there’s a wideness in God’s mercy

The past few weeks the singers in the Park Avenue Youth Chorale have been working on a fantastic setting of There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy by the late Calvin Hampton.  If you are looking for a well-written, singable piece for young voices that both challenges and inspires, I highly recommend it.  It’s also an easy read for adult choirs.

The text Hampton uses is a combination of various couplets from a larger poem, Souls of Men, Why Will Ye Scatter, by Frederick William Faber.  The text is a bit dated in some respects, but there is a freshness to many of the lines, which don’t sound as if they were penned in 1862.  It has been a joy to share this piece with the choir and I only hope that these powerful words shape their understanding of God’s love and grace in their lives.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth’s failings
have such kindly judgment given.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man’s mind.
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word:
and our lives would be all sunshine
in the sweetness of our Lord.

Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?
There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior;
There is healing in His blood.

prayers of affirmation

One of the gifts of living in New York City is that I have been able to get around without a car.  I may be wanting it back when the temperature dips below-freezing (talk to me in January) but it is such a great feeling to leave the house in the morning, walk around the corner and catch a bus that takes me two blocks from work.  Or if the weather is good and I’m feeling motivated, I can take a slightly longer trek 6 blocks south and 3 avenues east to catch an express train that also drops me off two blocks from work.

I have found that this commuting time, especially on the bus, really helps to get me centered for the day.  I can sit back and let someone else worry about the traffic while I order my thoughts, pray or simply watch the world go by.  Over the past few weeks I have been reading poetry.  Two books that have proved mainstays are A Book of Psalms translated by Stephen Mitchell, and The Stream and the Sapphire, a collection of poems on religious themes by Denise Levertov.  I usually choose one piece which I read over and over again throughout the ride, letting the words and images deepen; sometimes I try to memorize it.  It’s sort of like lectio divina except the text is not always from the Bible.

Though I’ve only been here for six months, it has been a particularly intense time.  With all of the major changes and adjustments, these moments on the bus give me a simple, tangible way to affirm that God is with me, that God loves me, and that success is not necessarily measured by doing more work or pushing myself harder.  It is so easy for me to forget this, and when I do, I find myself scattered and distracted, fragmented and stretched in far too many directions. But when I take the time to come back to my center, to savor and memorize words that affirm who I am and whose I am, I gain a fresh perspective.  I find myself able to breathe more deeply and to feel at home in my body.  I often feel a deep sense of joy and peace.  And I would like to hope that this time helps me to be more focused and whole in my life and in my ministry in the church.

Psalm 16
Unnamable God, I feel you
with me at every moment.
You are my food, my drink,
my sunlight, and the air I breathe.
You are the ground I have built on
and the beauty that rejoices my heart.
I give thanks to you at all times
for lifting me from confusion,
for teaching me in the dark
and showing me the path of life.
I have come to the center of the universe;
I rest in your perfect love.
In your presence there is fullness of joy
and blessedness forever and ever.

- from A Book of Psalms, selected and adapted from the Hebrew by Stephen Mitchell

The Avowal
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

- from The Stream and the Sapphire by Denise Levertov

peace

It has been a busy few weeks so not much time to blog.  However, today I feel a need to post a short entry as there are a few things on my mind.

This is my first September 11 as a New Yorker and it is becoming clear that the wounds from that horrible attack are still tender.  There was a service of remembrance at the World Trade Center site this morning; around the city I have seen gatherings at fire departments and other civic buildings.  Of course the media are covering it extensively and newspaper headlines on the sidewalk are yet another reminder.

This Sunday, our congregation will offer a Litany of Peace and sing the hymn “This Is My Song”.  It has quickly become my favorite patriotic hymn, quite simply because it is does not have a flag-raising, us-over-all sentiment.  (In other words, it probably wouldn’t have been sung at the Republican convention a few weeks back.  Sorry for delving into politics (not the intention of this blog) but every time the crowd broke into that “USA” chant I wanted to cry.)  Instead this hymn helps us to remember that others love their country as much as we do ours, and we are called to pray for peace!  I’m including the words of the hymn below, which are so effective sung to the tune, Finlandia, drawn from Jean Sibelius’ gorgeous tone poem of the same name.

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

This evening I also have the honor of being part of a Concert for Peace at Merkin Hall sponsored by Musicians for Harmony. On the first anniversary of September 11, this talented group of musicians offered a concert to promote peace, unity, and cross-cultural dialogue. It was such a successful and healing experience that they have continued annually. A small group of actors and instrumentalists from Compagnia Colombari are performing excerpts from Walt Whitman’s epic poem “Song of Myself”. It is a thrilling combination of spoken and sung text that lifts up Whitman’s expansive vision of a what it means to be an American. My friend and the director of the project, Karin Coonrod, calls his poem a declaration of interdependence.  In Whitman’s poetic imagination, all of humanity is connected and thrives on the unending diversity that is around us.

One particular excerpt from the piece touched me in rehearsal this afternoon so I’m posting it. The last line is especially poignant when connected to the image of the collapsing towers. I don’t mean to offer some sort of cheap reflection but I almost hear Whitman encouraging us to move beyond that day, as painful and staggering as it was, onward and outward into widening circles of connection, trust, and love for all of humanity.

A child said, What is the grass?
Fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?….
I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child…..
the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is the uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means,
Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff,
I give them the same,
I receive the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and from
offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward…and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.