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Sometimes all you really have to say is YES!

I love this Hymn. I love that we sing this joyful alleluia to the earth and all its inhabitants, and that we use an Easter Hymn to sing this joy.

(Edit 4/24/17: In my sleep-deprived state, I called this an Easter hymn, but research by my colleague Aaron Stockwell reveals this is actually a shorter version of a Christian classic, All Creatures of our God and King, adapted from words of Francis of Assisi. Why I think of this as an Easter song, I’m not sure, but I do, but maybe I should stop that. Or maybe this is next year’s Easter sermon…)

Now I realize I have complained before about hymns that don’t really do anything except say yay to a litany of things. It happens frequently in songs connected to nature, because there is so dang much of it that’s so varied.

So what makes this different?

I am not sure, but I think it’s the alleluia. This is a praise song, pure and simple, and there’s an exuberance that comes in moments of praise.

I also think it’s different because the final verse serves as a reminder that we are part of this creation too, and by golly, we have a responsibility.

All creatures of the earth and sky,
come, kindred, lift your voices high,
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Bright burning sun with golden beam,
soft shining moon with silver gleam:

(Chorus)
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Swift rushing wind so wild and strong,
white clouds that sail in heav’n along,
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Fair rising morn in praise rejoice,
high stars of evening find a voice:

(Chorus)

Cool flowing water, pure and clear,
make music for all life to hear,
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Dance, flame of fire, so strong and bright,
and bless us with your warmth and light:

(Chorus)

Embracing earth, you, day by day,
bring forth your blessings on our way,
Alleluia, Alleluia!
All herbs and fruits that richly grow,
let them the glory also show:

(Chorus)

All you of understanding heart,
forgiving others, take your part,
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Let all things now the Holy bless,
and worship God in humbleness:

(Chorus)

I will end with two notes:

First, I had a last minute request to be present at a youth con, and I’m exhausted.  I have not done much research, by which I mean no research…

Second, what a perfect song to sing on Earth Day Weekend, a day after tens of thousands marched for science.

Yay!

Alleluia!

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I wonder how many denominations have Duke Ellington in their hymnals?

A hat tip to our hymnal commission for finding a place for this piece. And, as I’ve talked about before, this fits in the ‘not every song in the hymnal is meant for the congregation to sing’ category – although I would love to be present in a congregation that knows how to sing jazz together.

Now I will admit, I only kinda knew this one before I got to it, which is a surprise, as my parents were huge fans of jazz from the big band era and the Harlem renaissance, and I am fairly sure this song was on one of the Ellington albums they owned. But maybe not – as I learned from reviewer Ken Dryden at All Music,

“Come Sunday” was the spiritual movement of Duke Ellington’s extended work “Black, Brown & Beige,” but after the longer piece was lambasted by critics attending its premiere at the 1943 Carnegie Hall concert, Ellington performed the complete work just once more before reworking it into a smaller suite.

So it’s possible this song only later found its way into collections. But either way, it’s not that familiar to me.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate it now…wow, do I. I even appreciate its connection to Easter. I wondered, when I read that, why this wasn’t in the Easter section, but then I thought that would limit this amazing piece. But look at these words:

Oo Oo Come Sunday, oh, come Sunday, that’s the day.

(Refrain)
Lord, dear Lord above,
God Almighty, God of love,
please look down and see my people through.

I believe that God put sun and moon up in the sky.
I don’t mind the gray skies, ‘cause they’re just clouds passing by.

(Refrain)

Heaven is a goodness time, a brighter light on high.
(Spoken) Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
(Sung) and have a brighter by and by.

(Refrain)
I believe God is now, was then, and always will be.
With God’s blessing we can make it through eternity.

If that’s not a prayer for resurrection, I don’t know what is.

Now I can’t let this one go by without sharing a few versions. The first is from a church choir in Nebraska, whose version isn’t the most inspiring but helped me learn the song so I could sing it this morning.

This one is the incomparable Mahalia Jackson, singing with Sir Duke himself:

There are, of course, as many covers as there are jazz musicians. But I wanted to close with this little gem by Abbey Lincoln, complete with pops and scratches from the well-worn LP, that moved me to tears:

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I have stared at the screen for probably twenty minutes, unsure how to start today’s post.

Do I talk about how joyful this song is, in the midst of crisis? And how joy comes out of pains, sorrows, and troubles?

Do I talk about how the notes on this are so sketchy we really can only call it “traditional” in the hymnal and Between the Lines and it’s only in the internet age that we learn it is indeed a spiritual from slave times? And how seeing “Traditional” today feels like whitewashing?

Do I talk about how our General Assembly theme is “Resist and Rejoice” and this song seems to fit right in with that theme? (And do I talk about how hard General Assembly and Ministry Days might be?)

Or, do I take a moment and share some things I just learned about Sojourner Truth, for whom this tune was named?

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since I laid my burden down.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since I laid my burden down.

Feel like shouting, “Hallelujah!” …

Life is sweeter, so much sweeter. …

Feel like dancing, hallelujah! …

Love is shining all around me, …

Yeah, let’s do that.

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797; her father had been captured in his native Ghana and sold into slavery while her mother was the daughter of people captured in Guinea.

She spoke only Dutch until she was 9 years old. Why? Because she was a slave just south of Kingston, NY, which at the time was almost entirely inhabited by the Dutch.

While New York went through an abolition process starting in 1799 and ending in 1827, Isabella’s owner reneged on a promise to release her early, and so she left early anyway, with her baby daughter Sophia. “I did not run off,” she said, “for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.”

After conversion to Methodism, she heard a message from God that told her to go forth and speak the truth about slavery, and she adopted the name Sojourner Truth in response.

She spoke widely about slavery and suffrage throughout the Northeast. In 1850 her memoirs were published under the title The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. Truth dictated her recollections to a friend, Olive Gilbert, since she could not read or write, and William Lloyd Garrison wrote the book’s preface.

And now, here’s the real shame, as explained in a piece about her at biography.com,

In May of 1851, Truth delivered a speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. The extemporaneous speech, recorded by several observers, would come to be known as “Ain’t I a Woman?” The first version of the speech, published a month later by Marius Robinson, editor of Ohio newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle, did not include the question “Ain’t I a woman?” even once. Robinson had attended the convention and recorded Truth’s words himself. The famous phrase would appear in print 12 years later, as the refrain of a Southern-tinged version of the speech. It is unlikely that Sojourner Truth, a native of New York whose first language was Dutch, would have spoken in this Southern idiom.

Lord have mercy. Not only did this woman have to stand up to white women and argue that they were ignoring women of color (something that still happens, much to our shame), but she also had been turned into a caricature. So much so that in 1861, when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote for The Atlantic what editors of that magazine now call a “hyperbolic portrait of Truth [that] romanticized her in contemporary racial tropes and popularized an enduring nickname, the “Libyan Sibyl,” Stowe even cast her as having been a Southern slave.

Lord have mercy, what we did to this woman’s history and legacy. Because she was amazing, without all of the BS that was layered on her both during and after her life.

I am so sorry this happened.

And dammit, this kind of BS keeps happening.

In 2017.

Lord have mercy.

 

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Happy Two Hundredth Hymn-by-Hymn Post Day!

Only 290 more to go. Gulp.

That seems daunting, but then, holy cow, how are we 200 in already? Time does fly, friends, even through hard, dark days. Thanks to my regular, rather frequent, and occasional readers. And if you’re just discovering this today, welcome to my daily spiritual practice, which might become something more if the stars align properly.

And while I am still talking about things that aren’t actually today’s hymn, I am conjuring up an idea for a Hymn by Hymn event at General Assembly…stay tuned.

—

Now, on to the hymn – and it’s a doozy!

I can’t say I wasn’t a little excited about today’s hymn. While there are things about Martin Luther’s theology and personal beliefs I’m not keen on (that anti-Semitic thing was just awful, y’all), I do have a bit of affection for the guy. I mean, here’s someone who stood up and said to his superiors “Eine Minute, bitte…. there’s something wrong with how we’re doing things.” Which made the establishment mad. Which made Luther say “well, I’m so right I’m gonna do my own thing,” which, by the way, includes translating the Bible into his mother tongue and essentially creating Modern German, along with putting the scriptures in the hand of every day people.

And yeah, sure, some of them did strange things with it when they got their hands on it, and because of this, our guy Michael Servetus butts heads with John Calvin, who winds up burning Servetus at the stake (and yeah, Servetus was warned not to come back at Calvin, but ….Calvin did dare him, so…). And yes, the Bible in the hands of everyday people meant that some radicals who wanted a stricter interpretation than the newly formed Church of England would allow decided they couldn’t live there, so they left from Plymouth, and landed in…Plymouth, and yeah, they thought they’d discovered a new world and in their arrogance took over inhabited lands because, I don’t know, by then western Europeans were already chock full of white privilege and what else would they do. And yes, our guys – two separate groups of guys – got their hands on the Bible too and said “yeah, not so much with this three-god thing” and ‘really, a loving God would punish you? Not buying it” and the Unitarians and Universalists were born, and now five hundred years after our buddy Martin decided to air his grievances (the first Festivus?), we have modern Unitarian Universalism.

Phew.

So all that by way of saying, I’m kinda hip to Luther. If not for him, who knows what we’d be or where we’d be.

And this, likely his most famous hymn (because he wrote hymns along with massive volumes of books and that Bible translation), appears in our hymnal. For me, it’s a connection to our UU pre-history.

And it’s a pretty cool tune – an old drinking song that can swing, or be as stalwart as the lyrics. (Which aren’t half bad for those times you need a good muscular, strong divinity.)

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
our helper sure amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
with craft and power great; and, armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not an equal.

God’s word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
the spirit and the gifts are ours, through God who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still;
whose kingdom is forever.

So happy 200th post and happy Reformation.

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I’ve been to church this mornin’.

Not literally, of course, and yet…

When I was in seminary, I joined the gospel choir – I was tentative at first, not only because I am white but because I am not a Christian. But I was assured that this gospel choir was indeed open to all, and yes, I found it exactly that way: a mix of people, a mix of beliefs, even a mix of talents. Yet our conductor, M. Roger Holland (who now teaches and conducts at the University of Denver), made everyone feel welcome as we both sang and learned a great deal about the wide expanse of the gospel milieu – from the old spirituals (and Moses Hogan’s influence) to the old timey gospel songs, to modern grooves and swings, and everything in between. We learned the history, the compositional complexities, and the vocal techniques.

And, we talked about the theologies. Some of us struggled, especially when the song was grounded in a ‘washed in the blood’ theology. We talked a lot about inclusive language and expansive meanings, and we wrestled a lot with the word “Lord” with its connotations of empire.

Which brings me to today. “Precious Lord, take my hand.” How very unlike us to sing a song of surrender to a “Lord” … and yet, here we are. Maybe we need a little surrender. Maybe we need a prayer to get through the night, to get through the hard times.

(Chorus)
Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light,
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

When my way grows drear, precious Lord, linger near,
when my life is almost gone,
hear my cry, hear my call, hold my hand lest I fall;
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

(Chorus)

When the darkness appears and the night draws near,
and the day is past and gone,
at the river I stand, guide my feet, hold my hand;
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

Is this really any different than Spirit of Life? If we say we’re good with a range of metaphors for the Divine, then Precious Lord should fit in next to Spirit of Life. And if we’re good with asking for that Spirit of Life to come, to change us, to offer comfort and insight, then maybe we can be okay with asking Precious Lord to come, to change us, to offer comfort and insight.

And thus, it’s in that spirit that I sing this song. Lord knows we could use it right now.

Of course, that is only half of why I went to church this morning. The other half was because of my YouTube search for a good rendition to share.

I began with this fairly simple, albeit country-fied version that helps folks new to the song learn it.

And then I clicked on this one:

And then this one:

And this one by Mahalia Jackson, which doesn’t allow embedding but is worth the click.

And amen, halleluiah, I have been to church.

—

Photo is of the one and only Mahalia Jackson.

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Q: How do you know a hymn lyric is written by an Englishman?

A: It’s simultaneously proud and self-deprecating.

Yes, folks, John Andrew Storey – a beloved English Unitarian hymn writer – manages to write a very English lyric here. And it’s not that I disagree with any of it; in fact, I am now thinking about using it for our wrap up service about our conversation with world religions.

It’s just that last verse that made me chuckle at the Englishness of it. (For those who want another example of what I mean, watch Hugh Grant’s character in Four Weddings and a Funeral, or the comedy of Jon Richardson or Jack Whitehall, or any modern British panel show, really.)

But I digress. This is a pretty good lyric for getting the point across. I’m not sure it’s an inspiring hymn – I certainly wouldn’t use it as a closer, especially with the minor-key Southern Harmony tune Distress. But sometimes I think we need to spell it out, because I think sometimes a little less metaphor for congregational singing helps the singing part, especially if we’re trying to make a point.

Anyway, here’s our hymn:

Our faith is but a single gem upon a rosary of beads;
the thread of truth which runs through them supports our varied human needs.

Confucian wisdom, Christian care, the Buddhist way of self-control,
the Muslim’s daily call to prayer are proven pathways to the goal.

From many lips, in every age, the truth eternal is proclaimed
by Western saint, and Eastern sage, and all the good, however named.

Beside the noblest of our race our lives as yet cannot compare:
may we at length their truth embrace and in their sacred mission share.

I must admit, I especially like that Storey puts us on “a rosary of beads.” I don’t have negative associations with rosaries, so for me, it makes us as worthy of prayer and attention as any other. Well done, sir.

—

Apologies for the shortness – I awakened early and now must prepare to preach at a washing of feet and hands service for Maundy Thursday. I’m excited for the opportunity to bring some Brother Sun into an AME Zion church.

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Lyrics don’t have to rhyme. Lyrics don’t have to rhyme. Lyrics don’t have to rhyme.

This is the mantra I’ve been repeating to myself between singing this song and getting settled at the computer. I know…I KNOW lyrics don’t have to rhyme. But WOW a song sits weirdly on my ear when they don’t. There isn’t even approximate rhyming, like you hear in a lot of pop songs (where words sound vaguely like rhymes, or where the last words of the verse rhyme). I think what makes it notable in a lot of hymns is that they are, relatively speaking, square and short – meaning you’re not lost in an intense verse for a while that offers a rhyming chorus to release the tension. Rather, you’re in and out quickly on a hymn like this, and so you notice.

Or at least I do.

I know, I go on and on about lyric structure a lot. And I am sure if you’re a regular reader, you’re rolling your eyes at me about now and saying “c’mon, Debus, get on with it!” Okay, okay, just don’t blame me when you sing it and long for a rhyme.

So yeah. The tune, Sursum Corda, has been used before, in Now Light Is Less and The Peace Not Passing Understanding… two hymns which I grouse about rhyme. What is it about this tune that attracts awkward rhymes? Sorry, y’all, but it’s a thing.

Now these lyrics – poetic free verse from Rabindranath Tagore – are beautiful, but I’m not sure when I would ever use it. My hesitation may be contextual – I serve a congregation whose average age is over 70, and who has been told by others that they’re old and dying, both as a congregation and as individuals. So having them sing of coming death makes me – and them – squirmy. Yet I’m sure there are good uses for this hymn, in those services about simple joys, connecting with nature, perhaps even mother’s day.

Now I recall my childhood when the sun
burst to my bedside with the day’s surprise;
faith in the marvelous bloomed anew each dawn,
flowers bursting fresh within my heart each day.

Then looking on the world with simple joy,
on insects, birds, and beasts, and common weeds,
the grass and clouds had fullest wealth of awe;
my mother’s voice gave meaning to the stars.

Now when I turn to think of coming death,
I find life’s song in starsongs of the night,
in rise of curtains and new morning light,
in life reborn in fresh surprise of love.

But I don’t know. I think there are beautiful phrases and imagery, and “my mother’s voice gave meaning to the stars” makes me cry as I miss my own mother. And yet, when it comes to songs that out and out inspire me, this isn’t it. And I may be alone in this feeling.

(I am chuckling, because a few days ago, on Facebook, I invited friends to ‘sound like me’ and one totally captured my “it doesn’t work for me but it may work for you” thing that I do perhaps a little too often. And yeah, I don’t always have a positive connection to a hymn, but I am always willing for it to work for someone else, in a setting and perspective that is different from mine.)

This one just doesn’t compel me, and not just because it doesn’t rhyme.

Que sera, sera.

(Which rhymes.)

 

 

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I’ve kind of been dreading this one, knowing the complexities inherent in both the lyrics and the tunes (and by the way, this is the first of only two times when you’ll see me cover two numbers at once – they are the same lyrics to different tunes, so it seems appropriate).

But, if this practice has taught me anything, it’s that a closer examination leads to both joy and sorrow, and here I definitely find both.

So let’s tuck right in. First, the lyrics.

Our friend Sam Longfellow is back, with what – according to Jacqui James in Between the Lines – is the first Christian hymn to recognize non-Christian religions. There is a lot to love about this text, not the least of which is that somewhere along the line we changed “God of ages” to “Light of ages” – a shift I think further opens up the message. But I digress. I love the rather plainspoken nature of the lyrics, making clear that revelation is not sealed, that reason matters, that we should look to the prophets.

What I am not crazy about is the phrase “Greek, Barbarian, Roman, Jew” in the last verse. Take a look at it in context:

Light of ages and of nations, every race and every time
has received thine inspirations, glimpses of thy truth sublime.
Always spirits in rapt vision passed the heavenly veil within,
always hearts bowed in contrition found salvation from their sin.

Reason’s noble aspiration truth in growing clearness saw;
conscience spoke its condemnation, or proclaimed eternal law.
While thine inward revelations told thy saints their prayers were heard,
prophets to the guilty nations spoke thine everlasting word.

Lo, that word abideth ever; revelation is not sealed;
answering now to our endeavor, truth and right are still revealed.
That which came to ancient sages, Greek, Barbarian, Roman, Jew,
written in the soul’s deep pages, shines today, forever new.

When I look at the history of the word, it’s always been a pejorative, always about the outsider, the stranger, the ‘uncivilized’. I kind of get what our man Sam was saying here, but instead of being inclusive, it still seems like a bit of a slam. What we would change it to, I’m not sure (I’m coming with half a thing) – I’m sure others have thought of good replacements for that phrase that still rhyme with “new”. I just know that for all that I really like the rest of the lyrics, I wince at that line and then miss the full sentiment, “that which [was] …written in the soul’s deep pages, shines today, forever new.”

So now let’s look at the tune issue.

The first appearance, 189, is set to In Babilone, a tune we already sang in the aspirational Wonders Still the World Shall Witness. It’s a touch cheery for my tastes in this case, but it’s a good solid hymn tune and am already considering its use for a service that wraps up this congregation’s year-long conversation with world religions. (If I can figure out what to do about the barbarian, that is.)

The second appearance, 190, to which this lyric was originally set, is much more complicated. Take a deep breath – we’re going in.

The tune, Austria, was written by Austrian Josef Haydn in 1797, as a birthday song for Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor. It later found life in 1841 as a revolutionary call to unite Germans against the ruling classes. It was called “Das Lied der Deutschen” but became known by its first line “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” (“Germany, Germany above all else”).

And now you see the problem.

If you know anything about German history, you know that in the last few hundred years, long periods of stability are hard to come by, and every so often there’s a call for a new Germany to rise up, well, make Germany great again. And if you know anything about political movements, you know that the music and iconography of a culture can be used and abused by those movements.

Such is the case here. “Das Lied der Deutschen” got overused by the Third Reich and became a theme song of the Nazi regime. On the plus side, the song was banned in 1945. However, by 1952, it was clear that West Germany needed a national anthem for diplomatic occasions, and after much consternation, it was decided that the final verse ONLY of “Das Lied der Deutschen” would be used. (East Germany used a different song, “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” (“Risen from Ruins”), until about 1972).

And the memory of this tune as a tool of the Nazis remains to this day.

Now you may wonder why we keep this in. I wondered too, and often thought this was an error of sentimentality. But then, of course, Jacqui James comes to the rescue to explain it: “We have retained Austria to signal that Nazism has not had the final victory by ruining this fine melody of Haydn.”

I can definitely applaud that.

I just wish this note was in the hymnal itself. The way the pages lay out, there would have been plenty of room. How helpful it would be to know this, and to be able to set up the hymn or use it with this fact in mind. It’s a shame Between the Lines is out of print, and that it doesn’t get shipped with every order of hymnals, because as I’m learning with these hymns but as we are learning with, well, everything, context matters.

I doubt I would ever use this hymn with this tune, but you can bet I will now talk about why we have this in here and what it means to reclaim art that gets ruined by abuse.

—

The featured image is of Francis II. Now we know what a last Holy Roman Emperor looks like.

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Ear Worm Alert!

This round is so common in Unitarian Universalist circles it’s hard to remember that in the scheme of things, it’s only about as old as the grey hymnal itself. Yet here it is, a standard welcoming song, even if it’s incomplete.

As my beloved colleague Lynn Ungar originally wrote it, this setting also includes a descant that captures perhaps the most important line of this Rumi verse: “Though you’ve broken your vows a thousand times.” To me, it’s the key to the verse – the chance to start anew. That no matter who we are and what we’ve been though, we can come back to this place, where we can find healing and comfort and inspiration.

Come, come, whoever you are,
wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
Ours is no caravan of despair.
Come, yet again come.

I don’t think it’s a mistake that this one came up on Palm Sunday, either. I haven’t thought deeply about the connection yet, but it feels right that on the day we remember Jesus’s coming to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover and ‘poke the bear’ of the institutions, I am singing a song that could in fact be his message too.

Fascinating how the universe works sometimes, eh?

—

“K21 Street” – painting by Jackie Carpenter.

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What is it?

What is it that sounds along the ages, that breathes from Buddha’s tree, that speaks new truth, that resounds from the eternal chime?

Is it truth? Justice? Love? Spirit? Is it, as I first thought, Yes?

Is it, in fact whatever it is we seek from the wisdom of humanity?

What is it?

It sounds along the ages, soul answering to soul;
it kindles on the pages of every Bible scroll;
the psalmist heard and sang it, from martyr lips it broke,
and prophet tongues outrang it till sleeping nations woke.

From Sinai’s cliffs it echoed, it breathed from Buddha’s tree,
it charmed in Athens’ market, it hallowed Galilee;
the hammer stroke of Luther, the Pilgrims’ seaside prayer,
the oracles of Concord one holy word declare.

It calls — and lo, new justice! It speaks — and lo, new truth!
In ever nobler stature and unexhausted youth.
Forever on resounding, and knowing nought of time,
our laws but catch the music of its eternal chime.

We actually do have an answer… sort of. According to Jacqui James in Between the Lines, William Gannett’s original four verses were called “The Word of God.” (Lots of reframing/additions/shifts since its original publication in 1911.)

The word of God.

Okay. But what IS the word of God? Is it truth? Justice? Love? Spirit? Yes?

Ultimately, this is a lively and pretty cool hymn, one I can see using a number of ways, including in the wrap up service on our Conversations with World Religions that the church I serve has been engaged in since September. And what I like is that whatever you think the word of God might be, it’s in there.

So for me, I will say that It is Yes – because from all the things I’ve read in holy books and have experienced as a person of faith and a practical theologian, it seems to me everything comes down to saying Yes.

Yes to risk.

Yes to justice.

Yes to the vision of beloved community.

Yes to the all of our stories.

Yes to the opportunities to grow and learn.

Yes to love.

Yes to possibility.

Yes.