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Now this is an entrance song. Welcoming in all kinds of ways, with nothing for us to …wait…nothing for us to be upset… oh … Dammit.

It’s not as good as I’d hoped. “We of all ages, women, children, men, infants and sages, sharing what we can” reads the second verse. It uses binary language for gender. (And it’s repetitive.) So of course I sat here for a time trying to rewrite this one couplet of an otherwise good song by Alicia Carpenter (set to Old 124th).

But then I realized that I don’t have to rhyme anything with ‘men’ because ‘men’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘can’ anyway. IT DOESN’T RHYME. Sure, there’s an internal rhyme, but that can be taken care of with a less awkward phrase than “infants and sages” too. (See, y’all made fun of me about my rhyming rule, but you see how handy it can be?)

Not that I know what the replacement couplet is, of course. I am, indeed coming to you with half a thing.

But here are the lyrics – maybe they’ll inspire you:

Here we have gathered, gathered side by side;
circle of kinship, come and step inside!
May all who seek here find a kindly word;
may all who speak here feel they have been heard.
Sing now together this, our hearts’ own song.

Here we have gathered, called to celebrate
days of our lifetime, matters small and great:
we of all ages, women, children, men,
infants and sages, sharing what we can.
Sing now together this, our hearts’ own song.

Life has its battles, sorrows, and regret:
but in the shadows, let us not forget:
we who now gather know each other’s pain;
kindness can heal us: as we give, we gain.
Sing now in friendship this, our hearts’ own song.

And seriously – if you come up with a replacement couplet, let me know. I want to use this in an upcoming service and I’d like to not exclude people I love from being welcomed.

Update January 16, 2018:

Jason Shelton just texted me this possible replacement couplet:

We of all ages, living out our span
Infants and sages, sharing what we can

I like it a lot. Plus, it rhymes better. Thanks, Jason.

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When it comes to film, there are genres and directors I am a fan of, those I dislike, and those I appreciate. For purposes of today’s post, I will say that I dislike horror and appreciate the director Robert Rodriguez – especially his masterful work on Sin City.

Now, if you ever saw his film From Dusk to Dawn (written by Quentin Tarantino) … (am I supposed to add a spoiler alert for a film that is over two decades old?), you know that the first half of the film is very much a Tarantino-style film, with a gallery of rogues and a slew of seedy deals. And then halfway through, in the blink of an eye, it stops being a roadhouse film and begins being a horror film, complete with vampires.  I don’t exactly know what happens in the first ten minutes of that crossover, because I spent the entire time shocked, repeating “what the hell? what the hell?” I felt like I got suckered into one kind of film, which I appreciate, only to be handed a film whose genre I seriously dislike.

What does this have to do with today’s hymn, you ask?

Look at these lyrics, by Grace Lewis-McLaren:

When we are gathered for a time of worship and of song,
let none forget the joys and griefs that mark each path of life,
and thus we reach for those who love, we reach for those who love.

For youth shall pass and time is wise, and countless seasons turn,
so day by day our years increase until at last by life released
our spirits shine like stars, our spirits shine like stars.

Here we go, tripping along, being gathered, grateful for the time of sharing and the community of love that surrounds us. And then suddenly, the sun sets and You Are Going To Die.

This song gives me the same whiplash that From Dusk Till Dawn did. I didn’t spend 20 minutes staring at the screen, but I did feel like I got suckered into singing one kind of song only to be handed another.

Which then begs the question: if this a time passes, life is impermanent kind of song, why is it in the Entrance Songs section?

And just as I’m still not quite sure about whether I like, appreciate, or dislike From Dusk Till Dawn, I’m not quite sure what I think of this one. It’s a lovely, light tune (Repton), and it has a lot to appreciate, but I really don’t think I like it, because I’m not sure how I would use a piece that’s part ‘welcome to this loving community’ and, part ‘to dust you shall return’.

 

Image is a still from the film From Dusk Till Dawn.

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Our English ethical culturist is back – this time with a more or less decent song of thanksgiving (puzzling placed in the Here and Now section). Good old Perceval Chubb… who once wrote an article stating that Americans ‘have an incapacity for leisure’ and whose O We Believe in Christmas felt pretty empty and apologetic.

I don’t mind this hymn too much. The first three verses are fine, and if you need an unremarkable lyric set to a square Elizabethan tune that is good for a service on gratitude, then this is a perfectly serviceable song.

We lift our hearts in thanks today for all the gifts of life;
and, first, for peace that turns away the enmities of strife.

And, next, the beauty of the earth, its flowers and lovely things,
the spring’s great miracle of birth, with sound of songs and wings.

Then, harvests of its teeming soil in orchard, croft, and field;
but, more, the service and the toil of those who helped them yield.

And, most, the gifts of hope and love, of wisdom, truth, and right,
the gifts that shine like stars above to chart the world by night.

Where I bristle is the fourth verse. “Wisdom, truth and RIGHT”?!? I checked, it’s not a typo. Not in our hymnal nor in the original. I struggle with this – it feels arrogant to me. Maybe I’m over-sensitive to any show of arrogance or ego these days, but this line screams out to me in a way that makes me shudder.

I don’t know what more to say. I don’t love this hymn, largely because it feels dull and uninteresting and a little arrogant. But it’s not utterly offensive, and if it works for you, cool.

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I wasn’t expecting to have a moment with this hymn.

I don’t know what I was expecting – perhaps a morning of wading through information, or trying to ignore my personal exhaustion with nature metaphors (a product of this practice, to be sure – they don’t come barreling down in normal time), or a struggle with yet another unfamiliar-to-me tune. And admittedly, the first verse rolled on as expected. A translation of 20th century Chinese theologian TC Chao, they are poetic, but after all the hymns that have gone before in this practice, nothing moving this gloomy morning.

But then I got to the last couplet of the second verse, written by John Andrew Storey (hat tip to the Hymnal Commission for an intriguing mashup). “Dawn break in me too.”

Woah.

Golden breaks the dawn; comes the eastern sun
over lake and lawn, sets its course to run.
Birds above us fly, flowers bloom below,
through the earth and sky life’s great mercies flow.

As the spinning globe rolls away the night,
nature wears a robe spun of morning light.
Dawn break in me too, as in skies above;
teach me to be true, fill my heart with love.

Because now we have shifted from a “yay, interdependent web” to prayer – and not just any prayer, but the prayer of one who is ready to let go but isn’t sure how.

This is just stunning, breaking my own heart open as I realize how much grief – personal, professional, and global – I am holding on to. It brought first a lump in my throat, then a tear to my eye, then a heaving sob, and finally a time of crying in prayer.

These are the moments we long for in spiritual practice – those moments of opening, epiphany, release, and awe. they don’t happen every day; in fact, the more we seek them, the more elusive they become. But when we just practice, occasionally the Mystery creeps in and makes Its presence known, and we remember why we do this.

Woah.

—

I should mention the tune, Le P’ing, by Hu Te-ngai (no information available); it was unfamiliar to me but it’s quite lovely and easy to pick up.

—

Photo by Jan Shim.

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So… yesterday I kinda made fun of the whole “time cliché” thing. And this morning I realized we’re in the Here and Now section, so of COURSE we are singing songs about time and being present. I don’t regret yesterday’s post – it did feel a little cliché to me.

This one feels less so, because, I suppose, it isn’t advice, really, but rather describing a moment of decision and determination. This stuff is hard, but if I’m going to thrive, I must keep going. It reminds me a little of my mother, who, after my father died, decided to sell our large farmhouse in the country and move to a condo on the Outer Banks. She wanted to thrive, not just survive. And while she’d made a home there, and her grandchildren were nearby, she needed to do what was necessary to grieve and find life again.

A long, long way the sea-winds blow across the sea-plains blue,
but longer far my heart must go before its dreams come true.

And work we must, and love we must, and do the best we may,
and take the hope of dreams in trust to keep us day by day.

A long, long way the sea-winds blow — but somewhere lies a shore —
thus down the tide of time shall flow my dreams forever more.

This is set to a Southern Harmony tune called Liverpool; I’m having a hard time finding this one and not another tune by the same name, but because it’s Southern Harmony, it’s fairly simple and rich.

I realize as I am trying to conclude this that there are tears streaming down my face again; these hymns lately are reminding me of my parents, a heady mix of mourning and celebration. And add in a dose of joy, as we celebrated the marriage of my dear friends Lindsey and AJ Turner yesterday. So… emotions are running deep. I’m glad to have this practice to give me space to feel and think.

—

The image is of the Elizabeth II, a small ship that is moored in the bay across from where my mother’s condo was in Manteo, North Carolina.

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Carpe diem. Que sera, sera. There’s no time like the present. You can’t turn back time.  Learn from yesterday, live today, hope for tomorrow. Time marches on. All the lyrics to this hymn.

Welcome, my friends, to the Henry Blake Cliché Festival (A M*A*S*H reference? Joe Cleveland’s right – I am old) … er, I mean, our hymn about time. John Andrew Storey sets to music (the McKee tune, which we last sang in Freedom Spans both East and West) the cliché of all clichés, that of time marching on and us living in the present.

I mean, it’s a fine sentiment, and useful at those moments when we must haul out all the old wisdom about time marching on; I imagine this would be useful after a significant hardship, or at the New Year, or in services about the eternal Now.

The ceaseless flow of endless time no one can check or stay;
we’ll view the past with no regret, nor future with dismay.

The present slips into the past, and dreamlike melts away;
the breaking of tomorrow’s dawn begins a new today.

The past and future ever meet in the eternal now:
to make each day a thing complete shall be our New Year vow.

But it surely is a bit of a cliché.

Not saying I won’t use it, but only if it truly serves the service.

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On December 9th, this tune first appeared, and I suggested that “later in the hymnal, we sing the usual words.” Well, that ‘later’ is today, and while the first three words are the same as the usual words, that is where ‘usual’ ends. And so I stand here in my wrongness being wrong.

And thank all that is holy that I am.

You see, the original words – from a Dutch hymn written in the 1600s, when they were fighting for their independence from the Spanish – are quite different:

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

The original is a song of liberation, and gets tagged onto Thanksgiving only around World War I, as it appears in American hymnals only around 1903. The lyrics continue, by the way, in the same “God is on our side in this conflict” vein. Which makes its association with the Thanksgiving holiday even more awful. ::::shudder::::

So much for the usual song with the usual words.

Thankfully, two modern-day Unitarian Universalists, Dorothy Caiger Senghas and Rev. Robert Sengas, wrote new lyrics, for a Thanksgiving Sunday.

We gather together in joyful thanksgiving,
acclaiming creation, whose bounty we share;
both sorrow and gladness we find now in our living,
we sing a hymn of praise to the life that we bear.

We gather together to join in the journey,
confirming, committing our passage to be
a true affirmation, in joy and tribulation,
when bound to human care and hope — then we are free.

Now this is a Thanksgiving hymn I can get behind. Sure, it’s in the Hope section, but it is definitely worth putting on the Thanksgiving list too. And if you really want to do it right, sing the first verse as your opening words and the last verse as your closing words, because they would frame a message of gratitude calling us together and calling us onwards to the work of our faith.

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Today, gentle readers, I offer you A Tale of Two Liturgical Moments. Because indeed, as our man Charles Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The best of times was when I learned an arrangement of this African American spiritual in my seminary gospel choir; the harmonies were rich, and a tag was added to give it musical interest. We sang this in a chapel service, accompanied by the Psalm from which it is inspired, and a homily from one of our African American students.

Now Psalm 119 is a very long lament to God for mercy. As our writer is seeking protection, so too are they trying to convince God that they are keeping true to the laws and commandments, to show they are worthy of God’s presence through the hardships. So it’s no wonder the enslaved Africans might have heard this psalm and these lines and wanted to ask for the same thing.

The homily talked about hardship in the face of racism, and the prayer that is Guide My Feet was directly connected to the work different groups of people have to do – people of color, to be sustained and keep resisting; whites to do the hard work of dismantling white supremacy from within. It was a powerful moment for me, and it forever changed how I understand this song.

Guide my feet while I run this race.
Guide my feet while I run this race.
Guide my feet while I run this race,
for I don’t want to run this race in vain! (race in vain!)

Hold my hand while I run this race.
Hold my hand while I run this race.
Hold my hand while I run this race,
for I don’t want to run this race in vain! (race in vain!)

Stand by me while I run this race.
Stand by me while I run this race.
Stand by me while I run this race,
for I don’t want to run this race in vain! (race in vain!)

Now the worst of times was recently, as SUUSI, when our morning minister offered a service that was part travelogue, part Odyssey (a review of a minister’s career and lessons learned), and all offensive. Everything that happened in the service used the word “walk” exclusively; first of all, it was a huge problem to use only walking as the means for following a path (our theme was “blessed is the path”) – but more, our intrepid speaker (an older white man) changed the words of an opening reading to include only “we walk this path together” and then had the nerve to change lyrics to songs from other traditions. His homily screamed “walk” to the seemingly intentional exclusion of any other word. By the time he got to the closing, he had chosen to change even THIS song to “guide my feet, while I walk this path.”

That was the moment I could take it no longer and walked out, fuming. Fuming for the excessive ableism, fuming for the lack of context on the songs from other cultures, and fuming for the incredible gall of the man to change these lyrics.

—

So the moral of the story is this, my friends: use songs like this with extreme care. Be really clear you know how to address the abelist language of “run this race.” Be clear that you can use other verses (especially those we don’t include in our hymnal but exist elsewhere), but be very careful to not change verses if it isn’t your song to change. And definitely offer context and explanation, and don’t use this as a joyful song. It’s a song of pleading and lament and a call for God’s guidance.

And in case you wonder if any of that’s true, I’ll leave you with Bernice Johnson Reagon’s version:

But really. Be careful.

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First, I need to say a prayer for Key West, and really all of south Florida this morning. I have friends who are still on the island (mostly they are first responders, public works folk, or other government officials), and they are getting hit so very hard as I type. I’ve seen a few videos of storm surge waters in Bahama Village and trees down on Smathers Beach, and I am holding a fair amount of anxiety right now. And then I go  preach on the benefits of spiritual practice. (And actually, this is helping, this spiritual practice right here… because I had to stop, be still, and be present with myself and God for a few minutes.)

Anyway.

I keep coming back to a line written by Susan Frederick-Gray, and highlighted for me by an amazing service by Erika Hewitt: “No one is outside the circle of love.”

To be honest, it’s really changed my thinking about our principles and even our understanding of Unitarian Universalism’s history – that at every moment we have had the choice to expand the circle of love, or not, both theologically and ethically. I’m still pondering, but this aspiration that no one be outside the circle of love has captured my ministerial imagination.

And I think I just found one of my new anthems – this short, old hymn. The lyrics are by our old friend Sam Longfellow, set to the familiar Winchester New (the same tune is sung for As Tranquil Streams).

I mean, check out this lyric:

With joy we claim the growing light,
advancing thought, and widening view,
the larger freedom, clearer sight,
which from the old unfold the new.

With wider view, come loftier goal;
with fuller light, more good to see;
with freedom, truer self-control;
with knowledge, deeper reverence be.

Our man Sam is calling for us draw the circles ever wider, the circles of vision, and freedom, and knowledge, and goodness.

Not bad, Sam. I didn’t know this one existed, really, so it gets a Hidden Gem tag from me.

And when I am finally ready to preach on this, I have one of our hymns.

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It is always a relief to me to turn to a new section of the hymnal; I think it’s because of the frankly unnatural nature of this practice. i was getting worn out by the Insight and Wisdom section, feeling as though I had little of either by the time it all ended.

But now we are in a section called Hope.

Which seems a bit out of step (which means it’s perfect for this practice). It’s a hard day to have hope, when the Western Hemisphere is bearing the wrath of Mother Nature, and there are so many hard things to bear from the current administration.

But hope it is, and so hope it shall have to be.

And as hope hymns go, this one’s pretty decent. Lyrics by Alicia Alexander, and set to Was Gott Thut (the same tune as When Mary Through the Garden Went (Was Gott Thut), we have a good reminder of where to find hope and why it matters:

A promise through the ages rings,
that always, always, something sings.
Not just in May, in finch-filled bower,
but in December’s coldest hour,
a note of hope sustains us all.

A life is made of many things:
bright stars, bleak years, and broken rings.
Can it be true that through all things,
there always, always something sings?
The universal song of life.

Entombed within our deep despair,
our pain seems more than we can bear;
but days shall pass, and nature knows
that deep between the winter snow
a rose lies curled and hums its song.

For something always, always sings.
This is the message Easter brings:
from deep despair and perished things
a green shoot always, always springs,
and something always, always sings.

Almost like it’s a good wrap up for an Easter service.

I say “almost” because as Michael Tino and I talked about in a Hymn by Hymn Extra, Easter is not Spring – and this hymn makes a direct connection.

Yet putting Easter in a larger context, and drawing us into the entombment metaphor here, does offer some comfort, at least to me. I would still use this as a closing song at Easters when hope is he central theme.

Truth is, despite the Easter/Spring thing (which probably guys Michael more than it does me), I rather like this one.