I’m sure there is someone who loves this piece. I’m sure there is someone who isn’t bothered by gendered language. I’m sure there is someone who thinks four verses makes a chant. I am not that someone. Children of the Earth, we have come to sing to each other, Sister to Brother, songs of our …
Things I wonder: Do some congregations sing this together fairly regularly? Do some music directors and ministers flip past it because it is somewhat complex if you don’t know it already? Do others flip past it because in 13 years we’ve learned that binary language is too restrictive? Does composer and colleague Fred Small have …
I don’t even know where to begin, so I guess I’ll begin with this morning’s experience of singing. As frequent readers know, I’m an Anglophile – a lover of British television, British film, the British Isles, and at least once, a British person. Knowing this was today’s hymn before I cracked open the hymnal, I started …
I started singing this morning before I opened the hymnal, because I knew what today’s song would be. “Bright morning star’s a-risin’…” I sang. And then I looked at our lyrics – “Bright morning stars are rising” – and thought, huh? Isn’t there just one morning star – the sun, or if we go Christian …
Today, gentle readers, I offer you A Tale of Two Liturgical Moments. Because indeed, as our man Charles Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The best of times was when I learned an arrangement of this African American spiritual in my seminary gospel choir; the harmonies were …
Another list song – must be Brian Wren. And so it is. Now this is not to say his list is bad, necessarily, but It can get tiring pretty quickly. And when it comes to Wren, there is always something – even in songs I like, like this one – that make me go “hmm” … Love …
I wish… I wish I felt better so I could really dig into this hymn. I wish I had looked ahead and scheduled a Hymn-by-Hymn conversation with Suzanne Fast about this hymn. I’ll just say that having had a conversation with Suzanne at General Assembly, I now understand how difficult this embracing our bodies without …
Am I the only one who sees the first line of this song and thinks of “Man of Constant Sorrow” from O Brother, Where Are Thou? Really? It’s just me? Can’t be. Anyway… this is another one I have never sung, and likely never would have chosen because it’s got a title “This Old World” and is …
I want to tell you a story about why this song means so much to me, but I want to get two bits of “hmm” out of the way first: First: There is a long tradition in folk music – and hymnody – of writing new words to familiar tunes, or adapting old words and …
Hmm. I’ve been staring at the screen for longer than is helpful, thinking about this hymn and what to say about it, wondering what it really is I feel about it that’s quantifiable. There’s something about it that bugs me, which actually makes me sad, as it’s perfectly suited for the beloved Hyfrodol hymn tune, …
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 …
A few short thoughts today. First, composer Joyce Poley is one of the sweetest people I have ever met and very much wrote this before we had an awareness of ableist language. But despite how sweet she is, she wrote one of the most annoying earworms we have. Sadly, it mostly gets played as an oom-pa-pa …
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Holy cow this is a terrible hymn. Technically, it’s not terrible – the tune is a favorite – Hyfrodol, made fresh by Peter Mayer in 1064, Blue Boat Home (which will get its day next January). And the lyrics in terms of rhyme and meter are just fine. …
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 …
Hey, look! We’ve entered the “Harvest and Thanksgiving” section of the hymnal. And we start right off with the usual Thanksgiving song. C.J.: There’s a usual song? DONNA: “We Gather Together.” C.J.: The song. DONNA: That’s the usual song. C.J.: So you know it? DONNA: Everybody knows it. C.J.: I don’t know it. DONNA: [sighs] …