, I hope we can all agree that life is a gift of something, even if it’s a gift of crazy random happenstance.

Life is the greatest gift of all the riches on this earth;
life and its creatures, great and small, of high and lowly birth:
so treasure it and measure it with deeds of shining worth.

Mind is the brightest gift of all, its thought no barrier mars;
it seeks creation’s hidden plan, its quest surmounts all bars;
it reins the wind, it chains the storm, it weighs the outmost stars.

We are of life, its shining gift, the measure of all things;
up from the dust our temples lift, our vision soars on wings;
for seed and root, for flower and fruit, our grateful spirit sings.

My one quibble would be the whole “high and lowly birth” thing; I am pretty sure that’s an older way of indicating the things that fly versus and the things that burrow in the ground, but it’s a bit problematic in today’s frames. On the whole though, the lyrics are expansive and quite lovely.

 

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I’m just gonna say right up front that for all of my belief in beauty and its role in revealing truth and inspiring connection to Mystery, I dislike the premise of this hymn.

The premise – that loveliness costs, that the spiritual and inspirational are currency, that this entire piece is set in a capitalist metaphor – is just terrible in my mind. I get the compulsion to set poet Sara Teasdale’s  “Barter” to music, as it celebrates beauty of all sorts. But I hate her frame, and I wonder… given the title, and given the reflection some critics have made that her poetry, for all its lyricism, dealt in part with disillusionment… I wonder if there isn’t some cynicism here. Is there a cost? And is it all too high, is loveliness seemingly too rare?

Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things,
blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings,
and children’s faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell, as music, like a curve of gold,
scent of pine trees in the rain, eyes that love you, arms that hold,
and for your spirit’s still delight, holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness, to buy and never count the cost:
for one singing hour of peace count a year of strife well lost,
and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been, or could be.

And I find myself in a space of wanting to dig deeper into the literary criticism and forget that this is a hymn, which I sang haltingly, which means others would too, which means no one would pay attention to the lyrics and have time to consider [what “one stinging hour of peace” means]* and why loveliness costs anything anyway.

So – as a hymn, not at all a fan.

As a poem, I’m intrigued because I am put off.

Or maybe I’m thinking too much.

*Edit: so… “stinging hour of peace” is a typo on my part – it’s “singing”. Whoops.