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My post will be short today, as I have succumbed to what is commonly known as “con crud” – the general flu-like illness that befalls many a convention attendee. But I wouldn’t be true to this practice without at least singing through this beloved hymn and making a few comments before the siren song of my bed overtakes my weakened resolve.

I do love this hymn, although I think one reason is that when I hear it in my head, I hear Geraldine Granger, the Vicar of Dibley, singing it. I’m not sure what episode it appears in (“Songs of Praise” maybe?) but what I love about her singing is the enthusiasm with which she does it, egging a tiny congregation on to sing robustly.

I also love that this is in our hymnal, a wonderful expression of the transcendent god we find in the Bible.

Immortal, invisible, God only wise.
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
thy justice like mountains high soaring above
thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.

To all, life thou givest, to great and to small;
in all life thou livest, the true life of all;
all laud we would render; oh, help us to see,
‘tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.

Perhaps the only quibble (and I’m not sure I disagree with this one) is that our Hymnal Commission compressed verses 3 and 4 into one verse that better reflects the process threads in our theology. Here are the original verses 3 and 4, by 19th century Scottish minister Walter Chambers Smith, who led the Free Church of Edinburgh and later was moderator of the Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland:

To all, life thou givest, to both great and small;
in all life thou livest, the true life of all;
we blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree,
then wither and perish, but naught changeth thee.

Thou reignest in glory, thou dwellest in light,
thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
all praise we would render; O help us to see
’tis only the splendor of light hideth thee!

I don’t mind losing tree leaves and angels – in fact, I think the combined verse is stronger and better.

Anyway… enjoy this delightful, free Scottish hymn while I crawl back to bed.

—

I couldn’t find a Free Church in Edinburgh that looked old enough to be Smith’s congregation – so our image is of a Free Church in the village of Lochinver, which looks old enough and pretty enough that we’d want it to be his Edinburgh congregation.

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Um…yeah. Wow. Okay. Um… hooboy.

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. Not because I’m in awe or enraged, but because, well, wow… someone actually turned this into a song? Like, for us to sing?

You see, I sing these words and what I hear is a minister trying to explain to their very humanist congregation that we’re gonna celebrate at least one Christian holy day, dammit, so get off my back already and enjoy it, and it’s just one damn day of the year so chill out, because I’m about to give you a way to enter into the holy day that doesn’t offend your religious allergies.

Seriously:

O we believe in Christmas, and we keep Christmas day;
and we will honor Christmas the ancient worldwide way:
the Christmas of all peoples, the sun’s returning cheer
rung out from towers and steeples at midnight of the year.

And we will join at Christmas the song of hope and joy
that finds its theme at Christmas in every girl and boy.
The flame of life will dwindle as fades the sunset sky
until a child shall kindle new light and raise that high.

Then sing we all at Christmas the song of that new birth
which holds the hope of Christmas and brings its joy to earth;
which knits the generations, each daughter and each son,
beyond all tribes and nations, and makes the many one.

Shine out ye lights of Christmas from hearth and tree and star!
And let the warmth of Christmas shed kindness near and far!
And clang, ye bells of Christmas, upon the frosty air!
And may the joy of Christmas spread gladness everywhere!

It’s entirely possible this song has turned me into a curmudgeon.

And I’d love to hear from others if they ever use this song from ethical culturist Percival Chubb, an Englishman (with a name like that, who’d have doubted it?) who moved to America to teach in the Ethical Culture School in New York City (and founded the Drama League in America – yay!). I can’t imagine ever using this, even as a reading.

—

The image is the first thing that came up when I searched for Percival Chubb, and it delighted me so I decided to use it.

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I’ve been staring at the screen, sipping coffee, for longer than is entirely comfortable, feeling empty and lacking in anything of substance – humorous, snarky, historic, theological, musical, or otherwise – to say.

Perhaps in a different time and place, when there is a sense of pride in who we are as a nation, this might feel a little more inspiring. And even then, I might find this somewhat frustrating – inasmuch as I find any kind of nationalism and belief in chosenness frustrating.

This hymn, with its very German folksongy tune, celebrates the military victory of a nation and a temple at the hands of a strong-armed god. I know it is popular in many synagogues around the world, and there is biblical precedent for singing a song of victory – see Exodus 15, a song of victory led by Moses and the guys after the Egyptians die in the Reed Sea.

But, well… I don’t know. It feels strange to follow up Light One Candle and Mi Y’Malel, with their broader vision of justice for all, with this song of Maccabean military triumph.

Rock of Ages, let our song praise your saving power;
you amidst the raging foes were our sheltering tower.
Raging they assailed us, but your arm availed us,
and your word broke their sword when our own strength failed us.

Kindling new the holy lamps, priests, unbowed by suffering,
purified the nation’s shrine, brought to God their offering.
And in lands surrounding hear the joy abounding,
happy throngs singing songs with a mighty sounding.

Children of the prophet’s word whether free or fettered,
wake the echoes of the songs where you may be scattered.
Yours the message cheering that the time is nearing
which shall see nations free, tyrants disappearing.

I suspect some of my gentle readers will have a different perspective on the hymn, which I wholeheartedly welcome. I suspect they’ll put this in context, they’ll talk about right over might, they’ll see this as celebration of truth and freedom.

And perhaps if we weren’t bingewatching this bizarre thing that’s part House of Cards, part Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and isn’t fiction at all but actual international crisis and possible treason, I might feel willing to celebrate a bit more.

To say “I have nothing interesting to say” – which has happened – is a misnomer. I have something interesting to say…it’s just not very happy or perhaps even helpful.

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It is apparently old folky week here at the Far Fringe… because I first learned this song a million years ago through a recording by The Weavers:

Yessiree, that’s Pete Seeger on the banjo, along with the incredible Ronnie Gilbert on lead vocals, along with Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman. I remember once in my twenties hearing Holly Near, whose music I had learned at Girl Scout camp, singing with Ronnie Gilbert, and it was an embarrassingly long time before I connected Gilbert as the female singer in the Weavers.

I know I’m hardly writing about the songs these last few days, because I suddenly find myself swimming in the deep blue waters of memory. I suppose some of it is that I’m at the end of a ministry and ready to launch a new one, some of it is that I’m just a couple of weeks away from my ordination, but certainly some of it is that the Hymnal Commission had the good sense to include in our Living Tradition music that resonates beyond its immediate meaning. For just as Light One Candle is about Hanukkah but so much more, so is Mi Y’Malel. And these songs carry with them lyrical meaning but also the meaning of a time, when folk exploded in the American consciousness as a gentle, familiar form to help us enter the difficult sideways.

Anyway, this is a traditional Hebrew song for Hanukkah, given life by our familiar and beloved folkies, and now preserved with all its meaning and memory for us.

Mi y’malel g’vurot Yisrael Otan mi yimneh?
Henb’chol dor yakum hagibor, Goel Haam.

Sh’ma! Bayamin hahem baz’man hazeh.
Makabi moshia u fodeh,
Us v’ya menu kol am Yisrael,
Yitached, yakum v’yigael.

Mi y’malel g’vurot Yisrael Otan mi yimneh?
Henb’chol dor yakum hagibor, Goel Haam.

—

Who can retell the things that befell us? Who can count them?
In every age a hero or sage came to our aid.

Ah! At this time of year in days of yore
Maccabees the Temple did restore,
and today our people, as we dreamed,
will arise, unite, and be redeemed.

Who can retell the things that befell us? Who can count them?
In every age a hero or sage came to our aid.

Who can retell the things that befell us? We must preserve the stories and write the histories and make sure future generations – and we in the present – know what happened. This is important, certainly today in this weird time of alternative facts and fake news. Who will be our heroes and sages….and bards?

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The first time I remember knowing who Peter, Paul, and Mary were, I was about 8 and was watching my brother and his first wife singing the song “Lemon Tree.” Karen had long chestnut brown hair and a rich alto voice, and while I often associated her with another alto brunette named Karen – Karen Carpenter – my sister-in-law had the Mary Travers sound down too, and the song sounded great to my young ears.

Peter, Paul, and Mary – along with so many other folksingers – became part of the rich tapestry of music that filled my childhood, and they are in part why I pick up on harmonies so easily and tend to blend my voice well with whoever I am singing with. But it wasn’t until adulthood, really, that I learned about the political meaning behind their (and so many other folksingers’) lyrics.

I wonder in part if that’s because I liked so much music I didn’t pay attention to it, or if my growing up the child of Rockefeller Republicans kept me from that analysis, or – as I realized in my undergraduate course on Vietnam – the issues were so current and so present there wasn’t language or resources to teach it. I remember sitting in that college class in my early 30s with the professor doing the first-session litany of “of course you know” facts; and while the students 12-15 years younger nodded at basic information, those my age sat with puzzled looks. We recalled to the class that history went up to the Korean War and we talked about current events only after Watergate – thus shining a light into a significant gap in our knowledge.

And it was only in that class that I really came to study and understand the anti-war, civil-rights, social justice meanings of so many songs from the folksingers I had loved throughout childhood.

Which brings me to today’s hymn – written by Peter Yarrow. Sure, it’s a Hanukkah song… sort of. But wow, is it really an anti-war, pro-civil-rights song.

(A quick musical note here – please, for all that is holy, please use guitars when singing this! It just clunks along on piano, and it needs the sense of urgency and freedom that guitars provide. )

Light one candle for the Maccabee children with thanks that their light didn’t die.
Light one candle for the pain they endured when their right to exist was denied.
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice justice and freedom demand.
But light one candle for the wisdom to know when the peacemaker’s time is at hand.

(Chorus)
Don’t let the light go out, it’s lasted for so many years.
Don’t let the light go out, let it shine through our love and our tears.

Light one candle for the strength that we need to never become our own foe.
Light one candle for those who are suff’ring the pain we learned so long ago.
Light one candle for all we believe in, that anger won’t tear us apart.
And light one candle to bring us together with peace as the song in our heart.

(Chorus)

What is the mem’ry that’s valued so highly we keep it alive in that flame?
What’s the commitment to those who have died when we cry out they’ve not died in vain?
Have we come this far always believing that justice would somehow prevail?
This is the burden and this is the promise and this is why we will not fail.

(Chorus)

What’s amazing to me, reading this the day after FBI Director James Comey was summarily and indelicately fired, just how resonant these lyrics are to Literally Today. “Light one candle for the strength that we need to never become our own foe.” Holy cow. “Have we come this far always believing that justice would somehow prevail? This is the burden and this is the promise and this is why we will not fail” – not “must not”, by the way – “WILL NOT”.

Wow do we need this song today.

Don’t let the light go out.

 

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I am such a geek.

After singing this hymn (and loving it), I looked to see who wrote the lyrics, and I wondered to myself, in the pattern of our Universalist forebear Hosea Ballou: Do I love this lyric because Mark Belletini wrote it, or did Mark Belletini happen to be the person who wrote a lyric I love?

I can say in true Universalist fashion that it is the latter, and, it’s awfully wonderful to have then seen it written by Mark, whose words I adored from afar for years and who now is a friend and frequent reader of the Hymn by Hymn series. Additionally, Mark was on the Hymnal Commission, and he often offers a perspective about the hymns they included. I hope that once the flurry of spring is past and General Assembly is under our belts, I can find some time to visit with him and get more stories and insight about the curation of Singing the Living Tradition.

But I digress.

This hymn, y’all. Set to a joyful (and somewhat familiar) Hebrew folk song, Mark’s lyrics make a strong and poetic connection between the Exodus story and the reasons we tell it today during Passover. And… when you look at the verses closely, it could have been written for 2017:

(Chorus)
Bring out the festal bread, and sing songs of freedom.
Shout with the slaves who fled, and sing songs of freedom.

What modern pharaohs live in arrogance crownéd?
Who shall be sent to challenge folly unbounded?

(Chorus)

Chains still there are to break; their days are not finished.
Metal or subtle-made they’re still not diminished.

(Chorus)

Still does resentment bind each brother and sister.
Still do the plagues affect us red as the river.

(Chorus)

Long be our journeying, yet justice is worth it;
dance, sister Miriam, and help us to birth it.

(Chorus)

O people, lift your heads and look to the mountains;
bushes aflame still call us, rocks still gush fountains!

(Chorus)

Now I’m sure if we asked nicely, Mark would be willing to adjust the “brother and sister” line to something like “family and neighbor” since we weren’t hip to the gender spectrum in the early 1990s, but otherwise, wow.  And thanks for naming Miriam – she who gets little notice but who was a pretty wise partner in this journey when brother Aaron was, well, the worst brother in the Bible after those awful siblings in Genesis.

And while this is meant for the Passover season, I think it’s okay to sing outside of then, because we always need to sing songs of freedom and remember the systems Moses & Co. were escaping – especially since we see them played out in living color every day.

We must lift our heads out of the horror and look to the mountains, seeing the bushes aflame still calling us.

And then bring out the festal bread and sing songs of freedom.

Lord knows we need them.

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I’m glad my voice is back, so I could sing this hymn. I love it, and just as there are those who long for Christmas carols throughout the year, I sometimes wish this hymn could be used outside of the Days of Awe.

I also wish it was less… draggy. It’s meant to be sung slowly (♩ = 48, which is a snail’s pace) but that bugs me a bit. I mean, it’s not for me to say, as I didn’t write the tune (Abraham Binder did); but a hymn mostly based on Psalm 150, the most cheerful and joyful psalm of them all shouldn’t seem like a dirge. I want this to be a dance, because even though the prayers in the verses are serious, they are cause for joyful hallelujahs.

O sing hallelujah: O sing hallelujah.

All praise be to you
through the high arch of the heavens,
and praise be by sun, moon, and stars.

(Chorus)
By trumpet, harp, and lute,
with cymbals and strings and flute,
with dancing, singing,
and music we praise you.
Sing hallelujah.

O sing hallelujah:
O sing hallelujah.
Our father and mother
and sov’reign of all mercies,
we wish to be quit of all war.

(Chorus)

O sing hallelujah:
O sing hallelujah.
Our father and mother and
sov’reign of all mercies,
inscribe us on pages of life.

(Chorus)

Anyway. I love this hymn and am always glad when we can mark the Jewish New Year with this song.

Even better when I can actually sing it.

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As a harbinger of things to come, our image is appropriate to the hymn’s holy day but not to when this is published (early May). In other words, expect a lot of Christmas images soon.

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Confession time: I did not actually sing this today.

It’s not that I don’t like this hymn – I do. It’s that I have laryngitis and I physically can’t. That laryngitis – and the accompanying cold – is also why this is so late: I turned off the alarm so I could sleep. The good news is I am not preaching this weekend; the bad news is I am singing and doing a blessing of hands at Diana McLean’s installation – so I have to find the voice by Sunday afternoon. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, I said I like this hymn, and I do. First, it’s got a wonderful tune to sing – as Jacqui James notes in Between the Lines, it is one of seven traditional tunes for this text and “has been the accepted Friday evening tune in England for two centuries.”

The text is pretty wonderful too – without any context, this is a fantastic view into the transcendent God upon high that we find now and then in our hymnal. This is the God Luther sings to in A Mighty Fortress Is Our God and whom we see in Immortal Invisible and Immortal Love. A loving, strong, god-outside-of-us. A solid, Psalm 23 god. Very much an Old Testament god.  And…one that seems somehow present and connected to our more theistic theologies.

Praise to the living God! All praised be The Name,
which was, and is, and is to be, for aye the same.
The one eternal God ere aught that now appears:
the first, the last, beyond all thought or timeless years.

Unformed all lovely forms declare God’s loveliness;
no holiness on earth can e’er The Name express
whose love enfolds us all; whose laud the earth displays.
Yea, everywhere, above, below, is perfect praise.

The spirit floweth free, high surging where it will;
in prophet’s word did speak of old, and speaketh still.
The Torah rests secure, and changeless it shall stand,
deep writ upon the human heart, on sea and land.

Eternal life hath God implanted in the soul;
such love shall be our strength and stay while ages roll.
Praise to the living God! All praised be The Name
which was, and is, and is to be, for aye the same.

In context, however, it’s even more wonderful. I will quote James here, as her explanation of the hymn text is pretty awesome:

This text, originally named “The Yigdal” fo its first Hebrew word, is sun antiphonally by cantor and congregation at the close of Jewish worship on the eve of the Sabbath and other festivals. probably written by Daniel ben Judah Dayyan between 1396 and 1404, it is a versification of the thirteen articles of Jewish faith drawn up by Maimonides. A Christian hymn based on “The Yigdal,” written ca. 1770 by Thomas Olivers, and English Methodist preacher, was used in England and the United States. In the 1880s, Rabbi Max Landsberg of Temple Berith Kodesh in Rochester, NY, asked Newton Mann, minister of the Unitarian church there, to make a more exact translation. later, Rabbi Landsberg asked Mann’s successor, William Channing Gannett, to recast Mann’s version in traditional meter. That version, omitting one stanza, appears here in revised form.

Now I’m not sure what was omitted – and yes, the revisions are largely about gender – but I am both surprised and not that a rabbi and a Unitarian minister worked together on this. It feels both appropriate and connected.

I’m a fan. I just wish I’d had a voice to sing it today.

 

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It’s Disconnected Thoughts Day here at the Far Fringe!

Disconnected Thought number one: the words and melody were written by Rabindranath Tangore, whose poetry we also find in Your Mercy, O Eternal One and Now I Recall My Childhood. That we also now have one of his melodies here I think is cool.

Disconnected Thought number two: did anyone else think this was a love song at first? I mean, it’s not surprising – this is another in a line of devotional poems from the Hindu traditions. But my first thought was “wedding song.”

Disconnected Thought number three: I had a moment of anxiety when I got to the word “smite” because I thought this was heading in the direction of some of the Psalms from the Old Testament – “I love God, God loves me, now go smite my enemies” (which I oddly just sang to the tune of “This Old Man”).

Disconnected Thought number four: is this a Diwali song?

(Refrain)
There are numerous strings in your lute,
let me add my own among them.

Then when you smite your chords,
my heart will break its silence,
and my heart will be one with your song.

(Refrain)

Amidst your numberless stars,
let me place my own little lamp.

(Refrain)

In the dance of your festival of lights
my heart will throb and my life
will be one with your smile. (Refrain)

Disconnected Thought the final: I don’t really like this one. For all of my love of art/music metaphors, this doesn’t work for me. I thought at first that it might have been the oddly somber tone of the melody, but really, I think it’s the idea that I’m not one of the strings in the Divine’s lute already, like I have to work to become part of this creation.

Meh.

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Shelley Jackson Denham is a denominational treasure.

This hymn was commissioned by the hymnal commission, and wow, did she deliver. I know some might avoid this one because it’s an unfamiliar tune, but trust me when I say that (a) it’s not that difficult – although you definitely don’t want to just spring it on a congregation and (b) the tune is absolutely perfect for Denham’s lyrics.

And I wonder if one of the reasons it is perfect is that the open fourths and rhythmic patterns make room for the meaning. I know in earlier posts I’ve complained that unfamiliar tunes mean folks might miss the lyrics in favor of trying to pick out the notes. And that might happen here too, initially. But there is a particularly beautiful marriage of word and melody here that gives an expansive feel to what Denham names as faith.

Faith is a forest in which doubts play and hide;
insight can hear the still small voice deep inside.
Web of Life, may this thread I weave
strengthen commitment to all I believe.
Vision be my guide as I seek my way,
lead me into this tender day;
Speak through me in all I do and say.

Seeds of both meek and strong are scattered in air;
dignity shines undimmed by bigotry’s glare.
Web of Life, may this thread I weave
help me bear witness to all I believe.
Justice be my guide as I seek my way,
lead me into this tender day;
speak through me in all I do and say.

Fortune and famine ride the swift winds of chance;
sorrow and pleasure seem united in dance.
Web of Life, may this thread I weave
mingle compassion with all I believe.
Mercy be my guide as I seek my way,
lead me into this tender day;
speak through me in all I do and say.

Really, this is a beauty.

One more note: that the penultimate phrase is “lead me into this tender day” speaks volumes. It is poignant and elegant, especially in these long tender days.