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STLT#79, No Number Tallies Nature Up
Any other day, I might be up for a significant rewrite of a classic poem, but today is not that day. Snarky, cynical Kimberley is back, and she’s not having it. I read the lyrics, sang (another fine Southern Harmony tune), then read again, feeling baffled. So I went to the internet to look up the… Continue reading
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STLT#78, Color and Fragrance
Wherein I think about process, relationship, and resistance – set to a quaint tune. I don’t know how many congregations sing this hymn. I know that my home congregation sang it exactly once a year – at flower communion, a ritual devised by Unitarian minister Norbert Čapek in Prague in the 1920s and later brought to… Continue reading
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STLT#77, Seek Not Afar for Beauty
This hymn made me giggle with a little delight and a little theological tee-hee this morning. First, the giggles of delight – I love the Coolinge hymn tune (I got too caught up in Robert Frost the last time this came up to mention it), and thus, anything set to it already has a leg… Continue reading
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STLT#76, For Flowers That Bloom about Our Feet
I feel like I have been nothing but critical lately – which may be connected to my general mood or just because I hit some hymns that don’t work for me. But this morning – this weird morning that on Long Island is disturbingly warm (53 degrees) and blustery and elsewhere is bitterly cold and… Continue reading
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STLT#75, The Harp at Nature’s Advent
Let’s just tuck right in, shall we? This is a pretty and light tune (albeit with an odd harmonic choice in the second phrase), and it accompanies pretty and light lyrics, almost. Because while everything is lovely and wonderful in nature, from star to sea, from earth to sky, apparently our lyricist, John Greenleaf Whittier, thinks… Continue reading
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STLT#74, On the Dusty Earth Drum
It’s time for everybody’s favorite new game, “Who Will Love This Hymn I Hate” – this week, starring lyricist Joseph Cotter and composer Frederich Filitz! I wish I could make sense of this one. No, seriously. I mean, I get that the lyrics are a rain song, and thus appropriate for a section called The World… Continue reading
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STLT#73, Chant for the Seasons
Singing Belletini (a hastily written ode) It is the volume I reach for first looking for that particular presence that metaphor that cadence that neither Sarton nor Oliver can match nor even Whyte in his rich considerations It is the rhythm of Belletini who knows us deeply who has served us and continues to who… Continue reading
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STLT#72, Has Summer Come Now, Dawning
I’m not sure if this should be a new rule, but it should be something: This title is highly misleading, and we need to do something about that beyond the couple dozen of you who read this blog. “Has Summer Come Now, Dawning” sounds for all the world like a SUMMER song, doesn’t it? And… Continue reading
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STLT#71, In the Spring with Plow and Harrow
It’s almost like someone heard me complain about hymns going nowhere, and slid this one right in for me so I wouldn’t lose faith in our hymnal. This isn’t bad, as hymns go. The title hides the message, for sure – you wouldn’t think something called “In the Spring with Plow and Harrow” would be… Continue reading
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STLT#70, Heap High the Farmer’s Wintry Hoard
Well, that was boring. Maybe I’m asking too much of a hymn. Maybe I am too invested in meaning and movement. Maybe it’s okay to have songs that just sit there and get folks to sing together even if all they are doing is noticing the season. Maybe the singing is enough. These lyrics, though.… Continue reading
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