Singability: Moderate
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STLT#138, These Things Shall Be
We now enter what we might call “The New Eden” section but which we actually call “In Time To Come” – this section is very aspirational, very “kingdom of heaven.” Which, I suppose, is needed, and helpful – goodness knows Dr. King’s “I have a dream” motivated people to reach for it, to believe in… Continue reading
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STLT#136, Where Gentle Tides Go Rolling By
I would bet I am not the only person who has looked at the bottom of the page of a hymn, seen words like “traditional Asian melody” and flipped past. Not because we don’t appreciate music from other cultures, but because the scales are sometimes unfamiliar and the intervals are tricky for unrehearsed singers. I… Continue reading
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STLT#134, Our World Is One World
Until recently this has seemed rather a cheery hymn – a warm, confirming, gentle reminder of the butterfly effect. Yay, our world is one world, we’re all connected, our optimism matters. Right now, this feels largely like a warning that the Osmond Brothers were wrong, and one bad apple CAN spoil the whole bunch. I’m… Continue reading
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STLT#133, One World
Dear readers, I’m afraid I will, for the first time in this practice, completely fail you. I am on the verge of illness and I don’t know this one at all – and my feeble attempts to plunk it out on my phone’s keyboard was futile. I may come back to this one when I… Continue reading
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STLT#130, O Liberating Rose
Sometimes I know what I think about a hymn before I start singing, and let the experience of singing affirm or shift those thoughts. Sometimes I don’t know, and I let the experience of singing take me somewhere, and as a result some of my posts have been more theological, or musical, or silly, or… Continue reading
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STLT#129, Let Love Continue Long
Thank all that is holy for this hymn practice. Because of it, I was finally able to supplant the earworm my colleague Erika Hewitt gave me yesterday. (It was “One Tin Soldier.” No, I am not going to link to it, or sing it in any way. If it becomes your earworm, it wasn’t me.)… Continue reading
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STLT#123, Spirit of Life
There are some who consider this to be THE UU Hymn – it is perhaps the best well known of the insider songs, used throughout the denomination as an invocation, a sung response to joys and concerns, a hymn of meditation, even a song of welcome to membership (in my home congregation, if someone signed… Continue reading
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STLT#119, Once to Every Soul and Nation
From the “I never really understood it until now” department comes this hymn. Wow. This is a familiar hymn to me, with its rolling triplets and pulsing, pushing melody. The tune sits for me in the same category as “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Miz – strong, defiant, meant to rouse and… Continue reading
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STLT#117, O Light of Life
This is a beautiful prayer. A needed prayer. An elegant prayer. And I am sure, in the right hands, a beautiful and elegant tune. I am not sure if it’s unfamiliarity that keeps me from accessing the melody, or just sustained high notes before coffee, but the tune doesn’t work for me in this moment.… Continue reading
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STLT#109, As We Come Marching, Marching
The synchronicity of this song being today’s hymn, on the eve of the Women’s March, is not lost on me. Thus, I was going to do a bit of digging to learn more about the background of the phrase “bread and roses” and the poem, knowing it all sprung up a little over 100 years… Continue reading
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links
Learn more about my ministry at The Art of Meaning
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