Hymn Number 6 (Menno hymnal)
Heard this one tonight as I was going through files, and it is appropriate.
Here in this place, new light is streaming, now is the darkness vanished away.
See, in this space, our fears and our dreamings, brought here to you in the light of this day.
Gather us in, the lost and forsaken, gather us in, the blind and the lame.
Call to us now, and we shall awaken, we shall arise at the sound of your name.
We are the young, our lives are a mystery, we are the old, who yearn for your faec. We have been sung throughout all of history, called to be light to the whole human race.
Gather us in, the rich and the haughty, gather us in, the proud and the strong. Give us a heart, so meek and so lowly, give us the courage to enter the song.
Here we will take, the wine and the water, here we will take the bread of new birth. Here you shall call your sons and your daughters, call us anew to be salt for the earth.
Give us to drink the wine of compassion, give us to eat the bread that is you. Nourish us well, and teach us to fashion lives that are holy and hearts that are true.
Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away, but here in this place, the new light is shining; now is the kingdom, now is the day.
Gather us in and hold us forever, gather us in and make us your own. Gather us in- all peoples together, fire of love in our flesh and our bone.
(Crossposted to Facebook, but removed there by me...)
Monday, February 16, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
hymnology 1
(Warning: I haven't written here in a very long time. I'm tired. And feeling sloppy, since, now that I actually write for a living, I don't have the energy or time to properly edit my other projects.)
Mennonite Hymnal #495
oh let all who thirst, let them come to the water. (let them come.)
And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
without money, without price; why should you pay the price, except for the Lord? (for the Lord?)
And let all who seek, let them come to the water. (Let them come.)
And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
without money, without strife; why should you spend your life, except for the Lord? (for the Lord?)
And let all who toil, let them come to the water. (Let them come.)
And let all who are weary, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
all who labor, without rest; how can your soul find rest, except for the Lord? (for the Lord?)
And let all the poor, let them come to the water. (Let them come.)
Bring the ones who are laden, bring them all to the Lord. (To the Lord.)
Bring the children, without might; easy the load and light- come to the lord. (to the Lord.)
---
I guess it seems strange, but the final verse is usually my favorite in a lot of hymns, and yet I usually have trouble remembering it. In this case I feel like the bulk of my theological grounding is in the last verse. By "theological grounding" I actually mean the reverse, it is what keeps my head in the clouds, what keeps my faith intact. The reminder that Christ is for those for whom man cares not. That we serve someone greater, because he is Greater.
My struggle with what I think of as "the contemporary church" remains captured by this song. Oh let ALL who thirst. ALL who have nothing. WithOUT price. Why SHOULD you pay the price, except for the Lord? Yet, we have so many "Samaritan woman"s in our midst.* So many of society's outcasts, so many who are so far below us.
This is touchy to mention, but in my work I encounter some tricky situations. Simply put, I have to help people I don't really want to help. People who I don't think "deserve the money." People who don't deserve my help because they've made such poor choices. The system is specifically designed to let them fail, to deny them a safety net... there are many in the church and in middle America, then, who would call me a kind of evil for helping them. I feel shame, but more than once, I've fought the urge to pull back when a client went to shake my hand.
And let all who are weary, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
There are a lot of weary in our land. There are just so many. If you have never wept for the world, I dare suggest you have never truly reflected the situation. The details are not my place, but it is sobering to realize that literally billions of people lack even nutritional stability, and the luxuries of what I consider a modest lifestyle are beyond out of reach for the vastest majority of all people. That a stable and loving family has become a rare luxury in our nation, is enough to bring tears. That many at home, and many more abroad, will toil all their days to never see true fruit, should bring tears. That many will die as children lacking even food, water, and basic shelter.
I guess it seems sappy on some level to even care about this stuff. After all, it will always persist, and none of our efforts could ever solve it.
I have to confess this out loud. I'm jealous, almost to the point of anger, of Jesus work. I really am, and if you're not, you either haven't thought of it, or you are clearly orders of magnitude smarter than me.
He came to earth as a mostly, apparently normal child.
He lived thirty years or so.
During his short ministry, he could accomplish absolutely anything. Saw a blind man? Spit in the mud, he's cured. A child is dying? The mere thought from a distance, she is revived. Same for Lazarus, even days later- all Jesus had to do was say the words. He got to help people wherever he went, and he got to see real results, right away.
Of course, all those people eventually died anyway, so one would almost wonder the point. Except that they helped spread the message of his final feat: just by dying, he absolved the world of sin.
That one, though, requires some deep thought. It push[ed/es] me to the brink of an odd kind of disbelief; not the disbelief of one who doubts factually, but of one who understands and accepts factually, but can't reconcile the residual apparent injustice. Think of this: if you could save someone's life, by giving your own, would you do it? What if it was seven people? Seven people that you loved? Seven billion people? Twenty billion people, who you loved, who were even your own children? Seems a no-brainer at that point, on at least some level. For Christ's sacrifice to be special, then, it would have to go beyond the no-brainer that most of us ordinary folks would have done.
I'm actually still working through this. I'm strangely trapped- I believe. I don't understand, but I believe. And I'm still not satisfied.
I guess what it comes to for me, and I really do think this question must be answered individually, is symbolism, and cause. That my love would possess me to readily give my life for another is derived from some interesting assumptions- one being, which life is worth more? I'm not God, so it's easy for me to value another's life above my own. I suspect that a better analogy than the above would be, would you give your life for a flock of sheep? Then it seems just rather silly, and there we see that the folly of God exceeds the wisdom of man. Go figure.
Sorry, I drift. Symbolism. If God who created could give of himself for us, both in life and in death, then how should we live? We frequently talk about this in terms of foot washing and similar rites. The rite is culturally obsolete thanks to whoever invented Socks, but the idea remains, and it is the idea that later followers would provide more literal templates for, Sts. Francis and Teresa, who humbled themselves in the extreme to serve the "least of these." I'm sorry for the long wind, I could really go on for hours, and I don't know where I'm headed except that this music has reminded me that I am in fact a Christian, and it means something. We can follow Christ in different ways, and without judging we can acknowledge that others will take it to different places. I'm at a place in my life where it just means greeting the clients I don't want to help, the addicts and frauds, with love, and doing all I can to help them. I can see a place in the future where I get to help in other ways, but I need to focus on those that others deny help and love.
There is so much to be done. I would give more than my life to be able to save the world with a single sacrifice, but he who has that option has already taken it, and left behind a series of tasks for me and others to take.
So, on to the next step, whatever that may be today.
This is provoked by Dave's recent recording on a Sunday afternoon service of the Sojourner's Mennonite Fellowship.
Ben/etc: Thank you so much for the hymnal.
*Please forgive what looks like poor grammar/spelling. If I had used the usual plural, it would have looked like I was singling out a gender, rather than an archetype.
Mennonite Hymnal #495
oh let all who thirst, let them come to the water. (let them come.)
And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
without money, without price; why should you pay the price, except for the Lord? (for the Lord?)
And let all who seek, let them come to the water. (Let them come.)
And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
without money, without strife; why should you spend your life, except for the Lord? (for the Lord?)
And let all who toil, let them come to the water. (Let them come.)
And let all who are weary, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
all who labor, without rest; how can your soul find rest, except for the Lord? (for the Lord?)
And let all the poor, let them come to the water. (Let them come.)
Bring the ones who are laden, bring them all to the Lord. (To the Lord.)
Bring the children, without might; easy the load and light- come to the lord. (to the Lord.)
---
I guess it seems strange, but the final verse is usually my favorite in a lot of hymns, and yet I usually have trouble remembering it. In this case I feel like the bulk of my theological grounding is in the last verse. By "theological grounding" I actually mean the reverse, it is what keeps my head in the clouds, what keeps my faith intact. The reminder that Christ is for those for whom man cares not. That we serve someone greater, because he is Greater.
My struggle with what I think of as "the contemporary church" remains captured by this song. Oh let ALL who thirst. ALL who have nothing. WithOUT price. Why SHOULD you pay the price, except for the Lord? Yet, we have so many "Samaritan woman"s in our midst.* So many of society's outcasts, so many who are so far below us.
This is touchy to mention, but in my work I encounter some tricky situations. Simply put, I have to help people I don't really want to help. People who I don't think "deserve the money." People who don't deserve my help because they've made such poor choices. The system is specifically designed to let them fail, to deny them a safety net... there are many in the church and in middle America, then, who would call me a kind of evil for helping them. I feel shame, but more than once, I've fought the urge to pull back when a client went to shake my hand.
And let all who are weary, let them come to the Lord. (to the Lord.)
There are a lot of weary in our land. There are just so many. If you have never wept for the world, I dare suggest you have never truly reflected the situation. The details are not my place, but it is sobering to realize that literally billions of people lack even nutritional stability, and the luxuries of what I consider a modest lifestyle are beyond out of reach for the vastest majority of all people. That a stable and loving family has become a rare luxury in our nation, is enough to bring tears. That many at home, and many more abroad, will toil all their days to never see true fruit, should bring tears. That many will die as children lacking even food, water, and basic shelter.
I guess it seems sappy on some level to even care about this stuff. After all, it will always persist, and none of our efforts could ever solve it.
I have to confess this out loud. I'm jealous, almost to the point of anger, of Jesus work. I really am, and if you're not, you either haven't thought of it, or you are clearly orders of magnitude smarter than me.
He came to earth as a mostly, apparently normal child.
He lived thirty years or so.
During his short ministry, he could accomplish absolutely anything. Saw a blind man? Spit in the mud, he's cured. A child is dying? The mere thought from a distance, she is revived. Same for Lazarus, even days later- all Jesus had to do was say the words. He got to help people wherever he went, and he got to see real results, right away.
Of course, all those people eventually died anyway, so one would almost wonder the point. Except that they helped spread the message of his final feat: just by dying, he absolved the world of sin.
That one, though, requires some deep thought. It push[ed/es] me to the brink of an odd kind of disbelief; not the disbelief of one who doubts factually, but of one who understands and accepts factually, but can't reconcile the residual apparent injustice. Think of this: if you could save someone's life, by giving your own, would you do it? What if it was seven people? Seven people that you loved? Seven billion people? Twenty billion people, who you loved, who were even your own children? Seems a no-brainer at that point, on at least some level. For Christ's sacrifice to be special, then, it would have to go beyond the no-brainer that most of us ordinary folks would have done.
I'm actually still working through this. I'm strangely trapped- I believe. I don't understand, but I believe. And I'm still not satisfied.
I guess what it comes to for me, and I really do think this question must be answered individually, is symbolism, and cause. That my love would possess me to readily give my life for another is derived from some interesting assumptions- one being, which life is worth more? I'm not God, so it's easy for me to value another's life above my own. I suspect that a better analogy than the above would be, would you give your life for a flock of sheep? Then it seems just rather silly, and there we see that the folly of God exceeds the wisdom of man. Go figure.
Sorry, I drift. Symbolism. If God who created could give of himself for us, both in life and in death, then how should we live? We frequently talk about this in terms of foot washing and similar rites. The rite is culturally obsolete thanks to whoever invented Socks, but the idea remains, and it is the idea that later followers would provide more literal templates for, Sts. Francis and Teresa, who humbled themselves in the extreme to serve the "least of these." I'm sorry for the long wind, I could really go on for hours, and I don't know where I'm headed except that this music has reminded me that I am in fact a Christian, and it means something. We can follow Christ in different ways, and without judging we can acknowledge that others will take it to different places. I'm at a place in my life where it just means greeting the clients I don't want to help, the addicts and frauds, with love, and doing all I can to help them. I can see a place in the future where I get to help in other ways, but I need to focus on those that others deny help and love.
There is so much to be done. I would give more than my life to be able to save the world with a single sacrifice, but he who has that option has already taken it, and left behind a series of tasks for me and others to take.
So, on to the next step, whatever that may be today.
This is provoked by Dave's recent recording on a Sunday afternoon service of the Sojourner's Mennonite Fellowship.
Ben/etc: Thank you so much for the hymnal.
*Please forgive what looks like poor grammar/spelling. If I had used the usual plural, it would have looked like I was singling out a gender, rather than an archetype.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
