By |

If this spiritual practice (and yes, I still consider it a spiritual practice first and foremost) has taught me anything, it’s taught me that we are an aspirational faith. Even those hymns which were once cutting edge and are now problematic show us the truth of our assertion that revelation is not sealed – as we continue to expand our knowledge and our minds, the circle growing ever wider.

I mention this because on a day when the last thing we need are songs about love, on a day when what we need is the next ten words, and the ten after that, which tell us what to do next… we get a song about love. I admit, I groaned. What ever am I going to write, when this is the last thing we need?

And yet, as I sang, I realized that this aspirational faith (and this spiritual practice that seems to be conspiring with current events to put not the hymn I want but the hymn I need in front of me) has given us one of the most beautiful songs we have, about love, yes, but about more. It not only talks of joining together in love, but it gives us the next ten words – namely “we pledge ourselves to greater service, with love and justice.”

We would be one as now we join in singing
our hymn of love, to pledge ourselves anew
to that high cause of greater understanding
of who we are, and what in us is true.
We would be one in living for each other
to show to all a new community.

We would be one in building for tomorrow
a nobler world than we have known today.
We would be one in searching for that meaning
which bends our hearts and points us on our way.
As one, we pledge ourselves to greater service,
with love and justice, strive to make us free.

I need this aspiration of love and justice, of coming together to show the world what beloved community really looks like. And yes, if you’re just waking up to our nation’s long and ugly history of hate and violence, well, we’ll ignore the fact that you’re late to the party and just be glad you showed up at all.  This song is for you, calling you in to consider what’s beyond the flurry of pink hats and emails to your Congress critters. A reminder of what you are just now discovering. A call to keep showing up. A call to work, to learn, to listen, to pray, to sing.

Now if you’ve been on the front lines, in the trenches, boots on the ground and in the streets, teaching and preaching until you’re blue in the face, this song is for you too. A reminder what that hard work is about. A call back to our hearts and our beliefs. A reminder that we are not doing this alone, and if it feels like you are, look around and find others who will work with you, teach with you, listen with you, pray with you, sing with you.

And if you haven’t been doing anything, this song is for you as well. A reminder of what must be done, a reminder that we all find our own way to serve “that high cause of greater understanding of who we are and what in us is true.” A reminder that you don’t have to do this alone, and if it feels like you are, look around and find others who will help you, teach you, guide you, work with you, pray with you, sing with you.

And in it all, yes, a call to love. Because love isn’t fluffy pink hearts and slo-mo runs through a sun-dappled meadow. Love is a verb. Love calls us to act. Love calls us to build “for tomorrow a nobler world than we have known today.” If the way we enter all of this work is paved with love, then we are well grounded as we answer love’s call.

—

For completeness’ sake, I should mention that the lyrics (set to the Finlandia tune by Jean Sibelius) were written by Unitarian minister Samuel Anthony Wright, for Unitarian and Universalist youth at their Continental Convention of 1953-54. As Jacqui James notes in Between the Lines, “At this conference they merged to form the Liberal Religious Youth of the United States and Canada, setting a model for the Unitarian Universalist denominational consolidation in 1961.” We would be one, indeed.

By |

Am I the only one who sees the first line of this song and thinks of “Man of Constant Sorrow” from O Brother, Where Are Thou? Really? It’s just me? Can’t be.

Anyway…  this is another one I have never sung, and likely never would have chosen because it’s got a title “This Old World” and is stuck next to Children of the Earth, both of which lead one to think they’re more about the planet than the people. To be honest, I’d have stuck this one in the Love and Compassion section rather than the Humanity section, because it’s really about how we love one another. But that’s me.

But check this out – sung to the Southern Harmony tune Restoration – it’s got a fair bit of seriousness and melancholy but also comfort and love in its tune, and in its lyrics. Lyrics I’m pretty much a fan of and have preached on without knowing it.

This old world is full of sorrow, full of sickness, weak and sore;
if you love your neighbor truly, love will come to you the more.

We’re all children of one family; we’re all brothers, sisters, too;
if you cherish one another, love and friendship come to you.

This old world can be a garden, full of fragrance, full of grace;
if we love our neighbors truly, we must meet them face to face.

It is said now, “Love thy neighbor,” and we know well that is true;
this, the sum of human labor, true for me as well as you.

Yes, there’s a bit of binary language in there – “brothers, sisters, too” – but here’s a thing: the words at the bottom of the page that say “Words: American folk tune” are usually a good indication that (a) this has been sung with varying lyrics long before we captured it and (b) no one’s going to mind if you change that to something like “siblings, cousins, too” and (c) that kind of fluidity is expected in this kind of folk tune.

In fact, as I just learned at Folklorist.org, this is a song that has what are called “floating verses” – meaning the chorus (in this case, our first verse) stays the same, and then you float in other verses from other songs that fit the meter. In the examples Folklorist offers, we see verses of all kinds, including

Come, thou font of every blessing,
Move my heart to sing thy praise.
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.

…which fits perfectly and can float in along with other verses in 8.7.8.7 meter. Which is really cool.

So…yeah. I like it a lot. A LOT.

And because I know it’s in your head, here’s Man of Constant Sorrow (song starts about 1:18):

By |

This hymn knocks me out.

Frequent readers know I am a theist, with a sense of the Divine that is creator and creating. And what a creation we are! How wondrous is the human mind and its infinite capacity! That we are able to learn and explore and think new things, that we are adaptive and adaptable, that we can imagine not only all manner of things beyond ourselves – that is wondrous indeed.

I have these moments every now and then when I am taken completely aback by something a human has created or thought. Sometimes it’s amazement at the spectacle of skyscrapers on Fifth Avenue. Sometimes it’s awe as I video-chat  on my phone – my phone! – with a friend in Australia. Sometimes it’s realizing that an operation that once caused 8-inch scars and weeks in the hospital is now an outpatient procedure with a one-inch incision.

I recently listened to a podcast about Charles Darwin, and it got me thinking: Darwin was definitely a man of his age – like many upper class Victorians of the time, he was interested in art, nature, and science. But in 1859, Darwin made a rather simple observation that has absolutely changed how we perceive the world. That observation, of course, is evolution by natural selection. What struck me, however, is not the awesomeness of the theory that has since been proved as fact by biology, anthropology, paleontology, and other sciences. No, it is the fact that the human brain is so amazing that it can incorporate positively new ideas and actually adapt to new technologies.

Our minds are so adaptive that how we learn, how we use new tools, how we process even more and more information is evidence of a mind that is constantly seeking to extend itself, to grab on to new tools it has never experienced before and merge with them.  It is stunning when you think that we constantly incorporate life-shaping ideas such as evolution and heliocentrism… we take space travel as fact, not fantasy… we have spent centuries developing cars and combines and phones and lasers … we construct buildings that scrape the sky … we come up with ingenious ways to adapt to our changing climate… we know thousands more words and absorb more information in a year than we did in a lifetime just 100 years ago… and yet we are still human, in human communities, in human relationships, propagating the species and adapting to the world.

We really are something – and the activist and radical political lyricist Malvina Reynolds captures it perfectly:

O what a piece of work are we,
how marvelously wrought;
the quick contrivance of the hand,
the wonder of our thought,
the wonder of our thought.

Why need to look for miracles
outside of nature’s law?
Humanity we wonder at
with every breath we draw,
with every breath we draw!

But give us room to move and grow,
but give our spirit play,
and we can make a world of light
out of the common clay,
out of the common clay.

I’ve been waiting for this one to come around. I mean, it’s the pinnacle of humanist hymn, and it’s my favorite of these hymns. And the dance that is our tune, Dove of Peace (one of the Southern Harmony tunes) is a perfect match. This is a celebration of the best that humanity is and can be.

And yes, of course, human minds have created a lot of terrible things. That hell is on earth is of absolutely no question. Human minds have created hate, and oppression, and violence, and all the things that make life untenable.

Which is all the more reason to celebrate the goodness of humanity as well. If we didn’t believe in our inherent goodness, our inherent potential to do better, be better, help one another, learn and do and teach and discover more and more, then what is life for?

And so today, and every time we sing this hymn, it’s worth pausing to remember that we are amazing creatures, marvelously wrought.

By |

Mitch Miller (remember him?) included this parody of “Stars and Stripes Forever” on one of his Sing Along with Mitch albums:

Be kind to your web footed friends,
For a duck may be somebody’s mother
Be kind to your friends in the swamp
Where the weather is very, very damp
You may think that this is the end:
Well it is.

And of course, intentionally, it leaves you wanting the rest of the song.

Like this hymn.

We have here two verses put together from the two verses that make up Edwin Markham’s poem “Earth Is Enough.” And what I don’t understand is why the verses have been switched, because the way our hymnal commission reset it, we are left without an ending (which, by the way, we find in the last line of the hymn’s first verse…and which was the last line of the poem).

Here are our lyrics:

Here on the paths of every day —
here on the common human way —
is all the stuff the gods would take
to build a heaven, to mold and make
New Edens. Ours the task sublime
to build eternity in time.

We need no other stones to build
the temple of the unfulfilled —
no other ivory for the doors —
no other marble for the floors —
no other cedar for the beam
and dome of our immortal dream.

I had expected there to be a few more verses of the poem, which would finish us off but which might have been too heavy handed in a theology that doesn’t jive with ours, but no. This one is just an odd switch that has us leading with the ending and ending with the turn.

Adding to my puzzlement was searching for the hymn tune; even if I know it, I often look for more information. There are actually four different tunes called Fillmore – only one is the correct one, but searching for “Southern Harmony” – as noted in our hymnal – along with “Fillmore” doesn’t help, because the tune actually doesn’t come from Southern Harmony. Here’s more information, from Hymnary:

Composer: Jeremiah Ingalls (Born: March 1, 1764, Andover, Massachusetts. Died: April 6, 1828/1838, Hancock, Vermont. Buried: Rochester, Vermont.)

Ingalls moved to Newbury, Vermont, in 1787, and in 1791 began leading the singing at the First Church there. The choir became quite well known, and people came from miles around to hear them. In 1803 Ingalls became a deacon, though he was removed and excommunicated in 1810. He had run a tavern for a number of years, but sold it and moved to Rochester, Vermont, after his falling out with the church. His works include: Christian Harmony, or Songsters Companion.

So while this is a shape note tune, it’s from one of the northern harmony collections. And, if you read between the lines, it is entirely possible that Ingalls became a Unitarian or a Universalist given his falling out with the church (now UCC) in New England in 1810… I’m possibly projecting here, but that often happened.

Anyway. I’m not sure I like this one. If anything, it could be an interesting hymn for right before a sermon or other reading that finishes the thought that Markham actually had finished in his very earth-centered, very Universalist poem.

Now you may think that this is the end.

Well, it is.

By |

The first rule of Let It Be a Dance is that it is a mostly-spoken-word folk song.

The second rule of Let It Be a Dance is that it is a mostly-spoken-word folk song.

The third rule of Let It Be a Dance is that it if you’re going to use it, it’s really only best done on guitar with a folk musician who knows what they’re doing.

I know we have a melody transcribed, and a piano accompaniment written. And yes, it’s a good thing we have preserved this song in our living tradition. Ric Marsten captures something amazing in his lyric – combining the joy of humanity with the sage wisdom of Ecclesiastes 3. I love the language. And the chorus is easy to pick up – as good folk choruses are.

But, as we see from the evidence, and as musician (and SUUSI Boyz founder) Alexis Jones has taught us, this is a largely spoken-word folk song. I think our plodding along with piano and a fierce adherence to the song as written in our hymnal has obscured the beauty of this song

Here. This is Ric himself singing it with a group of children:

Now look at these lyrics – they’re meant to be largely spoken:

(Chorus)
Let it be a dance we do.
May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times and the bad times, too,
let it be a dance.

Let a dancing song be heard.
Play the music, say the words,
and fill the sky with sailing birds.
Let it be a dance.
Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance.
Learn to follow, learn to lead,
feel the rhythm, fill the need
to reap the harvest, plant the seed.
Let it be a dance.

(Chorus)

Everybody turn and spin,
let your body learn to bend,
and, like a willow with the wind,
let it be a dance.
Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance.
A child is born, the old must die;
a time for joy, a time to cry.
Take it as it passes by.
Let it be a dance.

(Chorus)

Morning star comes out at night,
without the dark there is no light.
If nothing’s wrong, then nothing’s right.
Let it be a dance.
Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance.
Let the sun shine, let it rain;
share the laughter, bear* the pain,
and round and round we go again.
Let it be a dance.

A quick note about the phrase “bear the pain” – in a couple of places, I have seen folks make reference to the original being “bare the pain” – which is a very different meaning. However, I’ve not got anything more than anecdotal evidence that “bare” was Marsten’s intent. Anyone have information on this?

Anyway… I hope we can use this song judiciously in our congregations, letting our folk musicians (and you know we all have at least one in a congregation… I’m grateful to have Dan Berggren as a member of my home church, but you know yours) pay tribute to Masten and this wonderful, mostly-spoken-word song.

By |

Now THIS is a humanist hymn I can get behind.

What a glorious celebration of that creating, created, creative spark within each of us that is greater than the sum of us and that in the living evokes Mystery.

Earth is our homeland: a song of stars, a grace
wrought of the ages, an opal spun in space!
Dawn’s far blue hill, soft nighttime still, dark ocean depth, smooth stone —
for gifts sublime that hallow time we’ll sing, making deep thanksgiving known.

Word is our glory, our breath of air, our cry!
Parables, letters, or star names in the sky,
or myths that play as poets pray bring meaning to our lives.
For ev’ry praise that hones our days we’ll sing, till the final day arrives.

Music is wonder, an alchemy of art,
love’s pure enchantment, communion for the heart!
From chants to Psalms, from jazz to Brahms, no soul may stay at rest.
For starry choir in sky afire we’ll sing, joined with them in anthem blessed.

Hope is our high star, the certitude love brings;
silence our center, our living water’s spring.
Though aching heart know self apart from Whole and Mystery,
for gatherings of strengthening we’ll sing, throughout human history.

If you detected some Belletini here, you’ve got a good eye (or ear). He wrote this with fellow Hymnal Commission member Helen Pickett (whose husband Eugene served as UUA president). I love the patterns of poetry, the metaphors, and frankly, the fact that they set it to the Brahms hymn tune Symphony – and by the way, in verse three, we see what you did there.

I haven’t sung it much – I wonder if its length puts some people off. Or maybe we don’t preach about creativity and the arts enough – because this is a perfect hymn for that. Or maybe – as regular reader Kaye would agree – using the first line as a title is misleading. You really wouldn’t know that past the first verse it’s about creativity and process theology from the words “Earth is our homeland” – would you? (And here’s the real shame – I have preached a sermon called The Art of Meaning a couple of times, but never when I could use three hymns, so this never made the cut. I’m preaching it tomorrow, and I had the perfect opportunity to use it, and I plum forgot. Dammit.)

Anyway – I love this piece and highly recommend writing services for which this is the perfect hymn to sing. Partly because I love the hymn, but partly because we need to talk about creativity, the arts, and humanity’s connection to both Earth and Mystery a whole lot more.

By |

One of the advantages of doing this practice is that I’m beginning to know more hymn tunes by name. I flipped to the page this morning, thought “I don’t know this one” and the looked to the bottom, saw the tune was Mach’s Mit Mir, Gott (which we last sang only last week in With Heart and Mind), and thought “well now, I’m going to think of this tune as a most unusually named humanist hymn.” (Because the title translates to “deal with me, God”…)

As I sang, I thought to myself “huh… this is a good one for a building dedication:

The blessing of the earth and sky upon our friendly house do lie.
The rightness of a master’s art has blessed with grace its every part.
The warmth of many hands is strewn in human blessing on this stone.

The wind upon the lakes and hills performs its native rituals.
The worship of our human toil brings sacrament from sun and soil.
With words and music, we, the earth, in nature’s wonder seek our worth.

Here we restore ancestral dreams enshrined in floor and wall and beam,
a monument wherein we build that their high purpose be fulfilled,
be tool to help our children prove an earth of promise and of love.

And thus it was with a bit of triumph that I turned to Between the Lines and learned that yes, indeed, Kenneth Patton wrote these words for the dedication of the new building of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, Wisconsin.

As that building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the mid-20th century, it’s not surprising that Patton included a line like “the rightness of a master’s art has blessed with grace its every part” or calls the place “a monument” – while he was in some aspects, one of our Unitarian scoundrels, Wright was indeed a master of architecture, and it’s meaningful to have one of his designs in our fold, as it were.

And now, because of that clear association, I’m not sure I would use this hymn outside of a dedication of a building or worship space. I can’t see it beyond its bricks and mortar.

And wow, isn’t that a hell of a metaphor for some of our problems.

Hmm….

By |

Sometimes I sing a hymn and I think “it’s a fine hymn, but when would I ever use it?” (See the end for an important edit)

It’s a fine hymn. Another solid lyric by our friend, English Unitarian minister John Andrew Storey – a song of welcome, for sure, and a song of community and connection. And yet I’m not sure what kind of service would use a hymn like this; is it one when we talk about why we pass the peace? Is it one where we talk about John Donne’s “No Man Is an Island” and also include Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a Rock”? Is it to boost the pastoral care team? I don’t know…. what do you think:

The human touch can light the flame
which gives a brightness to the day,
the spirit uses mortal flame,
life’s vehicle for work and play.

The lover’s kiss, the friend’s embrace,
the clasp of hands to show we care,
the light of welcome on the face
are treasured moments all can share.

May all who come within our reach
be kindled by our inner glow,
not just in spirit’s words we preach,
in human touch love’s faith we show.

The lyrics are set to a tune called Dickinson College written by Brooklyn native Lee Hastings Bristol in 1962; to me, it has all the markings of a “tune written in the style of Victorian hymns” – but with a syncopated twist. As I sang it, I found myself stumbling, as the half notes were not where I expected them to be, and I held some quarter notes longer than written. I can imagine congregations struggling to get the rhythm right, and how painful that would be.

So I don’t know. It’s a fine hymn, but I don’t know when I’d use it.

Edited to add this comment from friend and mentor Michael Tino, who makes a really good point that I’m sorry I didn’t think of:

I always pause when presented with lyrics that claim things like “all can share.” All? Hmm-maybe not.

Touch is touchy. For some, those instances of touch are intimate and lovely. For others, they are intrusive and reminders of past abuse.

This hymn had fine intent, with uncertain impact.

By |

I need the hope of possibility.

I need the promise of unanswered questions.

I need the assurance of unsealed revelation.

Especially today, as I conclude my ministry at First Universalist Church of Southold and begin a community ministry in the arts and worship – a ministry whose form is not entirely clear but whose call is – I need these things in large supply, in my professional life, my personal life, and most definitely in my spiritual life.

This hymn – one of a few serious poems by early 20th century humorist Don Marquis – holds none of these things for me. In fact, it strikes me as rather determined to close the door to possibility and question, even as it promotes questioning in its third verse.

And it’s the third verse I really have a problem with. The first two aren’t bad – they’re a rather decent retelling of the creation story that is evolution. But the third verse…

A fierce unrest seethes at the core of all existing things:
it was the eager wish to soar that gave the gods their wings.
There throbs through all the worlds that are this heartbeat hot and strong,
and shaken systems, star by star, awake and glow in song.

But for the urge of this unrest these joyous spheres are mute;
but for the rebel in our breast had we remained as brutes.
When baffled lips demanded speech, speech trembled into birth;
one day the lyric word shall reach from earth to laughing earth.

From deed to dream, from dream to deed, from daring hope to hope,
the restless wish, the instant need, still drove us up the slope.
Sing we no governed firmament, cold, ordered, regular;
we sing the stinging discontent that leaps from star to star.

The first two lines are great. yes! This is how many of us, whatever our particularities, think is true – humanity driven by some need, some hope, something possible. It’s at the core of our Unitarian Universalism.

But then, boom. Marquis shuts the door hard, never letting our drive find what some call God. Nope. We don’t sing about that. We’re discontented beings in a wide scary universe. Period. No possibility of a new revelation. No possibility of Mystery.

Is this what we want our humanists and atheists to think? That in fact, science has sealed possibility and hope and cut us off from mystery? Because that’s how I read this last verse, and it is most assuredly not what I want anyone to think. I want neither science nor religious belief to seal possibility. Instead, I want them to work together to show us how much more is possible, how much more mystery there is in the universe, how many more questions there are than we can ever imagine.

I appreciate that some would be comforted by this hymn. And I do like the first two verses as an alternative to hymns like Earth Was Given as a Garden. But I will never sing that third verse.

I need the hope of possibility.

By |

I can’t write – I’m still giggling about the fact that every time I start singing this, even with lyrics in front of me, I start singing the English lyrics of A Mighty Fortress Is our God. And then getting mad when ‘in us its rivers flowing’ doesn’t rhyme with “on earth is not an equal” until I realize I sang the wrong words.

Seriously, though, I can’t get the Lutheran hymn out of my head enough to focus on Kenneth Patton’s lyrics.

Which, as is typical of his writing, quite good, quite inspiring, and oh so Unitarian Universalist.

We are the earth upright and proud; in us the earth is knowing.
Its winds are music in our mouths, in us its rivers flowing.
The sun is our hearthfire; warm with the earth’s desire,
and with its purpose strong, we sing earth’s pilgrim song;
in us the earth is growing.

We lift our voices, fill the skies with our exultant singing.
We dedicate our minds and hearts, to order, beauty bringing.
Our labor is our strength; our love will win at length;
our minds will find the ways to live in peace and praise.
Our day is just beginning.

I like its groundedness – not we are on the earth, but we are the earth. It’s eco-theologian Sallie MacFeague’s “we are earthlings”… it’s the interdependent web of all existence reminding us we’re part of it too. It’s an amazing set of lyrics.

I just can’t get past wanting to sing the words of the old Lutheran hymn. And it’s such a unique meter (8.7.8.7.6.6.6.7) that no other hymn tune has – so to sing it differently means one of our composers has to get busy. And I kinda hope they do – because I don’t use this hymn precisely because it’s set to Ein’ Feste Burg, and I would dissolve into uncontrollable giggles if I did, and that probably wouldn’t have the effect I would be going for.