I've said before that if I don't tear up a little in church on Sunday mornings I figure it hasn't been a complete worship experience. Here's what did it to me this morning. At the Presentation (where the gifts of bread, wine and money are brought up front) the congregation sang "This Is My Song." The video below is the best rendition I could find - we sang it a little more upbeat than this.
The lyrics (below) are by Lloyd Stone, whom I've seen described as "a more-or-less obscure poet" who wrote it in the interval between WWI and WWII when he was 22 years old. The music is the hymn version of Jean Sibelius' "Finlandia."
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 ev'rywhere as blue as mine.
O
hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their
land and for mine.
- Words: Lloyd Stone (1934)
Music: Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing that,Jim. On the way home from church I told John that two songs today were especially meaningful to me: This is My Song and O for a World. Sending you thoughts of peace on this unusual day.
I wish you all could have sung it from where I did at 9:00 ... behind the altar with dozens of little people looking up at you. And I was so full of a sense of gratitude in recongizing that they are a generation of children born since the 9/11 we were commemorating ... and they are growing up in a community of faith that will never tell them their faith or their country are "better" somehow than all the other children in their human family.
I was having post-church breakfast at Wolfe Burgers with extended family and one daughter said that had been her favorite moment in the service, too. The kids, who'd sung along fervently, agreed. It was a teaching moment when we could talk about the words being written between two world wars, so long ago in 6- to 12-year-old minds, and carrying such meaning in the context of today's service.
Post a Comment