Following please find the program of a hymn festival I conducted at a small Baptist church on Sunday night. They let me pick the theme. Vividly in mind were all our recent conversations on the creeds, so I chose the Apostles' Creed and told how it related to early baptisms.
You know, every time we do a hymn festival, concert, or service for a small church, we have a choice about how much work we put into it. Nothing, of course, can ever be perfect, so there comes a point at which we have to call it "good enough." But balancing that there should be an attitude of reckless joy, of pouring perfume on Jesus' feet, of giving our very best for whom some may consider the very least--in this case, people who love Jesus but don't know much about the history of hymnody.
In choosing this program, I also tried to balance hymns from their own Baptist hymnal with unfamiliar tunes (most drawn from an Episcopal hymnal), both to show how the congregation's own heritage depicted themes from the Apostles' Creed and to expose them to some delightful material and fresh perspectives.
Another thought was to vary congregational with solo music; sung music with played music; and speaking with singing. On "For All the Saints," for example, I asked the congregation to keep their hymnals closed. I taught them just the refrain ("Alleluia, alleluia!") and then read the stanzas as a poem, with the congregation coming in on each refrain. (I did get carried away and sang the last stanza; irresistible.)
After each section, the congregation was instructed to declare the quoted part of the creed when I gave them a downbeat, like choir and choir conductor. After the resurrection, the congregation led ME in speaking the quoted part, while I responded with the appropriate music; they heard that it symbolized their authority because of the restoration of the image of God.
A further use of symbolism in this service was to have the congregation sit during the stanzas of "I Am the Bread of Life" and rather aerobically stand whenever they sang the refrain--"And I will raise them up...."--to show their belief and hope in the resurrection.
Enjoy.
#20 Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
st. 1 and 2—soloist
st. 3 and 4—congregation
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth."
* * *
#251 Of the Father's Love Begotten (DIVINUM MYSTERIUM)
st. 1—congregation
3 middle stanzas—soloist
st. 2—congregation
"I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord."
* * *
Tell Out, My Soul, the Greatness of the Lord! (WOODLANDS)
"He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary."
* * *
Beneath the Cross of Jesus, arr. Ken Medema
As Jacob with Travel Was Weary One Day (JACOB'S LADDER)
"He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried."
* * *
1 Peter 3:18-20
Psalm 139:7-8
Leader: "Where can I go from Your Spirit?"
Congregation: "Where can I flee from Your Presence?"
Leader: "If I go up to the heavens…"
Congregation: "You are there."
Leader: "If I make my bed in the depths…"
Congregation: "You are there."
Ephesians 4:7-10 (Psalm 68:18)
"He descended into hell."
* * *
Lord of the Dance (SIMPLE GIFTS)
"The third day He rose again from the dead!"
* * *
"He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead."
At the Name of Jesus (KING'S WESTON)
* * *
"I believe in the Holy Spirit."
Le Soir, Reinhold Glière
O Breath of Life (SPIRITUS VITAE)
* * *
"I believe in the holy catholic church."
#384 We Are One in the Bond of Love
#383 We Are God's People
st. 1—soloist
st. 2, 3, 4—congregation
* * *
"I believe in the communion of saints."
#355 For All the Saints (SINE NOMINE)
* * *
"I believe in the forgiveness of sins."
What Wondrous Love Is This, arr. Larry Shackley
* * *
"I believe in the resurrection of the body."
Christ, the Victorious (RUSSIA)
I Am the Bread of Life (I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE)
And I will raise them up,
And I will raise them up,
And I will raise them up on the last day.
* * *
"I believe in the life everlasting."
#517 Jerusalem, My Happy Home
Simple Gifts, arr. Mark Hayes
* * *
(from #449 All Praise to You, My God, This Night)
Leader: "All praise to You, our God, this night, for all the blessings of the light. Keep us, O keep us, King of kings, beneath the shelter of Your wings."
Congregation: "Amen."
Leader: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise Him, all creatures here below; praise Him above, ye heav'nly host; praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"
Congregation: "Amen and amen!"
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
100 Hymns Project: The First 10
I broke my own rule.
I picked twenty-nine hymns for the 100 Hymns Project instead of waiting to memorize the first group of ten before picking the second group of ten. Sheer gluttony. Not a whit of self-control.
Oh well. That rule wasn't one of the Ten Commandments, thank God.
The first twenty-nine are all hymns that have been floating through my mind for the past months, a phrase here, a phrase there. After this, I shall become more deliberate and choose either an era, an author, or (most likely) a theme for the next group of five or ten.
Here are the first ten:
1. Like a River Glorious (WYE VALLEY)
2. This Is My Father's World (TERRA BEATTA)
3. Abide with Me (EVENTIDE)
4. He Is the Way (HALL)
5. Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL)
6. Hope of the World (VICAR)
7. How Lovely, Lord, How Lovely (MERLE'S TUNE)
8. I Bind Unto Myself Today (ST. PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE and DIERDRE)
9. How Bright Appears the Morning Star (WIE SCHÖN LEUCHTET)
10. All Things Bright and Beautiful (ROYAL OAK)
The tune names themselves are evocative. Ancient names, hidden places, old ways. I feel like pronouncing myself a Guardian of Congregational Song. Let the tradition flow through us.
I picked twenty-nine hymns for the 100 Hymns Project instead of waiting to memorize the first group of ten before picking the second group of ten. Sheer gluttony. Not a whit of self-control.
Oh well. That rule wasn't one of the Ten Commandments, thank God.
The first twenty-nine are all hymns that have been floating through my mind for the past months, a phrase here, a phrase there. After this, I shall become more deliberate and choose either an era, an author, or (most likely) a theme for the next group of five or ten.
Here are the first ten:
1. Like a River Glorious (WYE VALLEY)
2. This Is My Father's World (TERRA BEATTA)
3. Abide with Me (EVENTIDE)
4. He Is the Way (HALL)
5. Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL)
6. Hope of the World (VICAR)
7. How Lovely, Lord, How Lovely (MERLE'S TUNE)
8. I Bind Unto Myself Today (ST. PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE and DIERDRE)
9. How Bright Appears the Morning Star (WIE SCHÖN LEUCHTET)
10. All Things Bright and Beautiful (ROYAL OAK)
The tune names themselves are evocative. Ancient names, hidden places, old ways. I feel like pronouncing myself a Guardian of Congregational Song. Let the tradition flow through us.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Creeds of Make-Believe
This is in response to the comment left by Nan two posts ago, under "Community of Individuals." Be warned: I care very much about this particular subject, and got carried away.
***
Thank you for the detailed info, Nan!
Horrible "creed". You're correct to put it in quotation marks because it's an interpretation of a creed, rather than a creed itself. An orthodox creed (literally, a creed of "right praise") is founded on historic facts--on God's saving deeds in history--rather than on our interpretation of those facts. Interpretations change; God's deeds are set. What He does for us must always flow out of what He did; sermon, music, and prayers may direct us to what He does from the starting point of what He did, but we have lost our bearings if our creeds forget what He did. God knows where we'll end up then.
Furthermore, a guiding purpose of the creeds was to tell what God was NOT, to safeguard us from heresy, rather than to define what He was. Thus the Nicene Creed speaks of Jesus as "God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God", protecting us from the idea that Jesus is somehow less than God but not really letting us in on who God is, apart from what He does.
Your instincts are right, to question what is "not there", what has been left out. When we begin to use our creeds to define our own understanding of what God is, we risk leaving out a very important attribute. For example, in the creed you offered, in the bit about the Holy Spirit, the H.S. breathes, draws on us, encourages, exhorts, comforts, nourishes, and inspires. It sounds like an exhaustive list and suggests that it is meant to be read as an exhaustive list, but it entirely leaves out that the H.S. also judges, rebukes, reveals, glorifies God, etc., etc. Your creed's list is deceitful. It could misguide people in a number of ways.
It also insults the Holy Spirit. Usually, when people get it into their heads to make up their own creeds in order to glorify God, they end up diminishing God. That is because their creeds tend not to focus on God's saving deeds in history but on their own extremely limited understanding of what those deeds mean.
By the way, it is the same situation in marriage vows. When we make up our own words, new and fresh and unique and individual for every new and fresh and unique and individual pair, we end up shrinking the meaning of that marriage from the transcendent and universal to the mundane and particular, what it is for John and Jean, a miniature world unto themselves. It's also dangerous: people vowing magnanimously and recklessly to "always be there for each other" or to be the other's "shoulder to cry on" and "friend to laugh with" are thumbing their nose at God. The God who witnesses their vows cannot be pleased when they inevitably turn away instead of "always being there." It behooves us not to promise too much, or too little.
***
Thank you for the detailed info, Nan!
Horrible "creed". You're correct to put it in quotation marks because it's an interpretation of a creed, rather than a creed itself. An orthodox creed (literally, a creed of "right praise") is founded on historic facts--on God's saving deeds in history--rather than on our interpretation of those facts. Interpretations change; God's deeds are set. What He does for us must always flow out of what He did; sermon, music, and prayers may direct us to what He does from the starting point of what He did, but we have lost our bearings if our creeds forget what He did. God knows where we'll end up then.
Furthermore, a guiding purpose of the creeds was to tell what God was NOT, to safeguard us from heresy, rather than to define what He was. Thus the Nicene Creed speaks of Jesus as "God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God", protecting us from the idea that Jesus is somehow less than God but not really letting us in on who God is, apart from what He does.
Your instincts are right, to question what is "not there", what has been left out. When we begin to use our creeds to define our own understanding of what God is, we risk leaving out a very important attribute. For example, in the creed you offered, in the bit about the Holy Spirit, the H.S. breathes, draws on us, encourages, exhorts, comforts, nourishes, and inspires. It sounds like an exhaustive list and suggests that it is meant to be read as an exhaustive list, but it entirely leaves out that the H.S. also judges, rebukes, reveals, glorifies God, etc., etc. Your creed's list is deceitful. It could misguide people in a number of ways.
It also insults the Holy Spirit. Usually, when people get it into their heads to make up their own creeds in order to glorify God, they end up diminishing God. That is because their creeds tend not to focus on God's saving deeds in history but on their own extremely limited understanding of what those deeds mean.
By the way, it is the same situation in marriage vows. When we make up our own words, new and fresh and unique and individual for every new and fresh and unique and individual pair, we end up shrinking the meaning of that marriage from the transcendent and universal to the mundane and particular, what it is for John and Jean, a miniature world unto themselves. It's also dangerous: people vowing magnanimously and recklessly to "always be there for each other" or to be the other's "shoulder to cry on" and "friend to laugh with" are thumbing their nose at God. The God who witnesses their vows cannot be pleased when they inevitably turn away instead of "always being there." It behooves us not to promise too much, or too little.
100 Hymns Project
One of you readers has asked for more detail on this 100 Hymns Project. Glad to oblige!
A few months ago I got tired of hearing fragments of songs flit through my mind, but being unable to recall the full text and tune of these favorite hymns. So I decided that having 100 hymns deliberately and thoroughly memorized was a reasonable goal.
Here's the strategy:
1) Choose only the first 10 hymns. Choose the next set of 10 after the first set has been thoroughly memorized.
2) Select which version of the hymn to memorize. (I usually research the original lyrics and then pick the most agreeable tune.)
3) Copy out or photocopy that version. This is helpful for (a) punching holes in the hymn and sticking it in a three-ring binder for handy review, and (b) marking recurring phrases, synonymns, alliteration--all to help me memorize and get a fuller meaning of the text. (I do this with psalms from the Bible, too, although I'm rarely so careful about photocopying them before marking up the sacred page with my own system of underlines, boxes, circles, and squiggles.)
4) Mark the date of memorization next to the title in the expanding table of contents (in the front of the three-ring binder). This not only encourages me to see the progress, but keeps me from getting too ambitious with other memorization projects, since I note I have been memorizing only about three hymns per month (starting #13 this month!).
5) Decide on some system of review. Every couple hymns, I review all the other hymns in groups of 2 to 5. The review alone takes a week or two. When I know I've missed a word or when a phrase comes too stiffly, I jot it down with the hymn title and stanza number on a piece of scratch paper. The next day, I review only those sections jotted down on the paper, before proceding to the next review group or new hymn. (I like to keep the scratch paper until the next time those hymns pop up in a review session, to see if I'm still missing the same things or if the memory gaps have changed.)
If you try this yourself, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE LOW OR NO EXPECTATIONS about how long this project will take to complete. People memorize at different rates and have different standards for how well something should be memorized, for how securely it sits in their brain. They also have varying demands on their time and varying abilites for self-motivation.
If you haven't memorized anything in years, you may want to start with 1 hymn, 5 hymns, or 10 hymns--or even 1 stanza of 1 hymn. Baby steps, darlings, baby steps.
More on the actual hymns I chose later.
Please let me know if any of you have tried this in the past, are trying this at present, or are suddenly inspired!
A few months ago I got tired of hearing fragments of songs flit through my mind, but being unable to recall the full text and tune of these favorite hymns. So I decided that having 100 hymns deliberately and thoroughly memorized was a reasonable goal.
Here's the strategy:
1) Choose only the first 10 hymns. Choose the next set of 10 after the first set has been thoroughly memorized.
2) Select which version of the hymn to memorize. (I usually research the original lyrics and then pick the most agreeable tune.)
3) Copy out or photocopy that version. This is helpful for (a) punching holes in the hymn and sticking it in a three-ring binder for handy review, and (b) marking recurring phrases, synonymns, alliteration--all to help me memorize and get a fuller meaning of the text. (I do this with psalms from the Bible, too, although I'm rarely so careful about photocopying them before marking up the sacred page with my own system of underlines, boxes, circles, and squiggles.)
4) Mark the date of memorization next to the title in the expanding table of contents (in the front of the three-ring binder). This not only encourages me to see the progress, but keeps me from getting too ambitious with other memorization projects, since I note I have been memorizing only about three hymns per month (starting #13 this month!).
5) Decide on some system of review. Every couple hymns, I review all the other hymns in groups of 2 to 5. The review alone takes a week or two. When I know I've missed a word or when a phrase comes too stiffly, I jot it down with the hymn title and stanza number on a piece of scratch paper. The next day, I review only those sections jotted down on the paper, before proceding to the next review group or new hymn. (I like to keep the scratch paper until the next time those hymns pop up in a review session, to see if I'm still missing the same things or if the memory gaps have changed.)
If you try this yourself, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE LOW OR NO EXPECTATIONS about how long this project will take to complete. People memorize at different rates and have different standards for how well something should be memorized, for how securely it sits in their brain. They also have varying demands on their time and varying abilites for self-motivation.
If you haven't memorized anything in years, you may want to start with 1 hymn, 5 hymns, or 10 hymns--or even 1 stanza of 1 hymn. Baby steps, darlings, baby steps.
More on the actual hymns I chose later.
Please let me know if any of you have tried this in the past, are trying this at present, or are suddenly inspired!
Monday, January 16, 2006
Contemporary Church: Community of Individuals?
One of the great ideas I took away from IWS was: there are other people LIKE ME! No kidding. You all in the blogosphere are becoming my friends, but chatting with you via our keyboards is different from worshiping with you (I would never be content with attending a church of the 'net.) From the first song--a praise chorus, "He Is Exalted"--to the closing hymn, an original text sung to the tune "Gift of Love", I felt the presence of other believers who cared not only about worshiping God but about figuring out how God would like to be worshiped.
Furthermore, they had had several years of practicing this. They were the kinds of people who say creeds and memorize songs.
Feeling ourselves part of a community is important to our spiritual balance. But we also represent something to the world, to the "rulers and principalities", and to God Himself when we are able to join our voices and gather in one place for worship. We represent something very particular when we say together, instead of in the privacy of our rooms or alone in some outdoorsy "worshipful" setting, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth...."
What do you think it means, this trend to make up our own liturgies and our own songs? Not as a devotional exercise, but as a subsitute for the historic liturgies and songs. I was intrigued by the strong reaction of one of this blog's readers, when her liturgical leadership made up some prayers again. Why are people reacting so strongly to creativity in the service? Are there good and bad kinds of creativity when it comes to worship?
Furthermore, they had had several years of practicing this. They were the kinds of people who say creeds and memorize songs.
Feeling ourselves part of a community is important to our spiritual balance. But we also represent something to the world, to the "rulers and principalities", and to God Himself when we are able to join our voices and gather in one place for worship. We represent something very particular when we say together, instead of in the privacy of our rooms or alone in some outdoorsy "worshipful" setting, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth...."
What do you think it means, this trend to make up our own liturgies and our own songs? Not as a devotional exercise, but as a subsitute for the historic liturgies and songs. I was intrigued by the strong reaction of one of this blog's readers, when her liturgical leadership made up some prayers again. Why are people reacting so strongly to creativity in the service? Are there good and bad kinds of creativity when it comes to worship?
Monday, January 09, 2006
IWS: Episcopalians, Anglicans, and a Flag
More than the studies, an actual worship service packed the most emotional wallop these last few days.
Friday night, Grace Episcopal Church, the host campus of IWS, became Grace Church (Anglican) in a two-hour service of disassociation from the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and a realignment with the worldwide Anglican communion under the province of Rwanda.
The tenor of the service was sober and sad, in keeping with the title “Solemn Acts of Disassociation and Realignment”, yet also gracious and full of hope. We opened with “The Church’s One Foundation”—especially poignant in the line “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed”—and closed with “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus!” in its conviction that the church will be reunited. The “songs of holy Zion [will] thunder like a mighty flood.”
The point at which I gave in to tears was when an ex-serviceman and an Eagle Scout took down the Episcopal flag and folded it in front of the altar, in preparation for this week’s delivery of the flag, church registry, and account book to the Episcopal diocese. I wasn’t a member of the church; I’m not even Episcopalian. But I suppose I identified with these people through the very particular symbol of a flag. When I’m overseas, it does my heart good to see our stars and stripes hung as a courtesy in some government building or included in some decorative scheme. A flag is a symbol of participation and belonging, and of where one’s heart resides. In the silence, seeing the Episcopal flag folded in a tight little triangle and laid like a bundle on the rail was like beholding my own secession from the United States of America.
Then, while we sang Rich Mullin’s “Step by Step,” a light blue banner of the worldwide Anglican communion was carried up the center aisle and placed in front of the lectern. It was embossed with the words, “The Truth Shall Make You Free.”
Friday night, Grace Episcopal Church, the host campus of IWS, became Grace Church (Anglican) in a two-hour service of disassociation from the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and a realignment with the worldwide Anglican communion under the province of Rwanda.
The tenor of the service was sober and sad, in keeping with the title “Solemn Acts of Disassociation and Realignment”, yet also gracious and full of hope. We opened with “The Church’s One Foundation”—especially poignant in the line “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed”—and closed with “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus!” in its conviction that the church will be reunited. The “songs of holy Zion [will] thunder like a mighty flood.”
The point at which I gave in to tears was when an ex-serviceman and an Eagle Scout took down the Episcopal flag and folded it in front of the altar, in preparation for this week’s delivery of the flag, church registry, and account book to the Episcopal diocese. I wasn’t a member of the church; I’m not even Episcopalian. But I suppose I identified with these people through the very particular symbol of a flag. When I’m overseas, it does my heart good to see our stars and stripes hung as a courtesy in some government building or included in some decorative scheme. A flag is a symbol of participation and belonging, and of where one’s heart resides. In the silence, seeing the Episcopal flag folded in a tight little triangle and laid like a bundle on the rail was like beholding my own secession from the United States of America.
Then, while we sang Rich Mullin’s “Step by Step,” a light blue banner of the worldwide Anglican communion was carried up the center aisle and placed in front of the lectern. It was embossed with the words, “The Truth Shall Make You Free.”
Friday, January 06, 2006
IWS: Reason and Experience
For two days I’ve been here in Jacksonville, the days booked solid with classes and meetings until 9 PM.
There are nineteen of us beginning the doctoral program, fifteen men and four women from varied denominations. We meet in a Sunday school classroom of a local church and the teachers sit to speak or stand to scribble on a blackboard with half-inch stubs of chalk. Around us rise the murmurs of other students farther along in the program, in other Sunday school classrooms. Since we’re in a Worship Studies program, I pretend these murmurs are chants and I’m sitting in a monastery—an ironic pretense since every one of the students in this “cohort” is married. But we are possibly as committed as the monks to the glory of God through the pursuit of academic studies and the renewal of His worship. It’s a good crowd.
The first day was spent with personal introductions, course overview by my professors (Lester Ruth and Andy Hill), presentation by Robert Webber on “An Ancient Evangelical Future” and his conveniently numbered 39 Articles, and oh-so-informed worship services.
The second day was spent with more worship services, communal meals, Q-and-A on issues in the Episcopal/Anglican churches in America, and two chunks of classes, morning and afternoon, on a historical overview of Christian thought (Biblical period to postmodern), ancient Biblical themes, and ways of reflecting on 20 centuries of Christian worship.
The most interesting point was that in the Modern era (1750-1950’s), Christians began to think of their faith as provable in terms of reason or experience. The rationalists set out to prove the existence of God, the physical reality of the resurrection, etc., as if faith was primarily about a set of intellectual beliefs. This led, of course, to worship services that were heavy on the preaching. The experientialists focused on the individual experience of salvation, for example, the ability to say that I was saved on such-and-such a date, which led to worship services with a strong revivalist tinge and songs like “I Serve a Risen Savior”—“you ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart.”
Besides determining the structure of worship services, both of these views can lead to anxiety about one’s personal salvation: “Am I really able to believe this stuff? And do I understand enough about Christ’s work for me in order to be saved?” or “Have I really felt the love of Jesus? And do I feel loving toward God?”
Bob Webber remarked that both of these views put the burden of salvation on the individual rather than on Christ’s saving work, regardless of how we feel or whether we exhaustively understand.
Do your churches focus on reason or experience or something else? What have your backgrounds focused on? How do you think this has affected your understanding of God?
There are nineteen of us beginning the doctoral program, fifteen men and four women from varied denominations. We meet in a Sunday school classroom of a local church and the teachers sit to speak or stand to scribble on a blackboard with half-inch stubs of chalk. Around us rise the murmurs of other students farther along in the program, in other Sunday school classrooms. Since we’re in a Worship Studies program, I pretend these murmurs are chants and I’m sitting in a monastery—an ironic pretense since every one of the students in this “cohort” is married. But we are possibly as committed as the monks to the glory of God through the pursuit of academic studies and the renewal of His worship. It’s a good crowd.
The first day was spent with personal introductions, course overview by my professors (Lester Ruth and Andy Hill), presentation by Robert Webber on “An Ancient Evangelical Future” and his conveniently numbered 39 Articles, and oh-so-informed worship services.
The second day was spent with more worship services, communal meals, Q-and-A on issues in the Episcopal/Anglican churches in America, and two chunks of classes, morning and afternoon, on a historical overview of Christian thought (Biblical period to postmodern), ancient Biblical themes, and ways of reflecting on 20 centuries of Christian worship.
The most interesting point was that in the Modern era (1750-1950’s), Christians began to think of their faith as provable in terms of reason or experience. The rationalists set out to prove the existence of God, the physical reality of the resurrection, etc., as if faith was primarily about a set of intellectual beliefs. This led, of course, to worship services that were heavy on the preaching. The experientialists focused on the individual experience of salvation, for example, the ability to say that I was saved on such-and-such a date, which led to worship services with a strong revivalist tinge and songs like “I Serve a Risen Savior”—“you ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart.”
Besides determining the structure of worship services, both of these views can lead to anxiety about one’s personal salvation: “Am I really able to believe this stuff? And do I understand enough about Christ’s work for me in order to be saved?” or “Have I really felt the love of Jesus? And do I feel loving toward God?”
Bob Webber remarked that both of these views put the burden of salvation on the individual rather than on Christ’s saving work, regardless of how we feel or whether we exhaustively understand.
Do your churches focus on reason or experience or something else? What have your backgrounds focused on? How do you think this has affected your understanding of God?
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Touching Down in the Sunshine State
Thank you for your patience in waiting for a new post to come up. I ended up playing organ for eight hours on Christmas Eve--about four hours too many--which doesn't affect the hands as much as the back and shoulders. Anyway, I was very reluctant to do anything like playing the keyboard for several days--including typing for this blog!
We're going to do something a little different in this blog over the next week or two. I'm flying to Jacksonville, Florida, tomorrow morning to begin the Doctor of Worship Studies through the Institute for Worship Studies, founded by Robert Webber, guru of "Ancient-Future" worship fame.
Dr. Webber had piqued my interest when I was an undergraduate at Wheaton College and had to take some kind of History of Christian Thought class, for which he gave me a good grade but never returned my extensive notebook. I figure this three-year doctoral program will yield enough notes to make up for the loss of that notebook.
So this next week, if the campus has internet access, I'm going to be your embedded reporter and offer you some observations from the program. My husband says I should wear one of those white T-shirts that says in bold letters, "I'm blogging this," to give everyone fair warning.
However, since God comes down pretty strongly against gossipers and since I'll be working with these people for the next several years, the blog shouldn't be full of nasty little tidbits. We hope to aim for the amusing and the thoughtful instead.
See you in Florida!
We're going to do something a little different in this blog over the next week or two. I'm flying to Jacksonville, Florida, tomorrow morning to begin the Doctor of Worship Studies through the Institute for Worship Studies, founded by Robert Webber, guru of "Ancient-Future" worship fame.
Dr. Webber had piqued my interest when I was an undergraduate at Wheaton College and had to take some kind of History of Christian Thought class, for which he gave me a good grade but never returned my extensive notebook. I figure this three-year doctoral program will yield enough notes to make up for the loss of that notebook.
So this next week, if the campus has internet access, I'm going to be your embedded reporter and offer you some observations from the program. My husband says I should wear one of those white T-shirts that says in bold letters, "I'm blogging this," to give everyone fair warning.
However, since God comes down pretty strongly against gossipers and since I'll be working with these people for the next several years, the blog shouldn't be full of nasty little tidbits. We hope to aim for the amusing and the thoughtful instead.
See you in Florida!
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Christmas Break
The services of Christmas Eve are fast approaching. There are soloists to rehearse, choirs to organize, organ registrations to select, and last stanzas to embellish. I will NOT be blogging for a week or two.
Merry Christmas, everybody! Sweet dreams.
Merry Christmas, everybody! Sweet dreams.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
"Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" versus Paganism
The best discoveries are sometimes made without intent, just from snuffling around in an area you like. I didn’t set out to look for the original lyrics to “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” I knew from coffee hour conversation that Wesley had written about a “welkin” instead of “herald angels” originally, but beyond that I had no idea I was missing lovely words. In poking through The New Oxford Book of Carols in preparation for a concert this weekend, though, I found several unfamiliar lines with the notation “adapted.” Our dear friend the Cyber Hymnal provided the original. Here ’tis:
Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”
Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb!
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here!
Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild He lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.
Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.
Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp Thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner Man:
O! to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.
Look at the themes!
“Welkin” means “vault of heaven, upper air, sky.” It refers to the PLACE where the rejoicing occurs rather than the BEINGS who make the rejoicing. This is extremely important to the interpretation of the hymn. In Hebraic poetry, if you mention “sky and earth,” you mean also “everything in between”—in other words, “the whole of creation.” Wesley, no idiot scholar of the biblical languages, would have been aware of this. What the sky begins, the earth joins. “Universal nature” in the concluding thought means more than “that which is common to angelic and human beings.”
I suspect it means “all nature.” It rings with Watts’ line from “Joy to the World”: “He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse found.” Christmas is Christ’s coming to redeem the world, not just us humans. We as the stewards of creation are only the beginning of the glorious redemption of all the ladybugs and dinosaurs and parakeets. Redeeming us is a sign of the coming redemption for all.
It’s obviously important to the poetic thrust to keep the male gender intact: Wesley’s case for the power of Christ to redeem all of nature rests on Christ’s being the Second Adam, the fulfillment of the promise to the First Adam. (1 Cor. 15:22, 45: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. … Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”) If you delete the last two stanzas (as is standard in most hymnals) and change the male references (for example, “Pleased as God with us to dwell”), you dissolve the power of the promise, the historical link between our first parents and their lost vocations with Christ and our restored vocations. Salvation is reduced, once again, to sort of a personal fling with Christ, rather than the restoration of universal harmony with a creation that is seriously out of whack.
Poor Wordsworth! Remember his “Great God! I'd rather be / a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; / So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, / Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; / Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; / Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” He wanted to be connected to nature. So do most of the modern Pagans and Witches. Maybe they weren’t sung the full version of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” when they were young.
Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”
Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb!
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here!
Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild He lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.
Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.
Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp Thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner Man:
O! to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.
Look at the themes!
“Welkin” means “vault of heaven, upper air, sky.” It refers to the PLACE where the rejoicing occurs rather than the BEINGS who make the rejoicing. This is extremely important to the interpretation of the hymn. In Hebraic poetry, if you mention “sky and earth,” you mean also “everything in between”—in other words, “the whole of creation.” Wesley, no idiot scholar of the biblical languages, would have been aware of this. What the sky begins, the earth joins. “Universal nature” in the concluding thought means more than “that which is common to angelic and human beings.”
I suspect it means “all nature.” It rings with Watts’ line from “Joy to the World”: “He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse found.” Christmas is Christ’s coming to redeem the world, not just us humans. We as the stewards of creation are only the beginning of the glorious redemption of all the ladybugs and dinosaurs and parakeets. Redeeming us is a sign of the coming redemption for all.
It’s obviously important to the poetic thrust to keep the male gender intact: Wesley’s case for the power of Christ to redeem all of nature rests on Christ’s being the Second Adam, the fulfillment of the promise to the First Adam. (1 Cor. 15:22, 45: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. … Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”) If you delete the last two stanzas (as is standard in most hymnals) and change the male references (for example, “Pleased as God with us to dwell”), you dissolve the power of the promise, the historical link between our first parents and their lost vocations with Christ and our restored vocations. Salvation is reduced, once again, to sort of a personal fling with Christ, rather than the restoration of universal harmony with a creation that is seriously out of whack.
Poor Wordsworth! Remember his “Great God! I'd rather be / a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; / So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, / Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; / Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; / Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” He wanted to be connected to nature. So do most of the modern Pagans and Witches. Maybe they weren’t sung the full version of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” when they were young.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Evangelism in Christmas Program
My church did a Christmas program last night. We had a small orchestra and maybe a hundred singers; we partnered with another church and held it in a high school auditorium. It was a great venue to reach unchurched people with the good news of Christmas.
However, somewhere back in the compilation of the musical the good news got a little mixed up. The narration stuck to evangelism but after the first couple songs, most of the music was straight-up worship: “Jesus, You’re beautiful to me”; “You’re wonderful, You’re powerful”; “I come to Bethlehem, I come to praise Him again and worship Him”; “If I can sing, let my songs be full of His glory.” As a member of the choir, I felt very self-conscious, like my personal piety was on display. I also wasn’t sure that a display of personal piety was the best way to evangelize someone, or to attract them to the gospel.
It was interesting how individualistic the worship songs were; maybe that’s what aggravated my feeling of “personal” piety. Maybe I have a different understanding of evangelism than the compilers of the musical do: I understand the good news as being welcomed into a family, as resulting in harmony with many people as well as with God. Also, because Christ created the universe that we inhabit but feel so displaced in, becoming reconciled to Christ further reconciles the Self with the Universe. We regain our ability to function as stewards of creation; we work toward harmony and justice in relationships with each other and with our environment; we gain integrity as we discover more parts of ourselves to turn over to the Lordship of Christ; we look forward to the peace of God (the Shalom) pervading all things in the new Kingdom. Therefore, our songs of worship express our reconciliation within the new community; we use the first person plural a lot in worshipping God—not primarily the first person singular.
It felt like the compilers of the musical understood Christianity as an individual reconciliation of the Self with God. Period.
In fact, towards the end of the musical, one of the narrators said, “If you’ve given Jesus that most precious of human gifts—your heart—then Christmas extends a second invitation. If you’ve received the gift of Jesus, you must leave the stable and open your arms to a waiting world. You must travel to the hills of the shepherds and to the cities of the kings. You must become a bearer of Christmas to a cold and lost world. You must bring them the wondrous gift of Jesus.” (Segue to the next song.)
The point of accepting Christ was here clearly stated as getting other people to accept Him, too. That made becoming a Christian seem pretty pointless, after all. “If I get reconciled to God, I try to get other people reconciled to God; what does being reconciled to God mean?” From the content of the musical, I think our imaginary questioner would conclude that being reconciled to God would mean having some warm feelings toward God and standing up in a Christmas show someday to try to get other people reconciled.
This is an odd message of evangelism because most non-Christians I know claim to have warm feelings toward God; they believe He/She/It is Love and totally approves of them. (They do feel a vague anger about “things”, but usually they don’t assign that to God.) They insist that they already feel “reconciled” to God—in an individualistic way.
But they are not part of a community of people reconciled to God and they are not whole in their relationship to Self, Others, or the Universe.
Anyway, I sang this mixed-up Christmas message with my church because I am part of that community (and God knows finding a good Christmas musical WITH orchestrations is nigh impossible! Other factors which I have not considered went into selecting that musical, I'm sure). Their actions are sometimes clearer than their words: they work toward harmony and justice in practical ways, like giving me and my husband gift cards for groceries.
Singing with people like this gives me hope. Even when we mix up the message, surely God will bless the intentions of people whose hearts are open to Him.
But we can’t stop at good intentions….
However, somewhere back in the compilation of the musical the good news got a little mixed up. The narration stuck to evangelism but after the first couple songs, most of the music was straight-up worship: “Jesus, You’re beautiful to me”; “You’re wonderful, You’re powerful”; “I come to Bethlehem, I come to praise Him again and worship Him”; “If I can sing, let my songs be full of His glory.” As a member of the choir, I felt very self-conscious, like my personal piety was on display. I also wasn’t sure that a display of personal piety was the best way to evangelize someone, or to attract them to the gospel.
It was interesting how individualistic the worship songs were; maybe that’s what aggravated my feeling of “personal” piety. Maybe I have a different understanding of evangelism than the compilers of the musical do: I understand the good news as being welcomed into a family, as resulting in harmony with many people as well as with God. Also, because Christ created the universe that we inhabit but feel so displaced in, becoming reconciled to Christ further reconciles the Self with the Universe. We regain our ability to function as stewards of creation; we work toward harmony and justice in relationships with each other and with our environment; we gain integrity as we discover more parts of ourselves to turn over to the Lordship of Christ; we look forward to the peace of God (the Shalom) pervading all things in the new Kingdom. Therefore, our songs of worship express our reconciliation within the new community; we use the first person plural a lot in worshipping God—not primarily the first person singular.
It felt like the compilers of the musical understood Christianity as an individual reconciliation of the Self with God. Period.
In fact, towards the end of the musical, one of the narrators said, “If you’ve given Jesus that most precious of human gifts—your heart—then Christmas extends a second invitation. If you’ve received the gift of Jesus, you must leave the stable and open your arms to a waiting world. You must travel to the hills of the shepherds and to the cities of the kings. You must become a bearer of Christmas to a cold and lost world. You must bring them the wondrous gift of Jesus.” (Segue to the next song.)
The point of accepting Christ was here clearly stated as getting other people to accept Him, too. That made becoming a Christian seem pretty pointless, after all. “If I get reconciled to God, I try to get other people reconciled to God; what does being reconciled to God mean?” From the content of the musical, I think our imaginary questioner would conclude that being reconciled to God would mean having some warm feelings toward God and standing up in a Christmas show someday to try to get other people reconciled.
This is an odd message of evangelism because most non-Christians I know claim to have warm feelings toward God; they believe He/She/It is Love and totally approves of them. (They do feel a vague anger about “things”, but usually they don’t assign that to God.) They insist that they already feel “reconciled” to God—in an individualistic way.
But they are not part of a community of people reconciled to God and they are not whole in their relationship to Self, Others, or the Universe.
Anyway, I sang this mixed-up Christmas message with my church because I am part of that community (and God knows finding a good Christmas musical WITH orchestrations is nigh impossible! Other factors which I have not considered went into selecting that musical, I'm sure). Their actions are sometimes clearer than their words: they work toward harmony and justice in practical ways, like giving me and my husband gift cards for groceries.
Singing with people like this gives me hope. Even when we mix up the message, surely God will bless the intentions of people whose hearts are open to Him.
But we can’t stop at good intentions….
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Children's Sermons: Valid as Worship Education?
Here’s a question for you: did children’s sermons do you any good when you were a child?
You know, the times when the pastor asked for “all the children to come forward,” and you all sat on the steps in front of the lectern, and the pastor crouched down too and spoke in an unusually mild and just plain unusual voice for several minutes.
I’m not asking about whether they do you good now, as an adult. In fact, children’s sermons seem entirely oriented toward the adults as they put on display “cute” answers blown into the microphone and the cute children themselves padding down the aisle and then wandering about the platform during their sermon. Who hasn’t giggled at the prim child who keeps raising her hand and the stagey child who keeps waving to his parents? Who hasn't experienced a thrill of righteous indignation against the particularly wayward child or its parents? I have enjoyed many children’s sermons as the best entertainment of the service. But do they meet any child’s spiritual needs?
My childhood was filled with object lessons from the children’s sermons. I remember sand pails and shovels, teddy bears and broken dolls, photographs of family members, paper hearts, paper shamrocks, rocks of many sizes, candy canes, doughnut holes, closed paper bags and empty paper bags—in fact, all the objects but none of the lessons. The moral of the lessons, based on my observations of children’s sermons as an adult, was something like “God loves you” or “Obey your parents” or “Be nice to each other” but was never presented meaningfully enough to sink in or change my behavior.
Mind you, these memories include many pastors and many denominations, too, whether my parents’ or people’s we were visiting—Christian Reformed, Covenant, Presbyterian (U.S.A. and Church in America), Baptist (American and Southern), Lutheran (Evangelical and Missouri Synod), Evangelical Free, non-denominational, Nazarene.
These lessons had three effects on me: (1) they intensified my smug sense of self-importance because I usually knew exactly where the pastor was heading and, if not, "Jesus" was a safe bet for an answer (I was the prim child); (2) they made me long to be dismissed to Sunday school; (3) they induced either a general sense of good will toward the pastor, if he produced doughnut holes or candy from the paper bag at the end of the lesson, or a general sense of resentment toward the pastor, if he did not.
What I really remember are all the Bible stories from Sunday school and every one of the songs from the Sunday school and the adult services. I can still remember the story of Zacchaeus and the accompanying song (“Zacchaeus, YOU COME DOWN, for I’m coming to your house today”), the story of Peter’s calling (“I will make you fishers of men, if you follow Me”), the lame men being healed in the temple (“Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I you; in the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord, in Jesus’ name, rise up and walk!”), and all the grown-up songs that I had to stand on the pew to sing out of my mother’s hymnal: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “When Peace Like a River.” These songs and stories have stayed with me and enriched my life over the years far more than the object lessons and little talks with pastor up at the front of the church.
I believe that most of these pastors are of good will. I’m not accusing them of dismissing children’s needs when they struggle to create their “edifying” chats, but does anybody remember what it was like to be a child when they are crafting those dread object lessons? Has anybody surveyed children WHEN THEY ARE GROWN UP to see if the children's sermons stuck with them, or is the phenomenon of the children's sermon based merely on good intentions and the theory that children will remember an abstract moral message if it is linked to a concrete visual?
I have come to a decision; as an adult, I can make this difficult sacrifice: I could give up the weekly entertainment if it would free the children for Sunday school and singing.
You know, the times when the pastor asked for “all the children to come forward,” and you all sat on the steps in front of the lectern, and the pastor crouched down too and spoke in an unusually mild and just plain unusual voice for several minutes.
I’m not asking about whether they do you good now, as an adult. In fact, children’s sermons seem entirely oriented toward the adults as they put on display “cute” answers blown into the microphone and the cute children themselves padding down the aisle and then wandering about the platform during their sermon. Who hasn’t giggled at the prim child who keeps raising her hand and the stagey child who keeps waving to his parents? Who hasn't experienced a thrill of righteous indignation against the particularly wayward child or its parents? I have enjoyed many children’s sermons as the best entertainment of the service. But do they meet any child’s spiritual needs?
My childhood was filled with object lessons from the children’s sermons. I remember sand pails and shovels, teddy bears and broken dolls, photographs of family members, paper hearts, paper shamrocks, rocks of many sizes, candy canes, doughnut holes, closed paper bags and empty paper bags—in fact, all the objects but none of the lessons. The moral of the lessons, based on my observations of children’s sermons as an adult, was something like “God loves you” or “Obey your parents” or “Be nice to each other” but was never presented meaningfully enough to sink in or change my behavior.
Mind you, these memories include many pastors and many denominations, too, whether my parents’ or people’s we were visiting—Christian Reformed, Covenant, Presbyterian (U.S.A. and Church in America), Baptist (American and Southern), Lutheran (Evangelical and Missouri Synod), Evangelical Free, non-denominational, Nazarene.
These lessons had three effects on me: (1) they intensified my smug sense of self-importance because I usually knew exactly where the pastor was heading and, if not, "Jesus" was a safe bet for an answer (I was the prim child); (2) they made me long to be dismissed to Sunday school; (3) they induced either a general sense of good will toward the pastor, if he produced doughnut holes or candy from the paper bag at the end of the lesson, or a general sense of resentment toward the pastor, if he did not.
What I really remember are all the Bible stories from Sunday school and every one of the songs from the Sunday school and the adult services. I can still remember the story of Zacchaeus and the accompanying song (“Zacchaeus, YOU COME DOWN, for I’m coming to your house today”), the story of Peter’s calling (“I will make you fishers of men, if you follow Me”), the lame men being healed in the temple (“Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I you; in the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord, in Jesus’ name, rise up and walk!”), and all the grown-up songs that I had to stand on the pew to sing out of my mother’s hymnal: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “When Peace Like a River.” These songs and stories have stayed with me and enriched my life over the years far more than the object lessons and little talks with pastor up at the front of the church.
I believe that most of these pastors are of good will. I’m not accusing them of dismissing children’s needs when they struggle to create their “edifying” chats, but does anybody remember what it was like to be a child when they are crafting those dread object lessons? Has anybody surveyed children WHEN THEY ARE GROWN UP to see if the children's sermons stuck with them, or is the phenomenon of the children's sermon based merely on good intentions and the theory that children will remember an abstract moral message if it is linked to a concrete visual?
I have come to a decision; as an adult, I can make this difficult sacrifice: I could give up the weekly entertainment if it would free the children for Sunday school and singing.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
"How Lovely Shines the Morning Star" 2: Scriptural Structure
Disappointment set in. The more I sang “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star,” the more I missed the presence of a story line. Unlike Nicolai’s other "greatest hit" "Wachet Auf", this seemed to have no beginning, middle, and end. Every stanza, though beautiful in its own right, sat like a pearl on a necklace without a clasp, an unending circle of the beauty of Jesus. Without an obvious progression, it’s been very hard to remember which stanza comes next.
For several days, I said, “Fine, that reflects the seventh stanza’s depiction of Jesus as ‘Beginning without end, the First and Last, Eternal.’ I can learn to live with that.” From readings on the German version of Wikipedia, I knew too that Nicolai was a mystic—into blessed feelings of oneness and theological arguments about the absolute unity of God and man—so I guess that kept me from looking further for a while.
But about twenty minutes ago, the light dawned. Although each stanza is intensely personal and full of the first person no matter the scriptural references, the general structure seems to be based on the Old and New Testaments.
These references are not comprehensive, but are noted as evidence:
Stanza 1—references to the Old Testament
Morningstar, Jesse’s root, David’s son from Jacob’s stem, king and bridegroom
Stanza 2—Old Testament and Gospels all mixed up together
Mary’s son, highborn King, Gospel as milk and honey, King as heavenly manna
Stanza 3—Gospels
Part of the Lord’s body as branch is to tree
Stanza 4—Gospels
Lord Jesus as giving me Spirit/Word/Life/Blood
Stanza 5—Epistles
God the Father has loved me from beginning of world, I’m wedded to Your Son
Stanza 6—Old Testament, (possibly Gospels), Epistles
All instruments praise God, Jesus is my bridegroom, everyone should be jubilant and thank the Lord the King of all the earth
Stanza 7—Revelation
Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, He will take me to Paradise; “Amen, amen, come…do not wait long” (reminiscent of second-to-last verse of Revelation)
Whew. Nicolai takes us through the Prophets right up to Revelation, even touching on the historical books through his references to David. Only one thing he neglects: he doesn’t seem to mention anything about the Law. Hmmm....
P.S. Here is the most helpful article (in German) on Nicolai that I struggled through!
For several days, I said, “Fine, that reflects the seventh stanza’s depiction of Jesus as ‘Beginning without end, the First and Last, Eternal.’ I can learn to live with that.” From readings on the German version of Wikipedia, I knew too that Nicolai was a mystic—into blessed feelings of oneness and theological arguments about the absolute unity of God and man—so I guess that kept me from looking further for a while.
But about twenty minutes ago, the light dawned. Although each stanza is intensely personal and full of the first person no matter the scriptural references, the general structure seems to be based on the Old and New Testaments.
These references are not comprehensive, but are noted as evidence:
Stanza 1—references to the Old Testament
Morningstar, Jesse’s root, David’s son from Jacob’s stem, king and bridegroom
Stanza 2—Old Testament and Gospels all mixed up together
Mary’s son, highborn King, Gospel as milk and honey, King as heavenly manna
Stanza 3—Gospels
Part of the Lord’s body as branch is to tree
Stanza 4—Gospels
Lord Jesus as giving me Spirit/Word/Life/Blood
Stanza 5—Epistles
God the Father has loved me from beginning of world, I’m wedded to Your Son
Stanza 6—Old Testament, (possibly Gospels), Epistles
All instruments praise God, Jesus is my bridegroom, everyone should be jubilant and thank the Lord the King of all the earth
Stanza 7—Revelation
Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, He will take me to Paradise; “Amen, amen, come…do not wait long” (reminiscent of second-to-last verse of Revelation)
Whew. Nicolai takes us through the Prophets right up to Revelation, even touching on the historical books through his references to David. Only one thing he neglects: he doesn’t seem to mention anything about the Law. Hmmm....
P.S. Here is the most helpful article (in German) on Nicolai that I struggled through!
Friday, December 02, 2005
Hymnbook Holder
A few years ago my husband bought me a most useful present--a cookbook holder. This is designed to extend from the shelf of a closed cupboard door and was intended to save me counter space in our tiny kitchen. I do use it for this purpose, but a few weeks ago, I thought of a new use: a hymnbook holder.
Now, I rig it up when I do the dishes, usually with a photocopy of whatever hymn I'm studying (to avoid the pages of an actual hymnbook getting wet).
This is a pleasant accompaniment to dishwashing, and really the only time I can fit hymn study into my present schedule.
Now, I rig it up when I do the dishes, usually with a photocopy of whatever hymn I'm studying (to avoid the pages of an actual hymnbook getting wet).
This is a pleasant accompaniment to dishwashing, and really the only time I can fit hymn study into my present schedule.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
"How Lovely Shines the Morning Star" 1: O Bother
For the past three weeks, my plan to memorize 100 hymns in a year has been stuck. Number 9, "How Lovely Shines the Morning Star," has fewer stanzas than Number 8, "Prayer of Saint Patrick," but it's bothersome for several reasons.
1) It was composed, words and tune together, in German. Unlike "Patrick," it did not wait around for a versified translation before being paired with its tune. That means, for a purist like myself, that the full feeling of the hymn would come through better in German than in English. But it's more likely to be of use to congregations in English. So I mulled it over for a couple weeks--German or English? English.
2) But there are so many translations of it in English, even more, it seems, than of Luther's "Ein' Feste Burg" ("A Mighty Fortress"). I finally settled on a "translation, composite" from a Lutheran hymnal. Composite translations are so bothersome, because the unifying idea is the editor's rather than the translator's; you get even further removed from the purity of the original text. But, courage!--the Bible itself was brought to us by "translation, composite": the oral tradition passed through God-knows-how-many-people, then the various compilers and editors for the written form, then the translators for our English version, and possibly other steps I have overlooked in ignorance of the process. Singing "How Lovely Shines the Morning Star" from "translation, composite" is a great way of challenging my prejudices about the superiority of the individual artist.
3) The melodic rhythm of 1599 is slippery for 2005 ears to grasp, ears that have "cut their teeth" on sixteen bars of quarter notes. The Lutheran version, usually more rhythmically robust than the watered-down non-denominational hymnals, apparently preserves the original rhythms, guaranteed to wake up a stultified congregation. It lifts off with a phrase of mostly half notes, after which the second phrase echoes the melodic theme with a volley of rapid-fire quarter notes, then mixes up these rhythms in the third phrase. After two half-note rests in which to brace for the next round, the whole thing repeats. Then it glides into four beautiful half notes, poetically matched to words of one or two syllables, like cease-fires in the middle of the music, and bang! Off again into three measures of little black quarter notes, peppering the page, when you suddenly find yourself over a peaceful plain, wafting down on a beautiful descending phrase, the exact same rhythm as the opening line, that serves as a summation and cool-down stretches at the end of an invigorating workout. My mind is simply not used to this level of artistry in congregational song.
4) The text is uncomfortably personal. I found myself crying after the first stanza. The shimmering text, the beautiful melodic lines, the rapturous expansion of the idea of the "Bridegroom" now "filling all the heavenly places," like light itself, was overwhelming. What with crying after each stanza and then recovering and then reflecting on connections to my personal life prompted by this experience and then recovering from that and then thinking that maybe that's enough emotion for today, I'm having a lot of trouble getting through this song.
1) It was composed, words and tune together, in German. Unlike "Patrick," it did not wait around for a versified translation before being paired with its tune. That means, for a purist like myself, that the full feeling of the hymn would come through better in German than in English. But it's more likely to be of use to congregations in English. So I mulled it over for a couple weeks--German or English? English.
2) But there are so many translations of it in English, even more, it seems, than of Luther's "Ein' Feste Burg" ("A Mighty Fortress"). I finally settled on a "translation, composite" from a Lutheran hymnal. Composite translations are so bothersome, because the unifying idea is the editor's rather than the translator's; you get even further removed from the purity of the original text. But, courage!--the Bible itself was brought to us by "translation, composite": the oral tradition passed through God-knows-how-many-people, then the various compilers and editors for the written form, then the translators for our English version, and possibly other steps I have overlooked in ignorance of the process. Singing "How Lovely Shines the Morning Star" from "translation, composite" is a great way of challenging my prejudices about the superiority of the individual artist.
3) The melodic rhythm of 1599 is slippery for 2005 ears to grasp, ears that have "cut their teeth" on sixteen bars of quarter notes. The Lutheran version, usually more rhythmically robust than the watered-down non-denominational hymnals, apparently preserves the original rhythms, guaranteed to wake up a stultified congregation. It lifts off with a phrase of mostly half notes, after which the second phrase echoes the melodic theme with a volley of rapid-fire quarter notes, then mixes up these rhythms in the third phrase. After two half-note rests in which to brace for the next round, the whole thing repeats. Then it glides into four beautiful half notes, poetically matched to words of one or two syllables, like cease-fires in the middle of the music, and bang! Off again into three measures of little black quarter notes, peppering the page, when you suddenly find yourself over a peaceful plain, wafting down on a beautiful descending phrase, the exact same rhythm as the opening line, that serves as a summation and cool-down stretches at the end of an invigorating workout. My mind is simply not used to this level of artistry in congregational song.
4) The text is uncomfortably personal. I found myself crying after the first stanza. The shimmering text, the beautiful melodic lines, the rapturous expansion of the idea of the "Bridegroom" now "filling all the heavenly places," like light itself, was overwhelming. What with crying after each stanza and then recovering and then reflecting on connections to my personal life prompted by this experience and then recovering from that and then thinking that maybe that's enough emotion for today, I'm having a lot of trouble getting through this song.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Women, Abuse, and Inclusive Language
This is in response to JC, who left a comment under “Give the Dead a Vote” (other readers: please read JC’s comment first to get the context). JC, I don't know how you located this blog, but am delighted that you cared enough to read it and to comment. I decided that your argument deserves a fuller response than the “comment” section allows.
The quibble with "choice of language" doesn't originate with hymnody, but with the language of the Bible. The Bible is full of metaphors of "dark" for sin and "brotherhood" for humanity, from which hymnody is derived. My primary argument is that refusing to use these metaphors anymore means staying captive to our own prejudices and our own pains--confessing that our culture’s misuse of “dark” and “brotherhood” is too powerful and has overcome our congregation’s interpretive skills. The culture will continually misuse words, and if we keep giving ground to this, we will find ourselves in a very small corner of language indeed. I prefer to educate myself and my congregation about the true meaning of the biblical words--redeeming the language, if you will.
The Bible is replete with warnings to not be fooled by appearances, encouraging full acceptance of all people regardless of income or skin color or gender--and warning that Satan himself appears as an "angel of light". Part of my training in not being overwhelmed by peoples’ appearances is to not be overwhelmed by words’ appearances--to tease out the meaning of the biblical word rather than continually to read my own prejudices into it.
As a woman, I’d like to emphasize that educating myself at the level of the text, rather than constantly changing the text to match my current level of understanding, can be very healing. Most of the women I met during grad school were in favor of no longer referring to God as “our Father,” because of the abuse they or their friends had suffered at the hands of men and especially of fathers. However, although I’ve suffered at the hands of men, persisting in calling God “our Father” has redeemed the word “father” for me in a way that retreating from the word or burying it could never have accomplished. My heart aches for the women who are still trapped in feelings of rage, despair, and pain at the idea of “father” because they have been taught to see the word as evil rather than the particular manifestation of it in their lives. “Plenteous grace with Thee is found.”
When language is abused, when words are allowed to suffer violence and to be ripped from their context, people suffer, too. Rather than retreating from these wounding and wounded words, I have a vision of bringing healing to people through bringing healing to language--the language of our Bible and of our hymns.
The quibble with "choice of language" doesn't originate with hymnody, but with the language of the Bible. The Bible is full of metaphors of "dark" for sin and "brotherhood" for humanity, from which hymnody is derived. My primary argument is that refusing to use these metaphors anymore means staying captive to our own prejudices and our own pains--confessing that our culture’s misuse of “dark” and “brotherhood” is too powerful and has overcome our congregation’s interpretive skills. The culture will continually misuse words, and if we keep giving ground to this, we will find ourselves in a very small corner of language indeed. I prefer to educate myself and my congregation about the true meaning of the biblical words--redeeming the language, if you will.
The Bible is replete with warnings to not be fooled by appearances, encouraging full acceptance of all people regardless of income or skin color or gender--and warning that Satan himself appears as an "angel of light". Part of my training in not being overwhelmed by peoples’ appearances is to not be overwhelmed by words’ appearances--to tease out the meaning of the biblical word rather than continually to read my own prejudices into it.
As a woman, I’d like to emphasize that educating myself at the level of the text, rather than constantly changing the text to match my current level of understanding, can be very healing. Most of the women I met during grad school were in favor of no longer referring to God as “our Father,” because of the abuse they or their friends had suffered at the hands of men and especially of fathers. However, although I’ve suffered at the hands of men, persisting in calling God “our Father” has redeemed the word “father” for me in a way that retreating from the word or burying it could never have accomplished. My heart aches for the women who are still trapped in feelings of rage, despair, and pain at the idea of “father” because they have been taught to see the word as evil rather than the particular manifestation of it in their lives. “Plenteous grace with Thee is found.”
When language is abused, when words are allowed to suffer violence and to be ripped from their context, people suffer, too. Rather than retreating from these wounding and wounded words, I have a vision of bringing healing to people through bringing healing to language--the language of our Bible and of our hymns.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
Give the Dead a Vote
Today a phrase popped into my head: "the democracy of the dead." My all-knowing husband informed me that it was from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (New York: John Lane Company, 1908; p.85).
The full quote has implications for church music:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father."
As the body of Christ, we are composed of many millions who have gone before. We should think of our Christian family not only as those in the Sudan or Pakistan, across space, but as those who believed in the salvation God promised Eve, across time.
If only songs from our moment in time are called acceptable for worship, whether the latest hits in praise songs or the hymns with the most up-to-date language, we reject the worship of most of the body of Christ. "We don't need you. You're dead. You have nothing to say to us--and nothing to say to God with us." In refusing the music of past generations, we break the communion of saints.
The one who made us saints in the first place, the Holy Spirit, is also the one who inspires expressions of praise. It's extremely odd that Christians who insist they sing only contemporary music or drastically edited hymns in order to "get into the Spirit" or to praise the Spirit "better", refuse to look for the Holy Spirit or learn how to honor Him in His work of the past two thousand years. I think the Spirit just got slapped in the face.
The full quote has implications for church music:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father."
As the body of Christ, we are composed of many millions who have gone before. We should think of our Christian family not only as those in the Sudan or Pakistan, across space, but as those who believed in the salvation God promised Eve, across time.
If only songs from our moment in time are called acceptable for worship, whether the latest hits in praise songs or the hymns with the most up-to-date language, we reject the worship of most of the body of Christ. "We don't need you. You're dead. You have nothing to say to us--and nothing to say to God with us." In refusing the music of past generations, we break the communion of saints.
The one who made us saints in the first place, the Holy Spirit, is also the one who inspires expressions of praise. It's extremely odd that Christians who insist they sing only contemporary music or drastically edited hymns in order to "get into the Spirit" or to praise the Spirit "better", refuse to look for the Holy Spirit or learn how to honor Him in His work of the past two thousand years. I think the Spirit just got slapped in the face.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
"Prayer of St. Patrick" 3: No Tolerance for Evil
The sixth and seventh stanzas of "Patrick's Breastplate" are especially intense. Where most of the other stanzas began with a musically forceful, "I bind," these ones begin with "Against," making my opposition to evil as firm and pronounced as my assent to the good.
The vigor with which Patrick denounces "the demon snare of sin, the vice that gives temptation force, the natural lusts that war within, the hostile men that mar my course" and the seriousness with which he considers evil's power, a power capable of yielding him to "the deathwound and the burning", hold me steady when I'm tempted to minimize my own attraction to sin.
In addition, I'm relieved to hear Patrick identify the very things that bother me the most--the vice, my inner conflicts, the nasty attitudes of some of the people around me--acknowledging that these are real obstacles to peace and that I'm not alone in my struggles against them.
We need bold, forceful songs like this one, that name specific evils and that pray for protection against them. A constant diet of happy songs about Jesus or vague terms for the darkness we confront just doesn't keept us strong.
The vigor with which Patrick denounces "the demon snare of sin, the vice that gives temptation force, the natural lusts that war within, the hostile men that mar my course" and the seriousness with which he considers evil's power, a power capable of yielding him to "the deathwound and the burning", hold me steady when I'm tempted to minimize my own attraction to sin.
In addition, I'm relieved to hear Patrick identify the very things that bother me the most--the vice, my inner conflicts, the nasty attitudes of some of the people around me--acknowledging that these are real obstacles to peace and that I'm not alone in my struggles against them.
We need bold, forceful songs like this one, that name specific evils and that pray for protection against them. A constant diet of happy songs about Jesus or vague terms for the darkness we confront just doesn't keept us strong.
Monday, November 14, 2005
"Prayer of St. Patrick" 2: A Bit o' Binding
The lady who versified the "Prayer" from English prose translations of the Old Irish, about 1500 years later, was Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander, married to the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland--Patrick's ecclesiastical successor.
She used the phrase that scared me so much as a teenager--"I bind unto myself"--as a motif to begin or end most of the nine stanzas. Confronting my fears, I pulled out a magnifying glass and looked up "bind" in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. I think this definition makes the most sense in this context: "To fasten round, to gird, encircle, wreathe (the head, etc., with something)...." That fits beautifully with the idea of Patrick forging himself a breastplate of prayer. ("Bind" was also used with this meaning in a poem by Tennyson in 1870, about 20 years before Mrs. Alexander picked it up for her own poem, so it may have been a fashionable poetic word.)
But what are we to do about Patrick's binding to himself all sorts of things other than the Trinity, like "the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks"?
A key phrase here is the fourth stanza's opening line, "I bind unto myself today the virtues of the starlit heavens." I remember from philosophy and theology classes that "virtue" is sometimes used to mean "power."
I suspect Patrick saw the glad power of the Creator in all these things. He wasn't worshiping the wind or rocks as gods themselves, nor was he attributing the power within them to some World Consciousness, but to Christ, the god with a name, a face, and a distinct personality who allows other personalities and forms to exist by His own power. (In some ways, Christ is the height of tolerance!) The whole song, especially the eighth stanza, sounds like an interpretation of one of my favorite passages of Scripture, Colossians 1:15-20. Christ's virtue in all things: we in harmony with Christ are restored to harmony with all things.
She used the phrase that scared me so much as a teenager--"I bind unto myself"--as a motif to begin or end most of the nine stanzas. Confronting my fears, I pulled out a magnifying glass and looked up "bind" in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. I think this definition makes the most sense in this context: "To fasten round, to gird, encircle, wreathe (the head, etc., with something)...." That fits beautifully with the idea of Patrick forging himself a breastplate of prayer. ("Bind" was also used with this meaning in a poem by Tennyson in 1870, about 20 years before Mrs. Alexander picked it up for her own poem, so it may have been a fashionable poetic word.)
But what are we to do about Patrick's binding to himself all sorts of things other than the Trinity, like "the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks"?
A key phrase here is the fourth stanza's opening line, "I bind unto myself today the virtues of the starlit heavens." I remember from philosophy and theology classes that "virtue" is sometimes used to mean "power."
I suspect Patrick saw the glad power of the Creator in all these things. He wasn't worshiping the wind or rocks as gods themselves, nor was he attributing the power within them to some World Consciousness, but to Christ, the god with a name, a face, and a distinct personality who allows other personalities and forms to exist by His own power. (In some ways, Christ is the height of tolerance!) The whole song, especially the eighth stanza, sounds like an interpretation of one of my favorite passages of Scripture, Colossians 1:15-20. Christ's virtue in all things: we in harmony with Christ are restored to harmony with all things.
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