Hymn Blog - January 10, 2010

January 10, 2010 – Baptism of Jesus

VU 82 – A Light is Gleaming. This Epiphany hymn was published in 1992 in “Stickpeople”, a song collection by Linnea Good. Linnea Good is a singer-songwriter, musical animator and educator whose life's work is to help people celebrate their lives - especially through music. Her base is her Canadian culture, community and Christian faith tradition.  Linnea travels extensively, seeking connections between the new and the old, the head and the heart, between male and female, children and adults, between those who pray and those who act. This, she believes, is the challenge of our time in the house of faith - to bring together that which is broken and that which we have forgotten was ever one in the first place.

MV 187 – We Give Our Thanks. This is a traditional song from Botswana. The original words were translated by the great Taiwanese hymnologist I-to Loh, who is a retired professor of Worship, Church Music and Ethnomusicology at Tainan Theological College & Seminary, also an adjunct Professor of Worship & Church Music at the Southeast Asian Graduate School of Theology. He was the editor of Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000.

VU 755 – The God of Heaven (Psalm 29). This metrical setting of Psalm 29 was written by Michael Perry, a Church of England priest who served as secretary of Jubilate Hymns group. He was married to Beatrice Mary Stott. His untimely death in 1996 curtailed major service to the worlds of hymnody and church music. The setting, GLORY, is by Norman L. Warren, another member of the Jubilate group.

MV 161 – I Have Called You by Your Name. This wonderful Hymn of commitment, and its tune, KELLY, were written by Dan Damon, an internationally published writer of hymn texts and tunes. He is pastor of First United Methodist Church, Richmond, California.

VU 87 – I Am the Light of the World. In his Epiphany hymn, “I Am the Light of the World,” Californian hymn writer and composer Jim Strathdee uses Jesus’ words from John 8:12 to introduce a vision of what following Jesus means. Based on a poem by African-American author Howard Thurman, the text moves the singer out of the Christmas story and into the work of being Christian: finding the lost, healing the afflicted, feeding the hungry, and all the other duties that full humanity revealed in Jesus demands. There is an interesting development in thought that occurs in the middle of stanza 3. Up to this point, Strathdee is simply listing obligations. In the latter half of stanza 3 and in stanza 4, he begins to show us ways to facilitate the tasks: we need to have strength, through good will; we need to see all our fellows as God’s children; we need to hope and to celebrate. What might have become a very heavy yoke to bear becomes a discipline incorporating hope and joy.