Hymn: You're the one who created me

Today I added three more verses to the short song I wrote about last week. I also changed the harmony and removed the bass line; I think two parts gives it an appropriate simplicity and openness. Now it's a hymn, and not a short song; and the title has changed too.

Listen to the tune

 
1. You're the one who created me
Even now you're still making me
Who will I be when your work is done?

2. You have given me gifts to use
What's the work you would have me do?
Help me hear you when your call should come.

3. I can't see where the path unfolds
I don't know what tomorrow holds
Teach me how to follow you today.

4. Who can say what the Lord will do?
Every day is a gift anew
Trust in God and do not be afraid.

Short song: Who can say what the Lord will do?

Today I finished a short song/chant I began writing a couple of months ago while on Iona. I had written the melody and various verses, which wrestled with the uncertainty of the future, but never could quite find the right shape or direction of the song. I ended up keeping it simple with just one verse, since the melody seemed to suggest going in that direction.

Who can say what the Lord will do?
Every day is a gift anew.

Trust in God and do not be afraid.

Green woods near Carsaig on the isle of Mull

I didn't appreciate short songs until I went to Iona. Every Tuesday there is a service of prayers for healing, and throughout the service, between the prayers, we would repeat a short chant, usually a few lines long. Some of those chants have grown in me and continue speaking to me.

As a musician assistant, once a week I helped lead a Taizé service. If you don't know, Taizé is a community in France where thousands of people come each week to worship and work with each other (kind of like Iona, but with more people. I also hear the food's better on Iona). The community is known for its original chants, hundreds of them, which they sing over and over again in their simple, meditative services. These Taizé chants too have become very meaningful to me.

Once I was talking with a guest from the Netherlands, who had been to Taizé, and who compared the music: Taizé chants are sung inwardly, to oneself, whereas Iona Community songs are sung outwardly, to the world. I liked that distinction; the Taizé chants that I know seem to be focused on personal devotion to God, and the Iona Community is known for its commitment to living out the gospel, particularly through seeking peace and justice, and this is reflected in many of its songs. However, the Iona Community has written some powerful songs and chants that speak to me inwardly, too.

Metabolism (poem)

Between my thumbs and index fingers
I held
the Body of Christ
and with T.P. and K.O.
I broke it
For us
cleanly, quietly,
ambidextrously
It chewed like a cookie
of all things
placed into our hands

It looked like an empty coffin
And tasted like the fire of a billion burning
silver leaves
that are not consumed.


Written in 2012 after attending a Love Feast at a Church of the Brethren. 

Hymn: Though I have tried to follow you

I've just returned from the Iona Abbey, Scotland, where I was volunteering for two months (again) as a musician assistant. One of the things I got to do was share some of the hymns I have written. In a morning service on the weekend before Holy Week, the congregation sang the following hymn, "Though I have tried to follow you." I wrote it as a way to ask for forgiveness and help, as well as to better understand the meaning of Jesus' death.


Though I have tried to follow you, I find I'm still in need
of your strong light to guide my steps and steer my every deed.
How narrow is the road to life! How easily I stray!
Yet still my eyes are fixed on you to navigate my way.

When you walked down the streets we knew, you offered all your grace
Forgiving those who turned to you, pointing home to God's embrace.
When you hung high upon a tree, you saw where I was lost
and drew me with your broken heart to meet you at the cross.

Your wounded body breaks like bread; your blood pours out like wine.
I eat and drink this healing meal with others close beside.
And here, where once a cross stood tall, we find a table spread,
and you, whose body had been there, now live in us instead.

So make us strong to do your work and follow all your ways,
to share the gift we have received: new mercies every day,
and travel on this narrow path flowing through all time and space
to unite everyone who turns to you with the home of God's embrace.

Text: Josh Seligman
Tune: RESIGNATION

"All shall be well again, I know" (song)

Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-c. 1416) was an English anchoress, living in a cell next to a church building and giving spiritual counsel to people. She lived during a time ravaged by war, economic distress, and the Plague. She fell gravely ill and had a series of visions of Jesus, which she eventually wrote about and published.

The song "Bells of Norwich," about Julian, was written by the English songwriter Sydney Carter (1915-2004).

Loud are the bells of Norwich
And the people come and go
Here by the tower of Julian
I tell them what I know:

Ring out, bells of Norwich
And let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.

Love, like the yellow daffodil
Is coming through the snow
Love, like the yellow daffodil
Is Lord of all I know.

Ring out, bells of Norwich
And let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.

Ring for the yellow daffodil,
The flower in the snow
Ring for the yellow daffodil
And tell them what I know:

All shall be well, I'm telling you
Let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.