Open Hymnals Part 3

 

Praise to the living God, around, within, above, Beyond the grasp of human mind, but whom we know as love. In these tumultuous days, so full of hope and strife, May we bear witness to the Way, O source and Goal of life. "Praise to the Living God" by Curtis Beach, (#8 New Century Hymnal).

If, our hymnals are both prayer books that provoke and invoke the spirit; if our hymnals are theological textbooks that engage our minds/hearts/souls, the words of hymns can cause questions to stir within us. Who is God in this verse above? Where is God? What imagines and ideas of the holy are awoken in reading these words?

Go back. Read them again. Slowly this time.

What does a word like, “Praise” awaken within you?

How can God be around and within and above? It doesn’t make rational or reasonable sense, does it? Yet, somehow, I know those words to be true and trustworthy.

How does that tension of naming that ‘these [are] tumultuous days, so full of hope and strife,” challenge me? Am I only seeing the strife and not the hope?

I hope you are starting to sense the profound power our hymnal as both a prayer book and theological textbook brings forth.

And if that verse didn’t stir your soul, read with me the third verse of the same hymn,

Praise to the living God, who knows our joy and pain, Who shares with us our common life, the sacred and profane. God toils wher-e’vr we toil, in home and mart and mill; And deep within the human heart God leads us forward still.

I think any hymn worth its salt needs to use the word, ‘Wher-e’vr’. Secondly, how did hearing the verses our of order do for you? We get so accustom to hymns one way, but the beauty of a hymn is that sometimes reversing the order of the verse can provoke and invoke something new, different.

Whatever hymnal you have handy open to the section on God and read the hymn. Or Google, “Hymns about God,” and read the words of a hymn online. Does the hymn offer an understanding of God that you agree with or that causes you to shift uncomfortably in your chair? Not every hymn needs to be beloved! Sometimes hymns we don’t like can teach and tell us much too!

Please keep reading, praying, and opening your hymnal in these days.

Prayer: Singing, stirring, swirling Spirit, speak through the hymns we read we pray this day. Amen.