Park Avenue Christian is blessed to have Alice Parker and singers from Melodious Accord recording sacred choral music in our sanctuary this week.  It is such a gift to have your work day full of beautiful melodies, and Alice’s settings of hymns and spirituals are always so thoughtful and well-written, with great attentiveness to the color and character of the text.

The piece that is running through my head this morning is an elegant versification of Psalm 23, “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” from her Eight Appalachian Mountain Hymns.   I am busy, busy, busy these next two weeks, especially with many details before I head to Italy in early June, where I will be participating in a workshop of a new piece based on paintings of Mary, Jesus’ mother (more about that soon.)  While listening to this hymn (especially the last stanza), I was reminded that I can see all of these things to do as work or I can see them as an occasion to praise.  Even in the minute and sometimes infuriating details, I can thank the God who has given the gift of life and who sustains and tends to me always and everywhere.

And as work emerges out of a spirit of praise and thanksgiving it can and will reorient and redefine my priorities, values, and time frame. So that, even in the midst of many important and time-consuming tasks, I will find the rest and security of a beloved child of God.  Then the work can flow because my being is focused on faithfulness to God rather than overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, or bound up by perfectionism or fear of failure.  I will know what and how to do because I have taken to time to be.

My Shepherd will supply my need:
Jehovah is His Name;
In pastures fresh He makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
When I forsake His ways,
And leads me, for His mercy’s sake,
In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death
Thy presence is my stay;
One word of Thy supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread;
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Thy house be my abode,
And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.
-Issac Watts