As a young pastor in a rural community, I participated in a community Easter service where the hymn Low in the Grave He Lay was being sung. To my pompously theological, liturgical and musical ears, it seemed the worst kind of hymnic schmaltz. I couldn’t wait for it to end. As it ended, an old farmer standing next to me turned to me, his face wet with tears, and said, “Pastor, isn’t that the most beautiful hymn you ever heard?” My shame knew no bounds, and I learned that morning that meaning, like beauty, like most things, lies in the ears, eyes, and heart of the beholder, the singer, the listener. (Craig)
On Sunday mornings, we celebrate my hens’ over-enthusiastic laying by scrambling up masses of their eggs for whoever’s there (you’re invited), and chowing them down while listening to Andy Griffith, Tennessee Ernie Ford, or Wintley Phipps belt out old country and gospel hymns. We sing along, and I’m transported back in time to the tiny Methodist country church that I grew up in, a prototype for “There’s a Church in the Valley by the Wildwood,” “no lovelier spot in the dale.”
As a child, those old hymns sank deep into my very being, and these many years later, I can still remember all the words to all the hymns, even though now I find it difficult to remember my own phone number. Vivid memories of a chubby five year old, earnest little face turned up toward the picture of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane that hung in the front of the church, loudly shouting out the words to the old hymn “Rescue the Perishing,” (only to my five year old sensibility, the words I shouted out were “Rescue the parachute, care for the dying . . .” which I thought, still do, made a lot more sense) . . . To me the hymns were rich stories of daring adventures, brave and courageous explorers, daring deeds, people in trouble ( all those “tossing billows” and “raging tempests”). And you know what? They still move me deeply, and at the end, may I be blessed enough to be ushered into the Mystery with the words when peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul, ringing in my ears.
I may not interpret the hymns quite so literally as I once did, but lyrics such as “I come to the garden alone;” “abide with me, fast falls the eventide, the darkness deepens . . .;” “shall we gather at the river, where bright angel feet have trod . . .;” still have the power to move me deeply, especially since after almost 72 years, I realize what it means to be “alone” in the garden; I know how it feels to experience the “darkness” deepening; and I realize the exquisitely sharp poignancy of imagining once again being at the “river” with those I’ve loved and lost.
So many of the hymns that I love because I grew up singing them have been and are being discarded or re-worded (some might say watered-down, made more politically correct), because they are too militaristic, too exclusively male, or theologically questionable according to modern trends. And I guess that’s okay. You sure don’t want anybody offended in church. Do we? What if (magical words, ‘what if’) lyrics like “onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,” meant being fierce in embracing all others, regardless of differences, with tenderness, reconciliation, and love?
Perhaps hymns-as-story-and-poetry are a better medium to hear, to hear and even celebrate this music as demonstrative of the wonderful and awesome absurdity of our faith. Spirit comes to us in a myriad of ways, and that’s okay. I know people have been deeply hurt or wounded within the church — consider the fact that we even have “Just As I Am” Recovery/Support groups (for those of you not from a more fundamental persuasion, “Just As I Am” is an old and rather emotionally-manipulative “invitational” hymn, often sung at the end of revival services). Literal interpretations can sometimes cause a great deal of pain.
Perhaps sometimes we mistake metaphor for reality. Consider as an example, hymn singing in the lives of African American slaves, who used their music not only as an expression of deep and sustaining faith, but to express their values and solidity, and at times as a strategy to communicate in their struggle for freedom. If a slave heard this song: “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home . . .,” he or she would know he had to be ready to escape, as a “band of angels” were coming to take him to freedom.
As for me, my love affair with hymns will always be about Story. I can’t begin to share the words to all these hymns here, but look them up sometime ( or maybe you even remember them), and let yourself marvel at the stories implicit in their lyrics — stories that have to do with our journeys, both inner and outer — even the titles tell a story: Abide With Me; Blest Be the Tie That Binds; God Be With You Til We Meet Again; I Come To the Garden Alone; Master the Tempest is Raging (now there’s a great one depicting the journey inward with lyrics like “with anguish of spirit, I bow in my grief today”); Count Your Blessings; Rescue the Perishing; Shall We Gather at the River; Blessed Assurance and on and on.
When I was a child, my sister and I would sit for hours at the old upright piano, belting out hymns, (and if Mother wasn’t listening, sheet-music favorites of a slightly questionable nature like Pistol Packin’ Mama). The following few lyrics are from one that we didn’t know about then, but one of the ones that I have grown to love. Perhaps the writer meant the evocative descriptive phrases to speak of heaven, but for me, it is a “story” of possibility, of what could be, both in the outer world, and within each one of us:
. . . I saw the holy city beside the tideless sea; the light of God was on the streets, the gates were opened wide, and all who would might enter, and no one was denied.