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I was about to write something quick about this quick little song, and then go on with my day.

I was going to write something like “how sweet and familiar this is” and something else about how some congregations accept the offering by singing this.

And then I was going to add a quick note about the composers, Joseph and Nathan Segal, and be done with it.

Until I started learning more. And found not only a heartbreaking story but also something interesting about the version we sing.

First, the heartbreak: the Segal brothers are rabbis – singing rabbis, in fact – who trace their lineage as singing rabbis back 12 generations. They performed a spiritual and often humorous show for decades, until a car accident in Jamaica in 1988 left Joseph critically injured; eight years after the accident, it was news that he would join his brother Nathan at the congregation Nathan served. Since then, it appears Nathan has continued his work as a spiritual leader, healer, and musician – sadly, nothing on his website says anything about Joseph other than providing MP3s of the songs they recorded together. In fact, along with those recordings, there is just one video of them together from a concert they did in Woodstock in the late 1960s.

But it was from watching a clip from that where I learned we aren’t singing the song correctly. Listening to the MP3 reveals the same. Now I suspect the hymnal commission didn’t have benefit of these recordings at the time and learned the song by rote, but it’s interesting that not only do we have a different version, but apparently Nathan himself sang it differently over time, based on a later solo recording.

From you I receive,
to you I give,
together we share,
and from this we live.

So this brings up the question around folk music: is it necessary to sing it in an original fashion, or is it okay to change it as we learn it? I think about the Facebook discussion around The Earth, Water, Fire, Air – a song that many of us learned very differently yet seems to be connected to the same origins as the one in our hymnal. Is it the same song? Different now because of the changes? Is it like languages that have the same root but a thousand years goes by and suddenly the guy from Paris can’t understand the gal from Barcelona?

I don’t know. But I’d like to relearn the song in 4/4 time with a different final phrase and see what happens.

—

Art by Nathan Segal.

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One of the blessings of my seminary experience was getting to know the remarkable singer and scholar Kim Harris; she was finishing her PhD while I was getting my MDiv. She became a friend and confidant, a mom when I was going through the worst of my heart troubles, a singing partner, and at least once formally, my teacher.

That semester, she taught a class on Spirituals; the class wasn’t just about the history, however; it was also about using the spirituals to deepen our own spirituality. By chance, the group was entirely women, a perfect mix of ages, sexual identities, and racial identities. We learned together,  and we sang together, and often our singing was a prayer together.

This song, with its original words “Come By Here” was particularly meaningful, as Kim tossed aside the whole “kumbayah” mythos and modern meaning and brought us back to the deep, mournful hope of this song. We prayed this more than once as a group, hands on each other’s shoulders, tears rolling, connections to ourselves, each other, and the Divine made real.

I almost hesitate to keep the “kumbayah” lyric in here, except it is in our hymnal and I can’t deny its existence.  But after the lyrics, I’ll share an excerpt from a 2010 New York Times article that talks more about the song and how it got corrupted.

Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.
Oh, Lord, kum ba yah!

Someone’s singing, Lord…

Someone’s laughing, Lord….

Someone’s weeping, Lord…

Someone’s praying, Lord …

Kum ba yah, my Lord …

This article sprang up because “kumbayah” had made its way into the political discourse, but it’s been in the pop culture discourse for a few decades. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but I feel it necessary to share this bit:

“Come By Here” in its original hands appealed for divine intervention on behalf of the oppressed. The people who were “crying, my Lord” were blacks suffering under the Jim Crow regime of lynch mobs and sharecropping. While the song may have originated in the Georgia Sea Islands, by the late 1930s, folklorists had made recordings as far afield as Lubbock, Tex., and the Florida women’s penitentiary.

With the emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, “Come By Here” went from being an implicit expression of black liberation theology to an explicit one. The Folkways album “Freedom Songs” contains an emblematic version — deep, rolling, implacable — sung by the congregation at Zion Methodist Church in Marion., Ala., soon after the Selma march in March 1965.

The mixed blessing of the movement was to introduce “Come By Here” to sympathetic whites who straddled the line between folk music and progressive politics. The Weavers, Peter Seeger, the Folksmiths, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary all recorded versions of the song.

By the late 1950s, though, it was being called “Kumbaya.” Mr. Seeger, in liner notes to a 1959 album, claimed that America missionaries had brought “Come By Here” to Angola and it had returned retitled with an African word.

Experts like Stephen P. Winick of the Library of Congress say that it is likely that the song traveled to Africa with missionaries, as many other spirituals did, but that no scholar has ever found an indigenous word “kumbaya” with a relevant meaning. More likely, experts suggest, is that in the Gullah patois of blacks on the Georgia coast, “Come By Here” sounded like “Kumbaya” to white ears.

So a nonsense word with vaguely African connotations replaced a specific, prayerful appeal. And, thanks to songbooks, records and the hootenanny boom, the black Christian petition for balm and righteousness became supplanted by a campfire paean to brotherhood.

“The song in white hands was never grounded in faith,” Professor Hinson said. “Its words were simplistic; its tune was breezy. And it was simplistically dismissed.”

Go read the whole thing… and please, use this song with care.

—

Kim and Reggie came to the Keys while I was doing my internship; we took a photo together at this great place for Cuban sandwiches.

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This morning I am grateful for Google’s proximate search capabilities.

You see, I typed in the title of today’s hymn, a sweet traditional Jewish round, and it corrected me in that totally not shaming way Google has, by sending me results with ‘chaverim’ instead of the more phonetic ‘havayreem’.

It also presented me with a variety of YouTube videos of the song so that I could sing it in a round with other voices.

Shalom, havayreem!
Shalom, havayreem!
Shalom, shalom!
L’hitraot, l’hitraot,
shalom, shalom.

Finally, Google helped me with translations. At its basic, the lyrics translate as “Peace friend,
’till we meet again!” However, there is a version sung by children that extends the language into this English translation:

Goodbye, my friends!
Be safe, my friends!
Have peace, have peace!

‘Til we meet again,
‘Til we meet again,
Have peace, have peace.

What a delightful benediction or postlude this is. So warm and loving. What a blessing.

Thanks, Google.

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In my last year of seminary, I and five of my most creative friends co-created and produced a Broadway revue that told the story of the book of Exodus.

We began our work with Biblical preparation led by Old Testament scholar David M. Carr: not just reading and exegeting the text but also examining the history of interpretation of the text. We learned how passages from Exodus were used to forward an idea, connect a current struggle to an old one, and in the case of the US Civil War, used by both sides to suggest God was on their side. Reading about interpretation helped us in our own, as we found ourselves wanting to explore the text’s relationship with violence, oppression, and women. As a result, we created a show that humanized the Egyptians, leaned into the stories of Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter, and reacted with compassion at the moments of violence.

This came to mind this morning as I explored this song online, and found almost nothing about the song itself but plenty about the verses from which it is formed.

And ev’ry one ‘neath a vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid. (Repeat)

And into plowshares turn their swords;
nations shall learn war no more. (Repeat)

The texts, from prophets Micah and Isaiah, put together like this are very anti-war. Yet what I have discovered  at the site Teaching American History is that the first verse especially (Micah 4:4) was such a favorite of George Washington that it not only became – in his use – a representation of what the colonies should experience after the Revolution, but also a call to arms, a ‘let’s get this thing over with so we can go back to our farms.’ It was quoted to give depth to the more defiant ‘don’t tread on me’ – a feeling of hope, of being free not just to go back to one’s land but to be free from an oppressive government. The passage was not so much an ant-war sentiment as a ‘let’s fight, let’s win, and then let’s go home’ sentiment. And it was such a popular image, it appeared in art and even embroidered samples (such as our image today).

Adding on the Isaiah text for this song from the Jewish tradition does distill the let’s fight sentiment, although it acknowledges war in the present even as we hope for no war in the future.

Interesting.

I don’t know that I thought much about this one before today, and while I find it full of anti-war sentiment, it also feels very full of sadness, as the peace being longed for is hard-won and may never come. It doesn’t rally me but rather feels like a song of lament. Maybe this is me in my present context – realizing how long we have been at war, realizing that in American history, we’ve been at war or in conflict nearly the entire time, realizing how much violence we have normalized within and beyond our borders. For us, to sit under the vine and fig tree unafraid is a pipe dream akin to Psalm 137 – living  in terrible circumstances, remembering not with hope but with tears.

Sorry to bring you all down today – this is where my thoughts are as we continue to fight the wars of oppression at home without much recognition of how worn and inured to the violence we have become. My heart is so heavy with the weight of sorrow I can’t remember any other way. And while I can sing this song, I can’t imagine it ever coming to pass.

This song is my lament today.

—

The embroidered image, Chairback-Vine and Fig Tree, is from the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework.

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I must begin with a shout out to my friends.

Y’all are something … yesterday I confess that the lyrics don’t click for me, and you all make an effort to help me get it. You explain on Facebook, and you even email the composer herself to get her take on it (and to introduce me to her). It’s so sweet, y’all. Once I secure permission, I’ll update yesterday’s blog with Mary’s words, but know right now that while the metaphor still doesn’t move me, I understand where it comes from and what it means to others a bit more.

And it’s got me thinking a lot about music and metaphor. I mean, music is the ultimate metaphor for our spirits; it’s why we turn to music to set a mood or express ourselves. And a gorgeous lyric can add to that mood or expression. For some reason, Cris Williamson’s lyric “filling up and spilling over / it’s an endless waterfall” as a metaphor for the ups and downs of life, or emma’s revolution’s lyric “we’re all swimming to the other side” as a metaphor for our collective journeys are coming to mind as song metaphors that I find meaningful and delightful (and surely has nothing to do with the deluge of rain we experienced overnight, right?).

And that metaphor doesn’t work for everyone, as beautiful as those lyrics are, as beautiful as those songs are. If we all got everything, if we all drew meaning from everything, then nothing would be special. And if this spiritual practice has taught me anything, it’s that we need many different songs with many different melodies, metaphors, and moods – especially in our congregations. We don’t know who will be ministered to by the song we despise, or who will need the comfort offered in a song we find insipid, or will feel their spirits lift by lyrics we don’t quite get.

So when I said yesterday I’m okay with not understanding yesterday’s lyrics, I meant that not just as resignation or defeat but as being really okay, knowing a gorgeous melody carries with it, for some, a deeply moving metaphor.

Unlike today, where there is really no metaphor to distill.

Morning has come. Night is away.
Rise with the sun and welcome the day.

It’s a great little morning round, one I’ve known for a long time but don’t know how. Sung well, it rings out like bells. Sung annoyingly, it’s the song that makes you want to pull the covers over your head.

But I like this anonymously offered round and would consider using it (and others) as a call to worship as well as a prelude. And then you should sing Jason Shelton’s hymn Morning Has Come. And then maybe Morning Has Broken and Morning Hangs a Signal…

Okay, maybe enough with the morning.

But y’all are really sweet. Thanks.

 

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Lovely Update Below!

Things I don’t know:

I don’t know composer and colleague Mary Grigolia, although I feel like I should.

I don’t know when I learned this, but it was sometime between the Louisville General Assembly (summer 2013) and the Florida Chapter UUMA retreat (spring 2015).

I don’t know why I never heard it or sang it before then, because everyone else seems to have this in their bones.

I don’t really know what it means.

I know this rose will open.
I know my fear will burn away.
I know my soul will unfurl its wings.
I know this rose will open.

Honestly. Maybe it’s the gloom of a stormy autumn morning, or the restless sleep, or the metaphorical neurons taking a holiday, but I’m really not sure what this is about. There’s an unspoken ‘when x happens’ at the end of each lines and I am unclear what the next part of that sentence is.

It’s a gorgeous piece, made more gorgeous by gentle improvisation that comes from sitting around a circle with Jason Shelton and Amy Carol Webb on a quiet evening.

But I’m finding it lyrically baffling.

And I think that’s okay.

—

October 31: Jed Levine introduced me to Mary Grigolia shortly after reading this post and in our exchanges she lovingly shared the origin of this song with me:

I wrote this song when I was in seminary, taking a class on death and dying. Our assignment was to write our eulogy, which of course means the good words we’d like to remain of our lives. I thought and thought of what to say, what not to say. And decided that as a songwriter, I needed to say it in music.

After I decided “I” would write a song for my project/paper, I set the perfect ambiance: prepared a tray with journal and pen, tea and healthy snacks, went outside into the perfect afternoon, to sit under they Meyer lemon tree in my back yard, ready for and courting inspiration. I spent several hours journaling and grateful for the beauty of the afternoon. And no music came. None. Not a note. And I realized the hubris of the ego saying it would write the song. Scooping up everything, accepting the folly of my presumption, as I was balancing the tray, coming through the door (yes, a literally liminal experience), I realized I was singing something under my breath. And it was the whole round. Complete.

What I take from the experience is the great responsiveness of the Universe/Spirit/Deep and Creative Self, when we allow ourselves to be present, to listen, to sing along, but not to assume we can control its scope or view.

I Know This Rose is the answer to my invitation (to the deep Self). The way I hear/feel it, I am the rose; opening is in my nature. Even when it comes time to let go of this body practice, I know this rose will open.

And although I may feel afraid of the changes, afraid of the unknown I can’t control, afraid of allowing the ego to follow the calling of something deeper, I know those fears will burn away (in the fire of transformation, this very physical practice of loving and living and letting go).

And as my fear burns away, I know, I trust that the wings of my heart, my soul, will unfurl their (my) wings.
Yes, I know this rose will open. I am the rose. We are all the rose. Opening.

May we all trust in the opening!

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Friends, I am running out of things to say about these little rounds.

This one – another song of unknown origin – is sweet and very pretty when fully sung. Which is a sentence I have typed before and I fear will type again.

You see, the thing is – the rounds themselves are good and different and by and large fun to sing with a group. But when there is no source information, no complex lyric, no deep memories, well…. I don’t have much to write about.

Sing and rejoice.
Sing and rejoice.
Let all things living now
sing and rejoice.

I will say this one reminds me a bit of graces we sang at Girl Scout camp, and maybe it is, because I wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover Unitarian Universalists at camp.

It’s a good one – don’t get me wrong.

There’s just not much to say.

 

EDIT: I originally posted a DST ending pic but was reminded that it’s NEXT weekend. Whoops.

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This song calls to us: “Come! Let’s be singing!”

And what shall we sing?

“Sing alleluia!”

That’s it. That’s the song. In English and in Hebrew.

Hava nashirah. Shirah alleluia!
Hava nashirah. Shirah alleluia!
Hava nashirah. Shirah alleluia!

Come, let’s be singing. Sing alleluia!
Come, let’s be singing. Sing alleluia!
Come, let’s be singing. Sing alleluia!

It is written in three parts that can be sung as a round  – or ideally a canon, which is great because one part is quite low and one part is quite high. It all seems simple, except the beauty of rounds is the complexity that comes when the parts blend. This one is quite gorgeous and joyful.

I don’t have much more to say…it’s origins are unknown but its presence is cheering.

 

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As frequent readers know. there are many days … sometimes weeks… in this practice when the hymn is so opposed to the events/mood/weather of the day that it seems almost ridiculous. Christmas in May… morning songs after the election… happy spring in a snowstorm…

Today is most assuredly NOT one of those days.

Our round, a traditional Hebrew folk round based on Psalm 133:1, names my mood and the experience here, as we enter the final few hours of our UUMA chapter retreat. The NRSV translates the verse as “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”

And so, when someone asked what today’s hymn was, and I started singing, everyone in the room at that moment sang along with me. And it felt warm and loving and good, but most of all, it felt true. I’m so impressed with the joy, grace, and connection I’ve been experiencing with this new (to me) group of colleagues, and I’m feeling so at home among them. I know some of it’s a bit about being back in upstate New York, but a lot of it’s about being with these people. It is so good to have spent the last couple of days dwelling together with them.

Hineh mah tov umah nayim.
Shevel aheem gam yahad.
Hineh mah tov umah nayim.
Shevel aheem gam yahad.
Hineh mahtov shevet aheem gam yahad.
Hineh mahtov shevet aheem gam yahad.

How good it is and how pleasant
for people to dwell together.
How good it is and how pleasant
for people to dwell together.
Good and pleasant, people in peace together.
Good and pleasant, people in peace together.

The English verse doesn’t scan well for me, but the truth is, I never use it. There’s something just wonderful about singing this ancient psalm in its original language together.

Anyway – I need to spend more time with my colleagues. Enjoy your day, because I know I am!

 

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As the Gish gallop of terrible politics, violence, natural disasters, and a shocking lack of compassion continues to fill our news feeds, we turn now to this canon by Methodist composer Natalie Sleeth.

Whose lyrics, when translated from the Latin, mean “let us be joyful today.”

Joy is hard to find some days – harder than hope, I think. But…and I’m just musing a bit here… I think joy is part of what’s at the heart of compassion. I am not sure I can explain it well right now; it’s an idea that’s just occurred to me as I started singing this song. But there’s something to it… something to joy, and hope, and relief that’s all woven together.

Anyway…things to think about as we sing this joyful song in the midst of these hard days.

Gaudeamus, gaudeamus, gaudeamus hodie.
Gaudeamus, gaudeamus hodie.

Gaudeamus,
gaudeamus hodie.

Gaudeamus, gaudeamus,
gaudeamus hodie, hodie.

And if after singing it you still need some help to touch joy, watch these kids sing the song (I should note that while some of the kids are nearly emotionless, others more than make up for it and it’s fun to watch them):

Gaudeamus hodie – Natalie Sleeth from Music@BelPres on Vimeo.