psalms – The Raynville Rambler

I rejoiced when I heard them say

Liturgical procession, Kiev, Ukraine.
Creative Commons / Public domain

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is a setting of Psalm 122 (121 in the Catholic numbering) by Bernadette Farrell, “I rejoiced when I heard them say”. What did they say? “Let us go to the house of our God”. This text, an obvious choice for a church dedication, religious procession or other celebration, has been set by various composers as a choir anthem, but Farrell’s version is a metrical setting of the psalm, presumably intended for congregational singing. The five verses are a close rendering of original (at least, very similar to other prose translations) with (as John will no doubt point out) no attempt at rhyming.

The chorus is not taken from the psalm but takes the phrase “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” in verse 6 of the psalm (rendered more inclusively in verse 4 of the hymns as “For the peace of all nations, pray”) and uses the Hebrew word ‘shalom’ for ‘peace’, so we get “Shalom, shalom, the peace of God be here. Shalom, shalom, God’s justice be ever near”. Justice is one of Bernadette Farrell’s recurring themes.

The hymn would therefore be suitable, not only for a festival, but also for any act of worship where God’s peace and justice are a focus.

As the deer pants for the water

(c) Henry Mulligan
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Today’s song from Sing Praise is quite familiar, as it was a favourite of the Scargill community when I was living there about twenty years ago (and of other churches around that time). It’s “As the deer pants for the water” by Martin Nystrom, and the copyright actually dates back to 1983.

Most of the words are taken from the Psalms, though it’s not really a setting of any one psalm. The opening lines of the first verse are from Ps.42:1-2, the reference to wanting God “more than gold or silver” seems to be from Ps.119:72, and “the apple of your eye” in the same verse is from Ps.17:8 as well as being familiar from the service of Compline. The refrain, “You alone are my strength and shield” again isn’t a direct quotation but may be inspired by the refrain of Ps.115.

The last verse, “You’re my friend and my brother, even though you are a king” doesn’t seem to be from the Psalms at all, but is rather the Church’s understanding of Christ, who is both the reigning power of the universe and at the same time present as a companion and guide, and who calls all who follow him his sisters and brothers.

What made it such a hit, I think, is partly the memorable tune, but also the sense that in singing his praises as one whose friendship and support are desirable, we are drawn closer to Jesus. It’s a sort of love song without being too sentimental.

Praise the Lord of Heaven

Gaia at Wakefield Cathedral
image from Diocese of Leeds website

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “O Praise the Lord of Heaven” by Timothy Dudley-Smith. The set tune (Vicar’s Close) was unfamiliar, but John sang it to the better known tune (or one of them) to “At the Name of Jesus”, which fits the mood of the hymn well.

The words are based on Psalm 148, one of the most positive psalms, in that unlike many of them there is no lamenting one’s problems or condemnation of enemies, just praise of God. The hymn follows the psalm in calling on all levels of creation to praise their maker, from angels to stars and moon, oceans, fields, all manner of animals (but not plants: did the Hebrews not consider plants to be living beings?) as well as people at all levels of society from princes to maidens, old and young. Even the smallest creatures and the people at the bottom of society’s pyramid are invited “High above all heavens [to] magnify his name!”

Later this week I intend to visit Wakefield Cathedral to visit their temporary art installation ‘Gaia’, a 7-metre diameter globe covered with satellite imagery of the entire earth’s surface. Part of Wakefield Council’s wider ‘Festival of the Earth’, it’s intended to stimulate reflection and prayer on “awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.” I think that’s what the Psalmist was getting at. Although humanity’s understanding of the nature of the created world and its relationship to its maker has developed a long way since then, the basic idea still holds true, that if we understand ourselves to be part of a much wider created universe, in such a way that our actions affect the well-being of other creatures and even the weather, we will consider those actions more carefully. And at the present time that is more vital than ever.

Sing of the Lord’s goodness

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Sing of the Lord’s goodness” by Ernest Sands and dated 1981. I have come across it before, but thought it was by Geoff Weaver. It’s a traditional style hymn of four verses with chorus, but the music is far from traditional in its use of syncopation and unusual 12.7.12.7 metre.

Although not stated to be a psalm setting, the last verse is clearly taken from Psalm 150 with its call to praise God with singing, trumpet, lute, harp, cymbals and dancing. Nowadays, guitar and drums are far more common than lutes and cymbals, but the principle is unchanged. The chorus continues the theme of praising God with music. This just makes me realise how much I have missed the congregational singing in church with Covid restrictions. A few times during the spring and summer we’ve sung a final hymn outdoors after the service, but so far that’s all.

Some of the other words (verses 1-3) are at least in the style of the Psalms even if not direct quotations. God’s mercy and everlasting love, faithfulness, power, honour and splendour are certainly found there, also his ability to give “courage in our darkness, comfort in our sorrow”. Verse 2 is clearly referring to Jesus: “Risen from the snares of death, his word he has spoken, one bread he has broken, new life he now gives to all”.

Lord, you have searched me and known me

Today’s song from Sing Praise is “Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us” which is a chant from the Taizé community. Like many of their chants it takes the form of a repeated refrain or ostinato to be sung by the congregation, and a series of verses to be sung over them by a soloist (cantor).

The verses in this instance are selected from Psalm 139, “Lord, you have searched me and known me”. The selected verses remind us that God is everywhere, and knows all that we do, however we might think we are beyond his reach: whether asleep or awake, at home or far away, by day or by night. This can of course be either a scary or a comforting thought, depending on whether we are secretly ashamed of our behaviour, or in difficulty and really needing his support.

The last verse is “Search me, God, and know my heart, and lead me in the everlasting way”. The purpose of God’s all-knowing perception is not to punish us for the things of which we are ashamed, but gently to correct, or to direct us when we are uncertain which way to take in life.

The ostinato or refrain is not taken from the psalm, but is perhaps a Christian response to the third of the verses (Ps. 139:11) about the darkness being as light to God: “Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let not my darkness speak to me. Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let my heart always welcome your love”. The darkness, here, may (depending on our circumstances) represent depression, doubt or uncertainty, rather than a conviction of sin. Whatever its nature, Jesus can bring light to the situation.

O Lord, you are the centre of my life

Today’s song from Sing Praise is “O Lord, you are the centre of my life”, a cantor-and-chorus setting of Psalm 16 by Paul Inwood. I found the tune rather difficult to sing, but that may just be a matter of unfamiliarity, as the style is very much that of the Catholic rather than Anglican use of the Psalms. Indeed an online biography of Paul Inwood confirms him as a Catholic composer.

There are three verses for cantor, being fairly close paraphrases of verses 1, 2 and 7-11 of the psalm. The psalmist asks God to be his refuge, praises him for his counsel (guidance), and asks to be shown the path of life and to be rescued from death. The chorus is “O Lord, you are the centre of my life: I will always praise you, I will always serve you, I will always keep you in my sight” which does not appear to be a quotation from the same psalm but complements it. God works with people on a covenant basis: he offers his gifts of grace (such as protection, guidance and eventually eternal life) and in return expects our praise and humble service.

O God, be gracious to me in your love

Today’s hymn from “Sing Praise” is “O God, be gracious to me in your love”, a setting of Psalm 51 by Ian Pitt-Watson using a tune by the 17^th century composer Orlando Gibbons.

Psalm 51 as a piece of music is best known in Allegri’s setting of the Latin text known by its first word “Miserere”. It’s a favourite choice as a “romantic” piece of music, which is rather ironic. The words are a confession of a serious sin, the nature of which is not specified, and a commentary I consulted suggests that it was probably written after the Exile rather than before (as evidenced by the last two verses about sacrifices in the Temple), but it’s traditionally associated with King David being confronted about his adultery with Bathsheba as recounted in 2 Samuel chapters 11-12. ‘Adultery’ is itself something of a euphemism here, as she wasn’t in a position to refuse his advances, and that sin was compounded by the arranged killing of her husband when the king found he had got her pregnant.

The words as set here are quite a close rendering of other English translations of the psalm, with a regular metre (I believe iambic pentameter, but I stand to be corrected by literary experts) without attempting to force rhymes. It could therefore be used quite easily as a said version of the psalm rather than as a song, and the theme of confession does of course fit well with the discipline of Lent. What can we learn from it?

The line that stands out for me is “Against you, Lord, you only have I sinned”. This sounds as if I (or David or whoever wrote the psalm) have not actually sinned against anyone else, which seems to fly in the face of experience: while some ‘sins’ may technically be only against God (such as pride, for example) others such as taking your neighbour’s wife as your own and having her husband murdered are obviously offences against those people and those close to them. What might this mean? As one commentary puts it, “sin is ultimately a religious concept rather than an ethical one” – breaking human laws relating to marriage and killing (or any other law) can be dealt with by secular courts, but sin at its heart is falling short of what God expects of us as humans “made in his image”, that is to live in harmony with other people and with nature, and for that we are answerable to a higher authority. And admitting guilt in court is not the same as admitting to God that I am a broken person needing his mercy. If this is David’s story, as King he was probably above the secular law anyway, and it was only when the prophet Nathan turned the facts into a parable about a pet lamb that David’s defences broke down and he showed contrition.

The other point is that for confession to be meaningful there must be a genuine desire both to be forgiven and to change – “wash me and make me whiter than the snow” … “create a clean and contrite heart in me”, to use the translation given here. The final verse of the hymn includes lines that are used at Evensong in the church of England: “O God, make clean our hearts within us, and take not thy Holy Spirit from us.” “Heart” in the Bible tends to refer to the will or desire, rather than emotions, so this is about asking the Spirit to give us right intentions.

Hear me, O Lord, in my distress

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Hear me, O Lord, in my distress”, a setting by David Preston of Psalm 143. As I noted yesterday, the Psalms, especially those of lament, feature prominently in Lent.

Unlike many of the psalms that start in complaint and end in praise, this one has a different arc. Certainly it starts in desperation (“Hear me in my distress, give ear to my despairing plea!”) and also asks God not to judge the one who prays (v.2, “yet judge me not, for in your sight no living soul is counted just”). Verses 3 and 4 are marked as optional, but it’s only in verse 4 that there is a sign of hope as the singer recalls good times past (“Days long vanished I review, I see the orders of your hands”) which would seem to make that a verse not to be omitted, as a pivotal point. After that, in v.5 the singer calls again on God to answer without delay and asks “let this day bring word of your unfailing grace”.

But that unfailing grace lies in the future, not the present, for in the last two verses it’s back to the cry to be saved from one’s pursuers, for one’s life to be preserved and set free from oppression. There are other psalms where the singer seems to end by thanking God for deliverance already granted, but not on this occasion. That’s how life is: faith in God may bring relief from a sense of fear and hopelessness, but to be honest there’s no guarantee of that relief coming automatically or immediately. Faith is about knowing there is a bigger story, a higher reality, an eventual triumph of good over evil, rather than every small battle in life going ‘our way’.

The musical setting is Vaughan-Williams’ “This is the truth sent from above”. The tune was familiar to me, therefore easy to pick up. The G minor setting suitably reflects the plaintive words of the hymn, although the final chord of each verse sounds more positive note that doesn’t really find an echo in the words. No doubt John can comment on that.

O Lord, my heart is not proud

With apologies, I’m running a day late here. The song I chose for Shrove Tuesday (16 February) was “O Lord, my heart is not proud” by Margaret Rizza. This is a short setting of verses from Psalm 131, and I chose it because it is a psalm of turning back to God, which is very much the theme of this day in the Christian calendar. It’s short enough to be quoted in full:

O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor haughty my eyes.
I have not gone after things too great, nor marvels beyond me.
Truly I have set my soul in silence and peace;
at rest, as a child is in its mother’s arms,
so is my soul. (translation copyright 1963 The Grail)

There is no attempt here to force the words into a set rhythm or rhyming pattern, this is essentially a prayer to be reflected on, equally well spoken as sung. It reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:6, “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” It’s a reminder that in prayer we do not come to God boasting of our achievements, but rather aware of our limitations. Also that the ideal attitude for prayer is to seek silence in God’s presence and to relax into conversation with him (hopefully not falling asleep, but I don’t believe God minds if we fall asleep in his presence, any more than a mother minds if her child sleeps in her arms).

Bless the Lord, my soul

The song for today is a chant from the French Taize community, and is (as John points out) a setting of Psalm 103. The setting in Sing Praise includes nine short chants for solo cantor, each intended to be sung over a choir singing the 4-part refrain. The refrain is often used on its own: “Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life”.

That last phrase intrigues me – “who leads me into life”. I have also seen a version of the same song giving it as “who rescues me from death”, both of them probably deriving from verse 4 of the original Psalm, “who delivers your life from the Pit” (NRSV). I happen to have a Taize prayer book so I looked to see how the community translates the psalm for their own worship: the relevant phrase is “qui rachète à la fosse ta vie” – literally, “who buys back from the ditch your life”. The translation in this English version of the song puts that idea into one of the cantor’s verses: “The Lord is forgiveness and redeems our life from the grave”.

All these carry the same idea, not yet the full Christian concept of Jesus dying to redeem us from our sins, but a foretaste of that, a germ of the idea. Without God’s blessing we would all end up in the ‘pit’ of death or Sheol – the old Hebrew concept of the afterlife as neither heaven nor hell but an undesirable, eternal nothingness or meaninglessness. A pit is a hole that is too deep to climb out of unaided, as the biblical Joseph found. To believe in God and accept his blessing is to accept a hand up out of the pit, to find meaning where there was none, to find eternal life instead of merely existence, to receive (as Jesus would later put it) “life in all its fulness”. Which is presumably why the refrain uses the more positive interpretation: if we are bought back from death, then by implication we are indeed led into life.

Imagery like this seems pertinent at this time of Covid lockdown and isolation. Today is the tenth and last day of our isolation at home, and even though the freezing weather has not been conducive to going out walking much anyway, it will be good to get out tomorrow, if only to the shop with a mask on. I can get out of this little pit and get on with life in the limited way currently allowed, and look forward to a ‘new normal’ at a later time. For those who live alone all the time and cannot get out on their own, for those in prison or trapped in controlling relationships, or in unrelieved pain, it must be far worse. For some people, even death may seem like a positive way out, and God is the only one who can lift them up.

The Christian promise is that the reality is much better than we might dare to hope. If we give ourselves to God, then we can find peace among the troubles of this life, and know that beyond death is not mere existence in a pit but a new creation where fullness of life will be something more than we can now imagine. Bless the Lord, my Soul!