As we go into Holy Week, this song is especially meaningful.
It strikes me that perhaps the last time I shared it I didn't even know that the historicity of Jesus' words "I thirst" had been called into question by so-called "evangelical" scholars. What a sad thing that is.
Our Lord not only suffered all of the agony of crucifixion but also expressed physical agony. And the great wonder of it all is that he, who was the king of creation, who made the rivers and the seas, suffered thirst for you and for me.
It is now the Easter season, a glorious one, and in my part of the world the weather is cooperating for once. Astonishing to see new green leaves and blue skies in Michigan at Eastertide. Alleluia! He is risen!
Later, I hope to have some thoughts on ecumenism and Easter, but those are not coming together very well in writing, so for the moment I'll just go on trying to exemplify what I think is a fruitful form of ecumenism related to music. More on that in a moment.
Meanwhile, here is a rather solemn thought concerning Good Friday. As Jesus was dying, He must have known that there would be some for whom He died who would still reject Him, who would not accept His sacrifice on their behalf. What a painful thought! And yet, Scripture says, "Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross...," and we know that Jesus is rejoicing with the Father now, despite the hard hearts of so many men towards Him. As the Easter hymn says, "All his woes are over now. And the passion that he bore, sin and pain can vex no more." We know, too, that our own joy in heaven will not be undermined by the knowledge that there are those who have rejected God's mercy.
Ultimately, the continued rejection of man cannot undermine Jesus' joy. Yet at the same time, as long as this world lasts, He stretches out His nail-pierced hands all day long, and by many for whom He died He is still scorned.
Truly it is all a great mystery beyond my comprehension. I'm just humbled beyond words that He died for me.
This year, I learned a new Passion hymn. It's astonishing that I've missed it all these years. It's truly lovely, but it seems to have fallen out of use even in the Anglican church. I never heard it in the high Anglican church I attended in Nashville nearly thirty years ago and have not heard of it at St. Patrick's here in the twenty-two years I've been here. I'll probably see if I can introduce it during Passiontide next year. I stumbled across it while singing hymns with my family on the evening of Good Friday. Here are the words.
His are the thousand sparkling rills That from a thousand fountains burst, And fill with music all the hills; And yet he saith, "I thirst."
All fiery pangs on battlefields, On fever beds where sick men toss, Are in that human cry he yields To anguish on the cross.
But more than pains that racked him then Was the deep longing thirst divine That thirsted for the souls of men; Dear Lord! and one was mine.
O Love most patient, give me grace; Make all my soul athirst for thee; That parched dry lip, that fading face, That thirst, were all for me.
This text is by Cecil Frances Alexander. She was a 19th-century poet and hymn-writer who wrote such famous hymn texts as "Once in Royal David's City" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful." The tune, Isleworth, was written by an organist and composer named Samuel Howard (1700s) about whom I can so far find out relatively little. The tune is beautiful and really "makes" the hymn.
I'd first run into this sort of meditation on Jesus' thirst in a completely different musical context--Southern gospel music. The Cathedrals' song "I Thirst" says the very same thing: "He said, 'I thirst,' yet he made the rivers. He said, 'I thirst,' yet he made the sea. 'I thirst,' said the King of creation. In his great thirst, He brought water to me."
We are so blessed to have musical riches from so many different traditions.
I just learned of this gospel music standard. I love it. It's a new fave. So much so that I'm going to embed about four or five versions.
Never, ever, ever feel ashamed of telling God that you need him. Never feel that that is selfish, that seeking a relationship with God out of need for Him is insufficiently "pure" in motive. What do we have to give to God but our need of Him, our emptiness, our littleness?
Here is Gordon Mote with a version that has a lot of soul.
Here is a nice version (if you don't mind Jessy Dixon's riffs) in which he's joined by the incomparable Guy Penrod. And Bill Gaither gets everyone singing.
This is another Gaither group one (allegedly), that has no video, though it sounds live. Nice, soft sound. I love the soloist's southern accent (black southern?) you can cut with a knife, but I don't know who he is.
But I think my favorite I've found so far is this short cut with Gordon Mote, not quite so soulful as in the first link, joined by Alabama. Understated and lovely.
It has been much, much too long since we had a music post.
It is my longstanding contention that we Protestants need to beef up our theology of suffering. There is nothing distinctively "Catholic" about holding that suffering is of value in the Christian life, even of transcendent importance. The Apostle Paul teaches it over and over--"If we die with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." "Buried with him by baptism into death. Raised in his likeness to walk in newness of life." Jesus teaches it. "Take up your cross and follow me." James and Peter teach it. It's everywhere in the New Testament. God has a special use for suffering in the life of the Christian.
Here is what I wrote recently to a correspondent:
Anything we suffer, however small and for that matter however emotionally complicated, is meaningful and can be used by God for our sanctification and to His glory if we accept it as from His hand and offer it back to Him to use for others.
It was shortly after writing that that I happened to hear this song on the radio and subsequently found Steve Green's performance of it.
The audio of this recording of the song "Angel Band" is one of my favorite music tracks, probably one of my favorites of all time. (Lyrics here, though they are slightly different on the second verse. It looks to me like everybody does the second verse a little differently.)
If you know that you really, really hate southern gospel music and/or country music, and that your opinion will never change, don't even bother trying to appreciate this song, because it's pretty much "that" style. But if your musical tastes are somewhat more open, I suggest that you don't watch the video I just linked (minimize it or something) but that instead you crank the volume and just listen to the music.
I have had this track on a Gaither hymns CD for four years now and only just now watched the video, so I've always known it through the medium of hearing rather than sight.
To my mind this has the interesting effect of making the cheering and enthusiasm of the audience and of the homecoming group more a part of the song. When I hear all the cheering and clapping break out before the encore, what I don't primarily think is, "Okay, there are all those pretty homecoming folks cheering for Vestal Goodman and hugging on each other. How sweet." I mean, I know that's going on at some level, and that's not a bad thing in itself, but at another level it sounds more to me like rejoicing in heaven, like the saints and angels cheering someone on in the race as he crosses the finish line.
For some reason, every time I listen to this song I think of martyrdom, even though it's really about death more generally. I think of someone actually about to be martyred, even being martyred, and believing that he is beginning his "triumph." All the indecision is behind him. I think of someone like Thomas Cranmer who was so afraid of death and allowed his fear of the flames to warp his integrity, but who then repented of that and thrust his hand into the fire. Was his burning at the stake a horrible death? Certainly it was. But it seems that Cranmer had achieved a kind of mental equilibrium there and knew that what he was doing was right. What lay behind him were his "strongest trials," all the confusion and temptation.
I myself am a great coward about pain and don't even want to think of dying a painful death for the sake of Christ. But together with my vivid imagination for horror I have a vivid imagination for the varieties of human response. And I can, just barely, imagine a kind of saint who, through all the pain, feels that he is triumphing, that he has moved past the danger point and the fear, and that he now knows that the angels are coming for him. His spirit loudly sings. He cries out in his agony and his triumph, "Come, angel band. Come and around me stand. Bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home!" And his soul goes up, rises up to God, borne by the angels who have sustained him in his hour of trial and who now take him to where the cheering of those on the other side joins the singing of his spirit.
We certainly should not glorify horror and pain for their own sake. They are evils. Soberly speaking, many have been corrupted and led away by the mere possibility, the mere fear of suffering. Moreover, much persecution goes on and on rather than ending in death for the martyr. No doubt many who suffer for Christ do not experience any rush of confidence, any sense of joy, but must merely endure through it with no sensible consolation from God and no merciful death that takes them to His presence.
But this other possibility exists as well and is good to think of, and this song allows us to imagine it--the triumph over death by means of death. O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting?
Dr. Dimble drove out to St. Anne's dissatisfied with himself, haunted with the suspicion that if he had been wiser, or more perfectly in charity with this very miserable young man, he might have done something for him. "Did I give way to my temper? Was I self-righteous? Did I tell him as much as I dared?" he thought. Then came the deeper self-distrust that was habitual with him. "Did you fail to make things clear because you really wanted not to? Just wanted to hurt and humiliate? To enjoy your own self-righteousness? Is there a whole Belbury inside you too?" The sadness that came over him had novelty in it. "And thus," he quoted from Brother Lawrence, "thus I shall always do, whenever You leave me to myself."
C.S. Lewis That Hideous Strength, p. 224
The original, from The Practice of the Presence of God, second conversation:
That when he had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault, saying to GOD, I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself; ’tis You must hinder my falling, and mend what is amiss.
Ernie Haase's signature song is "O, What a Savior," below.
One line that bothers some theological purists is "But they searched through heaven, and they found a Savior to save a poor, lost soul like me." They searched? But the Incarnation and death of Jesus were part of God's plan from all eternity past. Whaddaya mean, they searched through heaven?
I'm glad to be able to cast a little historical light on the pedigree of the search through heaven. A trope in Medieval morality plays was a scene now known as "The Debate of the Four Daughters of God," derived from Bernard of Clairvaux. The four daughters of God are Truth, Justice, Mercy, and Peace. (See Psalm 85:10, "Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.") After Adam and Eve sin, the four daughters have a falling out, with some saying that man should be simply punished and others saying that he should be given mercy. To reconcile the four daughters, God decrees the Incarnation and death of the Son. In a version which occurs in a mystery cycle known as the N-town plays or Coventry Cycle (circa 1450-1500), we find that "The Daughters put their unresolved problem to God the Son and he orders a search in heaven and earth for one who will die for Man. When this fails the Son accepts the role himself as [G]od and man concurrently."
An ancient pedigree indeed for the lyrics to a Southern gospel song, and one not lightly to be tossed away.
But still, it may be replied, ancient or not, it's all rubbish. Nobody had to search for the Son. God was never in any doubt about what He would do. This is all just an allegory, even if it was originally a medieval allegory.
Indeed. But an allegory for what?
God of His free choice decided to redeem man. Had it not been for that choice of God, mankind would have been lost. The search through heaven dramatizes that yawning chasm between what is and what might have been, that irrepressible drama of Divine freedom and human lostness. By stretching it out in the allegorical form of a search, we see just what it meant: The Son, willing but one will with the Father, eternally says "yes" to Incarnation, to suffering, to death. Without that...a blank. Dismay, disappointment, and death. A failed search, if you will. The eternal will of God has a strict internal logic, and bound up in that logic are all the "what ifs," all the drama of both Divine and human freedom. Enough drama to fill a few human allegorical plays, easily.
They searched through heaven, and they found a Savior, to save a poor, lost soul like me.
I was cooking again today (yes, you are starting to notice a pattern in these posts) and listening to a Gaither hymns CD (yep, that's another pattern). This one included the Martins singing "He Leadeth Me." They have the most amazing a capella sound.
I've seen them sing the Doxology in person at a Christmas concert a few years ago. It brought the house down. Here is that number:
And this is a great, fun song for Epiphany, which happens to be the season we are in. (Sorry that there's an ad at the beginning, but it's a good, high-quality video.)
I don't know why I don't own an entire CD and/or DVD of the Martins. I should rectify that.
Today while cooking I was listening to a hymns CD by the Booth Brothers, one of my favorite Gospel music groups. Unfortunately not nearly enough of their music is available on-line. So I can't link the version of Michael Booth singing "In the Garden." I harmonized with him while cooking. It sounded pretty, at least to me. (But I have to share a link, because it's the Booth Brothers, so here is Michael singing "Look for Me at Jesus' Feet," which is really wonderful.)
Anyway, I was thinking about "In the Garden," because it gets a certain amount of hatin' from the hymn purists. Here's how the position roughly goes: Hymns are fine provided you go way, way back. Like, to Bach. Or maybe to Wesley. But all that 19th century stuff, like Fanny Crosby and such, is more or less sentimental schlock unfit for manly singing. In such statements, inevitably "In the Garden" comes in for a whack.
Or there's an attempted tu quoque if a traditional hymn lover like yours truly makes some mention of the "Jesus is my boyfriend" tendency in all too many contemporary worship songs. "Oh, yeah! Well, what about 'In the Garden'? Huh?"
So here are the words to "In the Garden."
1.
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
(Refrain)
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
2.
He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.
Refrain
3.
I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.
Refrain
Now, as sentimental lyrics go, those beat many a Jesus is my boyfriend song hollow and then some. It's not the greatest poetry in the world, but it's perfectly respectable poetry. (How many people in 2014 even know that "discloses" can be used that way?) Moreover, the meaning is not actually romantic at all. The allusion is clearly to the book of Genesis where it is said that God walked with Adam in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. (Though here it is the early morning rather than the evening.) The impression is of a deep and close friendship but not a romantic relationship. The third verse deepens the meaning by bringing back in the voice of the world outside the garden with its worries and woes. The speaker comes to the garden to spend time with the Lord in order to be strengthened to go out and endure what must be endured. Jesus' voice, heard clearly in the quiet of the garden, will continue to sound through the voice of woe outside.
As I read the lyrics, too, I think of how many great saints of God have arisen early in the morning to pray and read the Bible. I love my own sleep, making sloth one of my besetting vices. I tried getting up early to pray for a brief time in my ardent youth but wouldn't even think of such a thing now in middle age, unless truly convinced that the eternal fate of my soul depended on it. Now I try to pray when more awake, later in the day. But many do not have that luxury.
At this point I am reminded of a scene I saw almost three years ago. My mother had passed away, and when I went to the funeral (in a different city) I stayed overnight for several days with my mother's pastor and wife. I did not sleep well with all that was on my mind, so I was up unwontedly early, sending a flurry of practical e-mails back home to my family. One morning I arose while it was still dark around 6 a.m., an hour at which I would usually be fast asleep. I saw the pastor's wife sitting quietly by a lamp with her Bible in her lap. She was a wonderful hostess and one of the sweetest, busiest, and hardest-working ladies it's been my privilege to know. (Just after her devotions, still very early, she put on her coat and went over to clean the church nursery in preparation for the next day's services.) But that time belonged to the Lord. She sat there quite still and read and prayed. I have not the slightest doubt that she was hearing His voice and gathering spiritual strength for the day ahead.
Even if we do not come to the garden literally while the dew is still on the roses, let's be sure that, at some time, we do come.
There are a lot of versions of "He Just Needs a Few Good Men" out there, some of them no doubt vocally smoother than this one, but I like the series of Gaither Vocal Band Reunion videos, so I'm picking this one. Larnelle Harris should probably tone it down a bit, but not toning it down is part of Larnelle's charm, so I'm inclined to be tolerant. The words are good. Just think of all the "fight" and "warfare" and "men" hymns that have been cut out of our hymnals, and you'll understand why this was written.
Continuing in my never-ending quest to bring more unexpected things together, here's a quotation from C.S. Lewis paired with a song by the Isaacs, one of Gospel music's most musically talented groups.
No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up.
I linked this a few years ago, but it deserves to be posted again. And who knows, maybe I've picked up a reader or two in the meanwhile who hasn't seen it before. Here are the Cathedrals (again) singing a joyful medley. (Don't knock the misspelling of "medley" in the Youtube video. It's probably part of what has kept this one hidden from the takers-down.)
The March weather around here is a bit gloomy for my taste, so here is something else to brighten it up. The Akins doing "I'll Fly Away." The complete song is on Grooveshark. Some great pickin'.
If you'd like to see a generous clip of it that you can watch, here it is. (Dig the curls on the right!)
As mentioned in a previous post, I've been wanting to draw attention to pianist Roger Bennett's testimony from an old Cathedrals concert. I believe it was recorded in 1997.
and the second part:
In hindsight, it gives one a strange feeling to realize that this is a story of healing, yet Roger later died of the cancer that he is talking about.
But here's the great thing: Roger isn't primarily telling it as a healing story! Roger himself realizes that the most important story he needs to tell isn't about the remission of the cancer. One of the most remarkable moments in the video is the point where he says that he would not give up what he has learned about God and the increased sweetness of his relationship with Christ even if it meant permanent healing. He says, "This has been the best season of my life." He says, "I wouldn't trade it. If they said, 'Roger, we'll take away the cancer, but you've gotta give up your walk with Jesus that you've gained,' I'd keep the cancer."
Thus speak the saints of God who have been refined in the fire.
Yet Roger doesn't speak from a mountaintop. He talks to the people where they are. He knows there are likely to be people in the audience who have cancer and are not in remission. To them he says that he knows what it is like to be paralyzed with fear, and his message is, "God isn't paralyzed with fear."
That testimony is the introduction to Roger's song "Don't Be Afraid." And here's that song once again.
The cry of the papacy of John Paul II was "Be not afraid!" It's an encouragement that Christians need. We're certainly not immune to fear, and especially not now in such uncertain times. My heart goes out to my brethren in the Catholic communion today as Benedict has resigned and as they await the news of who the new pope is to be.
But whether Protestant or Catholic, all of us as Christians are tempted to worry and fear at times.
In another of my oddball attempts to bring together southern gospel music and liturgical Christianity, I want to match JPII's exhortation "Be not afraid!" with this song by the justly famed late gospel pianist Roger Bennett--"Don't Be Afraid."
(Do click and watch the song soon, because many of these Youtube videos of Gaither-distributed music are being pulled or blocked, and a lot of my old gospel music post are now sadly music-less.)
This song had to grow on me. At first it seemed a little too loud and repetitive, but now it moves me greatly, perhaps because I've seen it in conjunction with Roger's testimony about his cancer, which comes on the same video. I hope to feature that in a later post.
In this post last year I embedded a 4Shared link to "I Will Be Here" by Steven Curtis Chapman. Unfortunately, 4Shared has now become subscription only, so you can't listen to that link unless you have a 4Shared account. You can find the song all over Youtube, but usually in a newer arrangement. I have a preference for the older musical arrangement, so here it is:
Chapman has said that he wrote the song in response to the shock of his own parents' divorce (which occurred after Steven was married), as a reaffirmation to his wife of the promise he had made to her at their wedding. Christian music buffs also know that Chapman's wife Mary Beth lives with clinical depression, a biographical fact that gives the lyrics even more poignancy, as does the tragedy they suffered later in the accidental death of their adopted daughter.
Chapman's expression of absolute commitment and love is the answer both to the unnatural distortions being currently foisted upon us as "love" by liberalism and also to marital cynicism, whether of the left or of the right. Anyone who has grown or has made himself, through ideology, so hard-hearted, so opposed to chivalry and to true, manly commitment and love for one's wife, that he can listen to that song and think and feel only that the speaker is setting himself up to be a "beta," a "white knight," a sucker to be hurt by some woman, has lost something deeply important. And any ideology that encourages and fosters such a loss is a deeply wicked ideology to which we should give no quarter, regardless of whether its proponents, like a stopped clock, occasionally make a true statement. This is as true for allegedly "conservative" misogyny as it is for man-hating feminism. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (And if you are a modern misogynist or wish to tell me that I need to take such people and their ideas more seriously, don't bother trying to comment.)
Meanwhile, for all you normal and happily oblivious readers who have no idea what that last paragraph was about, just enjoy the song. It's a wonderful song. It's always been a popular wedding song, of course. May many more brides and grooms shed the tears of joy and awe at the gift God has given them that the song rightly inspires.
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to watch this DVD. It's a huge, staged tribute to Gospel music arranger and producer Lari Goss by a whole slew of Gospel music artists. It was enormously fun with plenty of musical highlights, but what I chiefly want to mention here is what the existence of the project symbolizes about Gospel music--its unabashed, humble, personal thankfulness to the artists of earlier generations. This is by no means the only project that illustrates this. Ernie Haase and Signature Sound have a number of projects that show the same spirit, such as this one, in which the late, great George Younce's solo voice has been combined with backups made by Signature Sound.
The Lari Goss tribute album was the brainchild of Jim Brady of the Booth Brothers. (I'll just come out and say it: The Booth Brothers are my very favorite Gospel music group.) Jim also thought of and put together this project--a tribute to songwriter Squire Parsons. The Parsons album is composed mostly of re-releases of cuts that were already out there. The artists waived all rights to royalties so that the royalties can go to Squire, who has been battling leukemia.
Our country and our world are now increasingly in the grip of ingratitude and the hatred of the past. Everything has to be "progressive," and the universities see it as their job to teach the young to reject America's past and to join in bashing our supposed evil legacy of past -isms. The idea of receiving a torch and passing it on is oh-so-quaint. In commercial terms, of course, everything has to be new-new-new all the time. Change for its own sake.
Southern Gospel music has a different idea. It thinks of itself as constantly receiving and passing on--receiving from the artists of earlier generations and passing on to new generations. We need that idea in every area of life. We need it in literature, in theology, in art, and in cooking. We need mothers teaching daughters their favorite recipes and embroidery patterns. We need families passing on the great hymns of the faith. We need scholars who find themselves speechless with gratitude and joy as they receive the riches of scholarship of the past.
I am grateful myself for the gratitude of Gospel music. It is an encouragement to me to see the unforced and unfeigned love that Ernie has for Glen Payne and George Younce and that Gerald Wolfe (the MC in the Goss tribute), Jim Brady, and all the others have for Lari Goss.
So thanks, gentlemen. Your gratitude is itself something for which to be thankful.
'Tis true that I've been neglecting this blog, but I just haven't been sufficiently inspired to do a lot of separate posts in two place. Still, courtesy of a friend who sent me a link to a set of Thanksgiving quotations, I was reminded of some passages in Gilead which made a Thanksgiving post at W4. (What? You haven't yet read Gilead? Go and do so. Use the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to get started. Get it from your local library; they will have it. Or buy it at Barnes & Noble. If you think a little prepping might inspire you first and don't mind a small amount of plot spoiling, read my review at The Christendom Review.) John Ames, Robinson's narrator in Gilead, has a marvelous faculty for gratitude and for seeing. Perhaps I should mine Gilead every year for Thanksgiving quotations. (And thanks go to my friend and W4 colleague Jeffrey S. for recommending the book to me in the first place!)
Here's another:
There's a shimmer on a child's hair, in the sunlight. There are rainbow colors in it, tiny, soft beams of just the same colors you can see in the dew sometimes. They're in the petals of flowers, and they're on a child's skin. Your hair is straight and dark, and your skin is very fair. I suppose you're not prettier than most children. You're just a nice-looking boy, a bit slight, well scrubbed and well mannered. All that is fine, but it's your existence I love you for, mainly. Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.
I found a very pretty picture for the post at W4, but what I first wanted to do was to put in a jpeg or gif of a print by painter Timothy Jones. Perhaps this one, or this one. (Go, look.) No doubt for good and sufficient reason having to do with image copyright (my guess), it's not possible to download or embed images of Jones's lovely paintings. Their greatness lies in the way that they make you see.
Here is the Book of Common Prayer's collect for Thanksgiving Day.
O most merciful Father, who hast blessed the labours of the husbandman in the returns of the fruits of the earth; We give thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty; beseeching thee to continue thy loving-kindness to us, that our land may still yield her increase, to thy glory and our comfort; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Here is the Book of Common Prayer's wonderful general thanksgiving.
Thanks to my readers who come and read here and comment. I am thankful for so many things, and the only reason that I don't say more is because of a reluctance (in the name of Internet privacy) to go into detailed discussion of my blessings, my beloved husband and family, etc. But beyond that, I am thankful for my Internet friends, and to those of you who read this, please know that I am thankful for you. The Internet can be a blessing or a curse, but one way in which it is a blessing is to bring us friends we would not otherwise have known.
And now, just because: I'm also thankful for this video. The Hammond organ at the beginning goes straight to the happy part of my brain, and the young Ernie makes me smile.
It's been what seems like a loong time since I posted any music. So here are just a couple of things. First, a new-to-me version of "Down to the River to Pray":
While watching it I couldn't help thinking of the fact that there have always been places where being baptized is a dangerous thing. Muslims understand what baptism is and are, to put it mildly, unhappy when a Muslim decisively converts to Christianity by being baptized. It brings home both the beauty and the importance of baptism to contemplate this fact: There are people who risk their lives to be baptized. There are such people right now. (And in the United Kingdom, social workers have taken the side of the Muslims over baptism, even baptism of a teenager who was removed from her family and put into foster care.)
Here and here are two other versions of "Down to the River to Pray."
On a lighter note, here are the Hoppers singing "Shoutin' Time." I think the surprising juxtaposition of the plaintive "I Will Arise" with a country gospel version of the angels' rejoicing works well once one gets used to it.
The Booth Brothers are one of my very favorite Gospel music groups. They have a wonderful smooth sound, gentle humor, and genuine kindness. They're also very talented. The only thing is, it's been a little difficult to share their music on-line, because there are not all that many professional-grade videos of their music on Youtube. Most of them that are there are of them with the Gaither homecoming group. Here is a great one of them singing "Amazing Grace" with Russ Taff. Here is their video that goes with the song "Under God." (Note the allusions to Judge Moore in the latter.)
Still, until recently I've been rather frustrated by the relative paucity of good-quality Booth Brothers recordings available on-line. So here are a few that are now available on Grooveshark.
"While Ages Roll": This is a big fave of mine. It's classic, and they keep it moving. It took me a while to learn the melody for some reason, but now that I know it I love to sing it.
"Just Beyond the River Jordan": If you don't generally like Gospel music but do like "roots" music, you might like this one. I can picture Alison Krauss recording it. It was written by Jim Brady (a member of the Booth Brothers) and his wife Melissa.
Just Beyond the River Jordan by Booth Brothers on Grooveshark
"New Shoes": Love the jazzy sound of this. It'll cheer you up on any down day.
"I Still Believe in the Church": If you like jazz and are Catholic and can bear the thought of a song with great jazz chords about the resilience of the church, listen to this. Sure, the Booth Brothers are Protestants and don't really mean the Catholic Church. But I think it can definitely be an ecumenical song.
"Look for Me at Jesus' Feet": There are plenty of videos out there of the inimitable Michael Booth singing this one. It's so beautiful. This just happens to be my favorite recording of the ones I've heard thus far.
"Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of Tabernacle, and the sense of starving hunger."
J.R.R. Tolkien, from a letter to his son Michael, November 1, 1963
The Hound of Heaven, I would add, may have many ways of catching His quarry, not least with hunger.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world....Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him....This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:51ff)
I don't talk theology nearly as often on this blog as I think about theology. And the doctrine of Holy Communion is such a fraught one, over which many a literal war has been fought.
I believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Not being Roman Catholic, I am not required to believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and not being an Aristotelian, I'm rather glad of that, because I don't. But the pure memorialist view does not, in my opinion, do justice either to Christ's words of institution or to Christ's teaching in John 6 or to the Apostle Paul's solemn warnings to the Corinthians about Eucharistic abuses and the grave consequences thereof. At a minimum, it seems to me that these Scriptures imply that Holy Communion is a source of real spiritual life and strength--and that not only from the act of meditation on Christ's passion and atonement, but objectively: spiritual food. Beyond that I cannot and do not go--I simply know no farther to go. But, as the Ark of the Covenant was a place where the Lord God met His people and was, in that sense, present, so in the Sacrament. Here God acts. Here God meets man, objectively, on holy ground, in a physical object.
And for that I am thankful. As creatures of flesh and blood, we crave the ability to give and receive tangibly and physically. The Book of Common Prayer says of the Sacrament that Christ has "ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love." A side note, or maybe not such a side note: Edmund Spenser, when he portrays the lady Charity as married and surrounded by her babies, calls them "pledges" of her husband's love.
Here is the prayer of thanksgiving after receiving the Sacrament. It was, to add to the head-shaking, convoluted uniqueness of Anglican history, apparently written (rather than translated) by Thomas Cranmer, who died because he was unwilling to return to Rome and accept the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merits of his most precious death and passion. And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
He "assures us thereby of his favor and goodness towards us." By giving us these gifts and coming to us in them, by deigning thus to condescend to us, He continually assures us, week by week, of His favor and goodness towards us.
I am a Protestant and will never be anything else. I will never even be a high Anglican; indeed, I will no doubt always be so low as to be in danger of falling right out at the bottom. There are many times when I feel a distinct reaction against high churchmanship. What's a nice Baptist girl like me doing in a place like this? But the holy mysteries are not the sort of thing one can whip up in one's kitchen, and if (per improbable) they are to be found in the Welch's grape juice and the broken matzos passed in plates from hand to hand in the churches that teach that they are not there, this is more a matter for trembling and fear than a reason to return.
It is impossible to be insouciant about the use I am about to make of a Gospel music song. I would like to make the usual flippant remark about my on-going and ungrateful project of uniting low Protestantism, Southern Gospel, and liturgical Christianity, but it's not just so simple as that.
The following song is one I cannot listen to without thinking of the Holy Sacrament. Yet that is not what it is about, where "about" is taken accurately to refer to the intention of the author and, for that matter, the performers. Quite obviously, it is a work of evangelical, perhaps even Pentecostal, Christianity. The teaching intended is that Jesus is present wherever "two or three are gathered" and that we become especially aware of His presence when reminded of it in the gathering of believers. That is a good teaching, one worth hearing and remembering. But how can anyone who believes in the Real Presence (in any sense whatsoever) hear "Holy, holy," "holy manna," and "You can touch him" and not think of that other Presence?
"He is here, listen closely. Hear Him calling out your name. He is here, you can touch him. You will never be the same."
So, with apologies to Wes Hampton, to the Gaither Vocal band, and especially to Kirk Talley (the composer), I put my own entirely unjustified personal significance on this song and present it for what it is worth, if there should happen to be anyone among my readers who finds it useful, as a meditation before receiving Communion. "He is Here."