Tag Archives: hymns

Where we’re coming from?

Theology comes from the week-to-week actions of a worshipping community far more than it comes from academia. Attend some Unitarian Universalist worship services and listen what is being preached, what is being sung, and what is being prayed, and you’ll learn more about Unitarian Universalist theology than if you read books by academic theologians like Thandeka and Paul Rasor. This isn’t meant as a put-down of academic theologians, it’s simply what I feel is true.

So when I read in our denominational magazine that one of our “most beloved hymns” is a song by Carolyn McDade called “Spirit of Life,” that makes me think that if I listen to that hymn, I’ll learn something about where mainstream Unitarian Universalist theology is these days.

“Spirit of Life,” says the hymn, “come unto me.” It’s a hymn written in 1981, one of the peak years of the feminist revolution, when women were really finding their voice and finding their power — the hymn is calling the power of the divine into women who had been too long ignored by Western religion. Or we could reframe that same idea with the insights of third wave feminism: “Spirit of Life” was written when second wave feminism was at its peak, when affluent white college-educated middle-class women were claiming additional power and influence for themselves by putting and end to discrimination against affluent white college-educated middle-class women — but the hymn assumes individuals will have a certain level of power and influence, and includes a cultural bias towards individualism. So if “Spirit of Life” is one of the most popular Unitarian Universalist hymns, we could probably conclude that the feminist theology we have hasn’t been particularly good at including women of color and working-class women.

(However, don’t take this a commentary on Carolyn McDade’s theology. Her earlier hymn, “We’ll Build a Land” from 1979, is far less individualistic, calling for solidarity with all persons with phrases like, “Come build a land where sisters and brothers/ anointed by God may then create peace/ where justice shall roll down like waters….”)

Should be in the hymnal, but isn’t

Years ago, I was in a worship service conducted by Nick Page, the Unitarian Universalist choral leader. Nick included Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song” as one of the hymns. I thought then that it should be included in the next Unitarian Universalist hymnal. It’s a song that makes sound theological points about the place of humanity in the universe, and about how the insights of science can reveal an ordinarily unseen beauty in the universe.

But judge for yourself. You can listen to Eric Idle singing the song on this video (thanks, Carol, for the link). And you can find the full lyrics, along with annotations that point up a few inaccuracies in the science of the song, here.

I’m almost serious about wanting this song in the hymnal. As I recall, Nick left off the last couple of lines — they’re a little too nihilistic for most Unitarian Universalists — and the spoken intro could be left off, but aside from that why not include it in a new hymnal?

Hymn resource

While I was working on creating hymn accompaniments for our summer worship services (when we won’t have a live musician for several Sundays), I discovered a very useful online resource. The Christian Classics Ethereal Hymnary has hundreds of classic, copyright-free hymn tunes in a variety of formats. Not all formats are available for all hymns, but the hymns I looked at generally had the following:

  • MIDI files with four-part harmony (which allows you to listen to the hymn)
  • a score in PDF format
  • a score in one or more of the common music-authoring formats (Noteworthy, Finale, etc.)

Some hymn tunes also had partial scores, and scores in more than one key. The one canon/round I looked at (Tallis’s Canon) also had MIDI files of the melody sung as a round.

(This could be a useful resource for worship leaders who don’t read music, but who want to know what a tune sounds like. All you have to do is find the name of the tune — in the hymnal I use, Singing the Living Tradition, the tune name is in small type at the lower right of the hymn — and play the MIDI file on your computer. The only downside is that the Christian Classics Ethereal Hymnary does not include newer, copyright-protected, hymn tunes. So forget tunes written after 1922.)

What I wanted from the hymnary were the MIDI files, to use as a starting point for making less mechanical hymn accompaniments. Straight out of the box, the MIDI files sound as tacky as they usually do. But you can easily modify a MIDI file to make it sound much better. I downloaded the MIDI file to my Mac and dragged it into GarageBand. From there, I altered the type of instrument (e.g., changing it from the crummy default electronic organ sound to a less offensive “cathedral” organ sound), and played with the note durations and note velocities where necessary to make it sound less mechanical. I also checked the harmony parts, and corrected them to correspond with what’s in our hymnal. Since I’m a perfectionist, I added about half a beat at the end of each verse so the congregation can take a big breath before going on to the next verse; and I altered the last verse so that the final notes are held for an extra measure or so. Of course I looped the hymn to wind up with the correct number of repetitions of the melody (whatever the number of verses, plus once through at the beginning).

The final result of an afternoon’s work is a CD with inoffensive accompaniments for eight hymns, plus Old Hundredth for the doxology. That will be enough to get us through the summer. And if I can free up another afternoon, I might just produce another eight hymn accompaniments.

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But what if you don’t like electric praise bands?

Anyone who is interested in church growth should probably read Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass (Harper San Francisco, 2006). Bass studied liberal mainline Protestant churches that are currently experiencing growth, and documented what is helping them grow. (Since Unitarian Universalist churches are essentially mainline Protestant churches with a post-Christian theology, Bass’s findings for the most part apply to us.)

Her findings challenge the usual advice given by church growth experts, who tell us to copy the big evangelical mega-churches in order to grow. For example, in a chapter titled “Contemplation” Bass recounts how some successful mainline churches are introducing more contemplative, silent time into worship services. She writes:

Some church growth specialists think that successful churches entertain people during worship — the more activity, the more noise, the more loud music, the better. From that perspective, silence is boring and an evangelism turnoff. Quiet churches cannot be fun churches. Contemplation is not a gift for the whole church but something practiced only by supersaints. As a fellow historian reminded me, “The [Christian] tradition has always reserved the contemplative life, and contemplation itself, for the very few.” After all, contemplation leads directly to God’s divine presence. Such “unmediated access to divine energy” can be spiritually dangerous for novices in faith! Following this logic, it is best, I suppose, to keep everyday Christians distracted with overhead projectors, rock bands, and podcast sermons.

From my point of view, if you want to have a big projection screen and project the words to hymns on it, or if you want to have an electric praise band in worship, go right ahead. But it’s good for me to hear that there are other ways to update a worship service, since I just can’t bring myself to organize an electric praise band for our church.

In her book, Bass also discusses how new understandings of hospitality, healing, testimony, diversity, and beauty have influenced worship services in mainline congregations. A provocative book, full of ideas for creating more vital liberal congregations, and worth reading for religious liberals trying to figure out how to implement church growth without copying evangelical techniques.

Notes from the Service of the Living Tradition

In the 15 minutes before the Service of the Living Tradition tonight, we were led in “ingathering singing.” I understand that this is the trend in larger churches, especially those with music directors who are active in the Unitarian Universalist Musician’s Network. I had mixed feelings about this innovation. On the one hand, I like to sing, and it’s fun to have that extra opportunity to do so. On the other hand, I like the unstructured time before the worship service when you can greet old friends, talk to people you don’t yet know, or simply sit in contemplative silence.

On the whole, I decided I did not like the ingathering singing — it felt like more of an imposition than an opportunity. And alas, it did not feel particularly worshipful.

*****

Two Credentialed Religious Educators, Master’s Level, were recognized in the Service of the Living Tradition. Mindy Whisenhunt wore an academic gown with a master’s hood, which I felt showed an nice appreciation for the subtleties of this new professional certification.

By wearing an academic gown, Mindy showed that she was at the same academic level as the ministers, while the master’s hood made it clear that she was not wearing a Geneva gown, but an academic robe. While she could have worn ordinary clothing, that can be problematic for female religious professionals, and more to the point Mindy’s gown makes it quite clear that she is not an ordinary layperson but a credentialed leader in her religious community.

Maybe Mindy will start a tradition for Credentialed Religious Educators.

*****

Most people made the mistake of standing up and talking or wandering around or leaving at the end of the recessional hymn. I stayed and listened to Dennis Bergin, the organist for the service, as he played an amazing piece of music by Marcel Dupre (1886-1971), the Prelude and Fugue in B Major, Op. 7 No. 1, from 1912. Dupre was known in his lifetime as an organ virtuoso, and this composition shows his deep knwoledge of the organ.

Bergin played this difficult piece of music in spite of the fact that people were calling out to each other right within a few feet of him; that there was general chaos around him; and that the sound system was less than ideal. A few of us — a slowly increasing number — stood around in amazed appreciation at his concentration and musicianship. It was a bravura performance of a complex piece of music that required Bergin to have nearly as much agility in his footwork as in his hands. Wow.

At the end, those of us standing around broke into uproarious applause (if you can call twenty people applauding “uproarious”), with a few shouts of bravo. He turned around and grinned at us.

From frogs to creation

A couple of weeks ago, we went in to Seven Star books in Central Square, Cambridge. Though it’s known as a New Age bookstore, Seven Stars has the best selection of new and used books on world religions that I have found in eastern Massachusetts. I found a two-volume copy of Hymns of the Rgveda translated by Ralph T. H. Griffiths, from Munshiram Manoharlala Publishers, New Delhi. The book is simply a wonderful artifact in and of itself: the typical off-white paper used by printers in India, fingerprints where the printer picked up sheets before the ink was fully dry, a dust cover with a tessellated leaves-and-flower motif in pale green.

This week, I’ve been dipping in to the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda, a collection of hymns to ancient Vedic gods and minor deities, is considered one of the oldest religious-literary works in the world. I find some of these hymns fairly incomprehensible, like this one which praises frogs (Book VII, Hymn 103):

1. They who lay quiet for a year, the Brahmans who fulfil their vows,
The Frogs have lifted up their voice, the voice Parjanya hath inspired….
3. When at the coming of the Rains the water has poured upon them as they yearned and thirsted,
One seeks another as he talks and greets him with cries of pleasure as a son his father….
6. One is Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat the other, one Frog is Green and one of them is Spotty.
They bear one common name, and yet they vary, and, talking, modulate their voice diversely….

According to Griffiths, Max Muller saw this hymn as a satire on the priestly class. Maybe, but it seems more likely to me that we are simply missing some cultural referent that prevents us from really understanding what the hymn meant originally. Some words from the past must remain forever obscure.

Yet there are other hymns in the Rig Veda which I find moving and thought-provoking, such this hymn about creation (Book X, Hymn 129):

1. Then was no non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2. Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s and night’s divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3. Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit. …

6. Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world’s production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7. He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he does not.

These are words from the past which still speak to me with the same sense of wonder, the same sense of confronting the unknowable, with which they spoke to the priests and followers of the ancient Vedic religion, when this hymn was first sung three millennia ago.

Day two…

Fort Worth, Texas

Another great place with free wifi Internet access — the Coffee Haus, right across the street for the Branding Iron Grill. Excellent coffee. No country music blasting, but since there’s no music at all, that’s OK.

I skipped most of yesterday morning’s presentation, even though other people said it was actually quite good. Instead, I spent an hour or so talking with Jennifer Innis. Jennifer will be the interim associate minister at the UU Society of Geneva starting in August, after I leave. We have known each other for some time, and we did a little catching up. Of course we also talked about the Geneva church — and I was able to tell Jennifer what a great church it is.

In the afternoon, I attended a couple of workshops. One workshop was on urban social justice ministries, sponsored by the Urban Disciples, an organization of Unitarian Universalist urban congregations who get together periodically to share ideas and resources. One of the presenters was Rev. Alma Faith Crawford, from the Church of the Open Door on Chicago’s South Side. Alma talked about how worship services at her church become an act of social justice in their own right. Church of the Open Door is aimed mostly at the African American gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community (GLBT). The actual worship service incorporates elements of typical black churches, so that GLBT people who have been rejected by their churches have a place to go and feel comfortable.

But while the shape of the worship service might look like a typical Black church service, the message is entirely different. And, as Alma Crawford pointed out, “The ushers might be transgender, and you might see a leather person doing the scripture reading.” To overcome class divisions, she does same-gender weddings as a part of the regular worship service — that way, there is less pressure to spend money on the wedding, and there is no class division for the people who attend the wedding. In these ways, and in others, Church of the Open Door uses worship as an act of social justice.

The second workshop I attended was an introduction to the new hymnal supplement, Singing the Journey. We got to sing nearly a dozen songs from the new hymnal. A couple of the songs were difficult, and I can’t quite imagine a congregation actually singing them. But there were some absolute gems of songs, songs that I think are going to become a central part of our Unitarian Universalist worship services. “For So the Children Come” is a song that puts to music well-known words of Sophia Fahs: “For so the children come…. Each night a child is born is a holy night, a time for singing, a time for wondering, a time for worshipping.” I predict this will become a new staple of Christmas eve services, and of child dedications.

We also got to sing a couple of great songs in Spanish, an African American spiritual called “Hush” taught by UU singer and music scholar Ysaye Maria Barnwell (of Sweet Honey in the Rock), and a song called “Blue Boat Home” with new words to the old hymn tune “Hyfrodol.”

One last song I have to mention — “Comfort Me” was written by Mimi Bornstein-Doble, and even thought the rhythm is tricky (and I guarantee you, congregations are never going to get the rhythm quite right), this song was a real standout. We have needed a contemporary song that provides comfort in hard times, and I believe Mimi’s song will be the one we start singing. Mimi, by the way, is the very talented music director at the Rocklang, Maine, Universalist church.

In the late afternoon, I went to to hear Bill Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), tell us ministers about the state of the UUA. Reading between the lines, it’s clear the UUA has little money. But generally, it sounded like we’re making some progress. For example, Sinkford is aggressively pursuing new directions in youth ministry at the UUA, hoping to provide more services directly to the congregations rather than funding expensive national events that only serve a few youth. Sinkford also came out and said that we just haven’t made much progress in racial justice in our congregations and in the wider association — it was good to hear someone actually say that in public, when we all know it to be true. There are maybe a dozen UU congregations that have really addressed racial justice, but that’s all.

Sinkford (who is African American) also made sure to mention Hispanic Unitarian Universalists — they’re out there, but they’re not being adequately acknowledged by many UUs.

I had dinner with Mellen Kennedy, one of the movers and shakers behind the Small Group Ministry Network. We talked about small group ministries, but then the conversation swung over to theology. Mellen has been feeling that there is no theological center to Unitarian Unviersalism of recent years. I admitted that might be true, but then I said Universalist theology — the strong sense that there is hope in a hopeless world, the idea that love is the most powerful force in the universe — that’s what keeps me within Unitarian Universalism. Mellen brought up forgiveness as a centgral theological concept that we need, and I think she’s right — and that would be a great new direction for Universalist theology.

So ends day two of Professional Days. Now it’s time to head off to the Convention Center, and see what today brings.

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Ancient hymn for a new day

Book 1, Hymn 49, Dawn

Come to us, come down, to our realm
from beyond the bright sky. Come, o dawn,
drawn by fiery horses, come to the house
where he pours out fragrant juice.

Your bright chariot, pulled by fiery horses,
is shaped to please the eye, light and agile,
o dawn. And you climb in it, coming here,
coming to aid mortals with noble aims.

O dawn, bright sky being, your coming
awakens creatures to wander earth,
stirs flocks of birds into sky, flying now
to all the boundaries of heaven.

Your radiant light, o dawn, grows bright,
the sky above and around us grows bright,
your beauty brought to earth. We call you,
just as you are, with our sacred songs.

(adaptation of a hymn from Ralph T. H. Griffith’s translation of the Rig Veda)