Singing in Wonder: Hymn Festival Reflections

I crafted the following reflections and prayers for a hymn festival, “Singing in Wonder,” held on February 5 at Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Roseville, Minnesota. I had the pleasure of planning the festival with David Cherwien who served as organist. He was joined in song leadership by several instrumentalists and the Lutheran Church of Resurrection Choir.

The hymn "Infinite Beauty" by Susan Palo Cherwien framed the festival, with the reflections inspired by and quoting each of the five stanzas. 

(ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship)

Hymn: Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices (ELW 833)

Hymn: Oh, Sing to the Lord (ELW 822)

Reflection 1: Stirring to Wonder

Infinite Beauty, Love that moves the heavens,

Maker of all things, present in creation,

From the beginning, all Your works reveal You,

Stirring to wonder.

 

Stir up your power, Lord Christ and come…

Stir up our hearts, O God…

Stir up…

This is an Advent plea at beginning times, a prayer for the Divine to get to work.

Christians have been using a form of these prayers beginning “Stir up” since at least the 8^th century.

Isn’t it humbling to stir up in our minds that a thousand voices— ah many more than a thousand— have prayed these Advent prayers?

Yet more humbling to consider the stirring beyond our humanity, extending to all creation…

To the stars!

Isn’t it wonderful to imagine the stars being stirred?

It’s such a simple thing, stirring. It’s one of the first kitchen tasks young children learn, standing on a stool next to a parent or grandparent with that big wooden spoon, stirring the batter, so proud they can have a hand in the cake or the cookies.

“Hyperbole,” says Merriam-Webster, is “extravagant exaggeration.” A thousand tongues. A thousand voices.

“The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven…I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven…”

It is not possible for one of us to have a thousand voices or even a dozen, and yet,
over the centuries, across the globe, 
we become a choir of people, of stargazers, wonderers as we wander in this life, 
creatures of stardust itself, that sing. 
It’s not totally hyperbole to say that we are the stars that are stirred and singing.

O Creator, you have indeed done wonders. We cannot keep silent about them any more than the willows whispering in the breeze or the rains pattering out a melody.

Stir in us beauty. Stir in us wonder. Stir in us a song.

 

Hymn: As Newborn Stars Were Stirred to Song
(Text: Carl Daw; Tune: ALEXANDRA, John Karl Hirten)

 

Reflection 2: Growing in Wonder

Holy this garden, worthy of protection,

Blue pearl in deep space, due our true affection,

Dwelling and parent, elegant in balance,

Growing in wonder.

 

On the page of Susan Palo Cherwien’s hymn “Infinite Beauty” that inspired this wonder-themed hymn festival are these words penned by the twelfth-century visionary, Hildegard von Bingen:

"God has arranged all things in the world in consideration of everything else."

This sentence awakens thoughts of place, balance, size.

When you hear the phrase, “growing in wonder,” do you think of more, of getting larger? When we grow, that’s what happens, at least in the most literal sense. Or even more figuratively, “growing in awareness” or “growing in understanding” is an enlarging of perspective.

Yet, as human creatures, our experiences of wonder are the opposite, aren’t they?

At the base of the mountain, the edge of the ocean, the center of the forest…

Gazing at the face of a newborn, dining at table with a partner, sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one…
We become aware of our smallness and in that, grows wonder.

As the author Kelly Corrigan and host of a podcast called “Wonder” has said simply, “It’s better being small.” That in our lives, “smallness is huge.”

It’s very practical, really. As Corrigan went on to explain, "smaller people can move more easily and think more easily and support more easily." You've perhaps not gotten out of the way but have become right-sized. 

This doesn’t mean shrinking and doesn’t convey a false understanding of humility, of being a doormat or being physically small. No, it’s a sense of arrangement, a consideration of our place among everything else.

Sadly, as a whole species we tend to think of ourselves as too large.
The farmer, writer, prophet, Wendell Berry challenges us, saying:

We have lived our lives by the assumption that was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.

Grow in wonder. Be curious, ask questions, be that small seed planted so something springs forth not yet imagined. Even the rotten squash tossed into the compost bin can surprise us with a bumper crop growing along the driveway.

We will sing a phrase, also by Hildegaard: terra viridisima. Greenest earth.
God has arranged all things in the world in consideration of everything else.
But us, our arranging, our considering? Not as successful.

These truths confound us, but as we will sing, Love has found us, and wonder astounds us. And for that, we give thanks, and pray, that what is planted in us grows wonderfully.

Hymn: For the Fruit of All Creation (ELW 679)

Hymn: The Garden Needs Our Tending
(Text: Mary Louise Bringle; Tune: UNE JEUNE PUCELLE)

Reflection 3: Living in Wonder

Sacred all creatures, marvelous companions,

Elders and teachers, all of our relations,

Rocks tell earth's story, plants reveal earth's wisdom,

Living in wonder.

 

That we live in the presence of the holy, is this enough?

That we live loved by God and others, is that enough?

That we live in a sea of humanity, each person unique and gifted, each formed in the image of God, is this surely enough?

And yet, there is more.

The four-legged mammals with whom we live:

Cats and dogs we treasure as family...

The cows, sheep, and goats that graze... 

Minnesota’s black bear, river otters, and gray fox...

The finned creatures swimming in seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds…

The feathered ones perched on the tree outside the kitchen window or soaring the skies above…

And the insects and creatures so small yet whose impact overshadows us all…

Do we think that to experience wonder we need to leave, travel far to a “wonder of the world,” to check off a destination on our bucket list? Remember, as the gospel of Luke tells us each Christmas Eve, the God whom we adore came near in a humble town, in a feeding trough, surrounded by common animals.

Confession: I love zoos. They are wonderful to me. They are not only children’s spaces, but places for all of us to pause and wonder alongside our animal companions.

To live in wonder, sometimes all we need is a trip to the zoo. Not the zoos of old that thrived on amusement and did not do much in service to the animals, but many of the zoos of today, pillars of conservation, teaching about and protecting animals that otherwise may have disappeared.

Consider the Kihansi Spray Toad, that had gone extinct from its homeland in eastern Tanzania, an extinction caused by the building of a dam on the Kihansi River. Thanks to breeding programs at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the Toledo Zoo, and the Bronx Zoo, twenty-five hundred of these toads were reintroduced into their native habitat.

Or the Socorro Dove native to Socorro Island off the west coast of Mexico. Feral cats drove them to extinction, but thanks to a program at the National Zoo in Washington DC, these birds have been brought back to Mexico.

Oh, there is still so much tending to be done.
Creatures endangered, creation groaning.
And that brings with it responsibility. As Jane Goodall has remarked, “I am feeling wonder and awe about this incredible world we live in. And the truth is, we’re destroying it before we’ve even finished learning about it.”

I was recently moved to tears watching a video of a family of elephants taking part in a funeral procession for a calf who had died. After one elephant, likely the mother, carries the elephant across the road, the whole family pauses and stops along side, taking turns paying respects. Let us not be so hasty to think that only we humans experience awe and wonder for the gifts of this life.

May we be humbled by the marvelous companions with whom we live on this earth.

For indeed, we live on holy ground.

Hymn: In Sacred Manner (All Creation Sings 1071)

 Reflection 4: Breathing in Wonder

Blesséd our bodies, kindred gift of starlight:

Eyes to see beauty, ears to hear the heart sigh,

Hands to give healing, hearts to bind together,

Breathing in wonder.

 

Yes, the ground is holy. And so are we. Holy People.

As followers of Jesus, we abide in this one who took our form, whose very body is for our peace, as we will sing in the words of Julian of Norwich.

We will sing of our Mothering God, our creator, the source of every breath…

Parents eagerly anticipate their newborn’s first breath. All that focus on the mother’s breathing patterns during labor now turns to the baby. Sometimes the midwife or doctor must stimulate the breath if there is a delay.
And babies born too soon need assistance, as the lungs are the last organ to fully develop.

Even if the baby’s breathing appears normal, there are those early weeks. The parent getting up several times a night, fumbling about in the dark, placing a hand on the baby’s chest, making sure they can feel that rise and fall.

Because in a heartbeat, it can be gone. Parents grieving sudden infant death know this all too well.

It’s a wonder how something so natural as breathing, something we do on average 22,000 times per day, barely garners a thought. Musicians, athletes, actors: they regularly focus on the breath, but many of us can get by without paying any attention.

Scientists have taught us that focused attention on the breath improves our well-being.

Feeling anxious? Notice and intentionally slow your inhalation and exhalation.

Trouble sleeping? Don’t count sheep but inhale for 4 counts, hold for 7, exhale for 8.

Want to avoid raising your voice at that person whose irritations have pushed you to the edge? Stop, take a deep breath, and count to ten.

Does this feel more technical than wonderful? Perhaps. But in the paying attention, we become aware that our whole bodies— our hearing or seeing, our touching or feeling—are nothing without the breath.

Jesus appeared to his disciples and breathed on them and said: “receive the Holy Spirit.”

Or in Eugene Peterson’s Message translation of this verse from John: "Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. 'Receive the Holy Spirit,' he said."

From our first breath to our last, seeing in a glass dimly until we are fully known, we receive this Sprit, this breath.

In words presented in Hear My Voice: A Prison Prayer Book, we are guided to pray with our breath:

Breathe in God’s love; breathe out your gratitude.

Breathe in God’s forgiveness; breathe out your guilt.

Breathe in God’s mercy; breathe out your hope.

Breathe in God’s grace; breathe out your joy.

Breathe in God’s peace; breathe out your praise.

Breathe in God’s promise; breathe out your adoration.

Breathe.

Hymn: Mothering God, You Gave Me Birth (ELW 735)

Hymn: O Beauty Ever Ancient (All Creation Sings 1100)

 Reflection 5: Singing in Wonder 

Infinite Beauty, Love that moves the heavens,

May our minds wisen, may our hearts awaken,

That we join all things, one and interwoven,

Singing in wonder.

 

“In gratitude, in worship, my being sings to you!” we sang.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,” is the song Mary sang according to the gospel of Luke.

Moved by love and gratitude, awed by this wondrous thing God was doing through her, she could not help but sing.

But Mary did not sing a song for herself alone. No, that life dwelling in her would burst forth in unexpected reversals; though seemingly small and insignificant, it awakened Mary and us to a love that calls for a world turned toward justice and mercy, a love for every generation.

One wonders how music can make a difference in this world so torn, so marked by division, hatred, injustice, and violence. Did Mary wonder that too? So many cries and songs unanswered. Not long after his birth, Mary hears that her soul will be pierced too. Will singing bring back loved ones taken too soon?

And yet, the quote by Leonard Bernstein rings true:

"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." 

And what better way to do this than joined as one, as a body breathing together, singing together?

There is a phrase for this joining together of human beings that incites awe and wonder, and it’s just a fabulous phrase to say out loud: “collective effervescence.”  Coined in the early twentieth century by sociologist Émile Durkheim, it describes the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. It's like we are all stirred up together, bubbling over. And neuroscience has shown that these kinds of communal acts, dancing together, singing together, marching together, are life giving. 

As people of faith, we likely point to the Holy Spirit in this joining, it’s the Spirit’s invitation that gathers us.
The Holy Spirit has stirred in us. Our lungs have grown. We are fully alive. As humans— humble ones— we can join the song of creation. We sing with the birds and the whales. We sing with those whose voices have shaped our own and who now sing in realms beyond this one.

We breathe, we sing. Our hearts kindled; our hands open. Perhaps we hold the book for another.

Eager and hesitant. Wavering and clear. Questioning and assured.

All of us, joined together, awakened to the song.

And this is a holy wonder.

 

Hymn: Infinite Beauty
(Text: Susan Palo Cherwien; Tune: INFINITE BEAUTY, David Cherwien)

Prayers

Let us pray:

Holy One, God of all creation, we give thanks for your Spirit moving among us, stirring us to song and forming us as your people. We praise you for holy moments to pause and celebrate. We praise you for the loved ones with whom we share life and song, and for the natural world that inspires our awe and gratitude.

Merciful God, those in any need cry out to you. Especially we pray---

            For your Earth and its creatures of every kind…

            For communities who have forgotten or neglected the gift of shared song…

            For all whose trauma or pain hinders creativity or sharing…

            For all who have been silenced through injustice and systems of oppression…

            For the sick and injured and any too weak to raise their voice…

            For the ministry of hospice workers and those who sing us from one life to the next…

            For all who grieve this night

We remember with thanksgiving the saints who have gone before us, especially Susan, and all who have joined the heavenly chorus.

Join our hands and voices, O God, in lives of praise and service. Send us forth in wonder, supported by your grace that sustains us all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Benediction

May God our loving Creator,

Jesus the Song of love incarnate,

And the wondrous power of the Holy Spirit,

One God, bless and keep you now and always. Amen.

Hymn: Voices Raised to You (ELW 845)

 

Dancing, Not Marching, into Reformation

Today many Protestant Christians observed Reformation Sunday, with Lutheran varieties of Protestants marking the day with much festivity and fanfare. Red, the color typically associated with the fiery movement of the Spirit, adorns worship spaces and the people in them. And for many, the day would not be complete without singing Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” It is a hymn that Paul Westermeyer notes “may have been written about, sung, and translated as much or more than any other hymn in the church’s history.” (Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 333). At the risk of saying still more, I’d like to propose that how it is sung can communicate as much as what is sung. 

Many know this Lutheran chorale sung to the tune EIN FESTE BURG in its isometric version. This is the “straight” version with most syllables sung on a series of equal quarter notes. While it is helped by feeling a half note pulse, without careful leadership the tune can plod. It can be made festive with brass and the like, but even so, it ends up feeling a bit bombastic, even march-like. It’s this affect that often gives it the nickname “the Lutheran fight song.”

 

The text doesn’t help in this regard. The language of God being our fortress, arming himself to fight, holding the field, in battle engaging certainly gives the hymn a militant feel. A whole separate post could be written on the many translations and the issues around the text, but what I experience with this hymn in my local context reveals something important, I think, about the way the text and tune are paired.

 

The congregation where my children and I worship, Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Roseville, Minnesota, sings this hymn on Reformation but they sing it in its rhythmic version. Martin Luther is credited with both isometric version and rhythmic versions on the bottom of the page in the hymnal, but the rhythmic version is more authentic if you will. These were the forms sung in Luther’s day that were lost and then rediscovered. Here we have syncopation. Shorter pick-up notes leading into longer notes makes it impossible to march to; instead, one feels the urge to dance.

Renaissance dances are rhythmic and inviting. Led today by organ, violin, clarinet, string bass, and timpani, one couldn’t help but dance a bit (at least on the inside!). After the worship leaders (crucifer, torchbearers, assisting and presiding minister) recessed out and stood at the entrance to the nave, they swayed in a dance-like fashion as the assembly sang the final stanza. (You can hear the congregation sing it via our live stream)

 

Tunes as well as texts make theological statements. It seems much more fitting on Reformation Sunday to sing with the give and take of a dance rather than a march. In the words of another hymn, “Come, Join the Dance of Trinity,” followers of Jesus are called into freedom, but a freedom that is a dance.

 

“Let voices rise and interweave, by love and hope set free, 

to shape in song this joy, this life: the dance of Trinity.” (Hymn by Richard Leach) 

To be reforming is not always straight-forward; it is a give and take, a mix of leading and following. The Reformation is also a mourning of division and can’t be celebration that doesn’t acknowledge fractured relationships between Protestants and their Roman Catholic siblings, not to mention between differing Protestant expressions of Christianity. We move forward and back, side-to-side, assured the Spirit is with us even when we trip and stumble. 

 

“A Mighty Fortress” is one song among many hymns of the faith. Some treasure it deeply. To be honest, I’d be fine to let it go from annual singing. But in a world where tyrants still rage, when trembling is all around, Luther’s assurance of God’s Word abiding forever can still speak. Better yet, let it dance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering Emma

Today my friend Emma Renninger would have turned 40 years old. She was killed in an auto accident on the back roads of Central Pennsylvania in early January. On this anniversary of her birth, I offer this reflection on the gift of her life.

Over a decade ago, I was privileged to be invited to a Journey Feast for Gordon Gray. This man, a member of the Chippewa Cree, lived on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana where I had been visiting for two weeks. As part of this end of life ritual, the community gathered four days after Gordon’s death, each person bringing food and placing it on a large table, much like a pot-luck supper. Everyone sat on the floor around the room on cloths or blankets, much like gathering for a picnic at an outdoor concert. Servers made their way around the room, giving us a sample of all the food brought; it was expected that you would eat some of everything. I had three plates and four bowls at the foot of my chair. Multiply that by fifty or more people and you get a sense of the enormous quantity. Yet none of this food was to be wasted. To-go containers were provided so that nothing was left over. This sharing of food was not just a polite way of being together in mourning; it was essential, expected.

I was not able to attend the funeral for Emma, a woman who brought people together in unexpected ways. Emma was a farmer, cook, and entrepreneur. She named her Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania restaurant, “Emma’s Food for Life.” She once confided to me she regretted naming the restaurant after herself; such an inextricable personal link can be a burden. She indeed carried that burden, weighed down by the many responsibilities of owning, managing, and cooking for a restaurant as well as a farm. But true to its name, it was “food for life.”

Those who knew Emma as family, close friend, or casual restaurant attendee, still mourn her untimely death as such a loss precisely because her life generated “life” in such a tangible way. She fed us. She gave us food for our journeys. Literally. When I mentioned her death to my six-year old, she immediately grieved the loss of Emma’s “best-ever” pizza served on the colorful kid’s plates. And her yummy French fries. But it wasn’t so much the food itself, amazingly delicious though it was. It was her care for how she sourced her food, prepared, and served it to others that was so life-giving.

Emma was part of the “slow food” locavore movement before it was trendy. She carried out this venture in a part of the country that didn’t fully appreciate this treasure in its own backyard. When I worked as a waitress in the restaurant for two years, there would be very slow days, a table or two at most. Yet those who came valued the slow pace as a kind of sanctuary from the “food for death” culture— fast, commercially-processed food that thrived on waste.

Emma sought to create a different kind of food sanctuary that valued connection. She knew other local farmers who would bring their produce to the restaurant. She raised her own pigs and chickens. For years, our family kept a “pig bucket” at home where we would deposit all of our food scraps that couldn’t go in the compost. When full, we would deliver the bucket to Emma at the restaurant and she made sure it made it to her pigs. (Leftover birthday cake was a particular favorite). 

Emma’s life fostered connection not only between people but also between the earth and its creatures. Materials were not wasted. Likewise, time to shoot the breeze with the restaurant regulars was not wasted minutes, but an opportunity. Because Emma took the time to listen to these folks, many who became dear friends, her restaurant was indeed food for life, food for the body and the soul.

“There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food, and that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle.”- Sara Miles.

Last winter when I read a memoir entitled Take this Bread by Sara Miles, I thought of Emma countless times. Miles shares her story as an agnostic woman who discovered the holiness of food in church and out, reaching out to others at a San Francisco food pantry that served fresh food and produce, not the kind of rejected food that took up space in dark kitchen cupboards. I meant to tell Emma how much I saw what she did as a ministry, as a way she reached out to the community and fed them in ways beyond the obvious. I didn’t do that, a regret I now carry. Instead I share these words, a tribute to a woman whose life touched mine and so many others in unexpected, beautiful ways. They were not perfect ways; they were not without anger and frustration, not without regret or deep sadness. But they were beautiful in that she showed how to work tirelessly for a vision, to care for a community, and to create a kind of sacred space adorned with art created by local artists and flowers from her garden.

In the Chippewa Cree tradition, food was not only for the living; it was for the dead. It was taken to the burial ground because the deceased would need it for their next journey. In the Christian tradition familiar to me, eating together is also central to life and death, holy communion an expression of God with us and the people of God gathered together, fed for our journeys now and of those of which we cannot see the ending.

Feeding is a kind of miracle. I give thanks for Emma’s feeding us with her spirit and her delicious meals. I hope those who continue to journey on still sense her presence when they share food and care for the land that gives life.

Walking the Walk

Margaret Mead's words call out to me this evening:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

I didn’t know a single soul in the room, but I ventured out to my local library this evening. The meeting was the first in the Northeast Metro area (Twin Cities) of Moms Demand Action for Gunsense in America. We heard presentation from a leader who thought herself to be the most unlikely activist; she didn’t even join Moms Demand Action until after Parkland. The women (and men!) in the room were there because they were concerned citizens, concerned that seven American children or teens are shot and killed every day.

I also learned that this group is a big tent. The woman who led our meeting hunts grouse in Minnesota. Her husband is a gun owner. Her involvement and leadership in this group communicates how important it is for men and women to work together for common sense gun legislation including better background checks and preventing those who are a real danger to themselves or others from owning guns.

Today young people around the country walked out. Some argued that this was not the right response, that they should have “walked up” instead.  Rachel Held Evans posted eloquently today about this false dichotomy. Being kind to your classmates and choosing to make a stand on behalf of fellow young people who lost their lives to gun violence are not opposite choices. As a Lutheran Christian, I am steeped in both/and thinking. Many faith traditions are encouraged to develop a personal spiritual practice and public witness, not one or the other. We can pray for 17 minutes in our home for the 17 who died in Parkland as one of my friends posted about today. That's one important kind of solidarity. We can also march today and everyday as needed, walking the walk as well as talking the talk. I think of all the Rise Up T-shirts my husband has from the last Youth Gathering of our denomination. I wonder: How many of those teens gathered in Detroit in 2015 connected their willingness to make a stand today to this previous call to Rise Up?

I don’t know yet of all the specific actions I will take to lend my passion to this local group, but I know that I will. I encourage all of you who care about gun violence or other pressing issues—whether you consider yourself an activist or not—to find a small group of thoughtful citizens. Facebook can help you connect, but don’t stay there. Call it naivete or simply looking at history. Small groups can make a difference. The arc of history is long, but bends toward justice. That is my prayer, but also, Spirit willing, my steps.