Praises Abound: Hymns and Meditations for Lent and Easter - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0898698677 ISBN 13: 9780898698671

Publisher: Church Publishing, 2012

Synopsis

These hymns and meditations are authentic and honest reflections of seminary students who have since become priests, musicians, and educators throughout the church.  The collection is made up of selected works by students of Dr. Schulz-Widmar during his thirty-year teaching career at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest (ETS), Austin, Texas.

It is organized for devotional reading for Lent and the early Easter season, readings are designated for specific days.

About this title

About the Author

Russell Schulz -Widmar, recently retired ETS professor, is former president of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. As a member of the Standing Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church, he chaired the hymn music committee for The Hymnal 1982. He has lectured and published widely on contemporary hymn-writing in the United States.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Praises Abound

Hymns and Meditations for Lent & Easter Week from the Seminary of the Southwest

Church Publishing

Copyright © 2012 the contributors
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89869-867-1

Contents

Chapter One

Ash Wednesday

The Glory of These Forty Days

Meditation based on "The glory of these forty days," Hymnal 1982: 143

The glory of these forty days we celebrate with songs of praise; for Christ through whom all things were made, himself has fasted and has prayed.

We begin our Lenten days with ash on our foreheads and with the solemn reminder of our mortality: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Then, as Lent unfolds, we come to the singular Christian understanding: our frail bodies are meant for glory. Our bodies are the habitat of glory, of God's own radiant presence, revealed in Jesus. Our Friend and Companion in the way shares this embodied human life, and lives it from the inside out. He knows hunger, thirst, fatigue. He chooses fasting and prayer. He recognizes both the limitations of the body and its divine origin.

How can this be? We are surrounded by images that tell us the body is a commodity. Or that the body is nothing more than a means for gulping down food or booze or chemicals. We fail to see the body as the handiwork of God, as our own particular "text"—a little gospel of the good news of God's vital and eternal creating, as close as our breath, as intimate as the hand of a master artisan.

"The glory of these forty days" is precisely this: the reminder that when we fast and pray, we follow in the steps of Jesus. We act on the wild invitation of the Holy Spirit to enter the wilderness of Lent. We engage in fasting and prayer. We let go of the illusion of needing so much. We walk into the spare, open space of Lent and we begin to live in a clarity of body, mind, and spirit. We do so as a company, as the gathered community. We do so in the company of Jesus the Christ, "through whom all things are made." The Christ is with us, and we with him. Strength and grace will mark this journey. Each day of Lent potentially resounds with the Word speaking in and through our cells, our marrow, our muscles and sinew. Each day of Lent, limned with glory, invites us to cast aside illusions that we are self-sufficient or self-made. Each day of Lent calls us to venerate the image and likeness of God in the bodies of others, recognizing the sacred presence of Jesus in his various disguises.

This hymn reminds us of the gifts to be found in the way of Lent. We become a pilgrim people, walking together through the fasting and praying. We remember together the great stories of Scripture—Moses, Daniel, and Jesus each knowing their need and their weakness. We recall that the wilderness is the scriptural place of presence. The hymn, as it sings in us, brings us to adoration. We sing together of our God-given desire to love God, neighbor, and ourselves through these Lenten disciplines. As we fast, we recall those whose tables have no food, and those whose labor places food before us. We remember those bodies emaciated by famine, those eyes dulled by war, those minds battered by the fearful trek of the refugee. As we pray, we are knit together anew as the Body of Christ, Bread of Life. As our bodies and our spirits are gently refashioned and reclaimed by the Love who will not let us go, we discover anew that each wilderness is full of divine presence, full of possibility, full of that sacred Life that leads us to fast and pray with joy.

—Mary C. Earle

2nd Day of Lent: Thursday

Dame Julian's Vision

Refrain

    God holds the world, a hazelnut,
    and keeps us safe in hand.
    The love of God for each of us
    will every care withstand.

      Sometimes our lives are troubled,
    not tranquil or serene.
    But then dear Christ, our Mother,
    makes all our spirits clean.

      When Julian saw Christ's passion,
    she heard our savior say:
    God's everlasting mercy
    will never fade away!

      When pain and sorrow threaten
    as Julian did foretell,
    remember Christ's sweet promise
    that "all things will be well."

Words: Winifred Mitchell © 2006 Possible Tune: Balm in Gilead

3rd Day of Lent: Friday

Journey to Christ

Meditation based on "I bind unto myself today," Hymnal 1982: 370

I sat on my sister's bed, feeling as bleak as the winter day outside. The gray, chilly winters in northwest Florida can fill one's marrow with dampness, and my bones were fairly dripping.

I sat alone. Gloomy. Bereft of comfort. The comfort of central heat: who could afford that anymore? The comfort of companionship: my sister had taken my son to a movie and the rest of our roommates were long scattered to the neighborhood malls.

My only company was the leftover rain dripping from the gutters and the smells emitted from my sister's old mattress—mildew and perspiration. Poor company for a lonely widow of twenty-four.

I sighed and thought about Larry, my husband, also gone. Gone to death. As usual, I had put on one of his T-shirts that morning—mostly all I wore on the weekends were a pair of softly faded jeans and Larry's T-shirts. I couldn't seem to part with them—it was too much like parting with him, so I kept them and wore them, notwithstanding the accusation of my four-year-old son some months prior. Pointing to my closet, he'd said firmly, "I know you have some dresses in there!" Well, he was right, but who was I going to dress up for?

I picked up one of the magazines my sister favored— Good Housekeeping or Redbook—and flicked a particularly skeletal looking model's bare thigh. "I know you have some fat in there," I grumbled, hating her skinny, airbrushed self. Sigh.

"Deborah," I asked myself, "did anyone ever have a better fix on self-pity than you do right now?" Probably not, I decided. Flipping to another page, I stared at an article's title asking if a marriage could be saved. Huh. Well, mine can't. I tossed the magazine on the floor beside the bed and flopped back onto the pillows, tears streaming down my face.

Clink-clank. Ah, the mailman. Another big sigh and I was off the bed, wrapping a wool shawl around my shoulders. At least I could fetch the mail and distribute it to the roomies—that would take up some of this dreary time on my hands.

Among the junk mail, circulars, and letters for the household I saw a legal- sized envelope with my name and address typed on it. Great. Another Larry admirer telling me how sorry they are. Not as sorry as I am, I thought.

I plopped onto my sis's bed again and slid my thumb under the envelope's seal and extracted a poorly typed, smudged piece of onion skin.

What's this?

I began to read:

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Dearest Deborah,

I don't have any money as usual, but I wanted to send you a present. This was the only one I could find that describes how I feel for us all, but especially for you and Lance in our losing Larry.

It was signed with love from my cousin Carla. It was the best present I have ever received, and it helped to change my life.

—Deborah Kempson-Thompson

For another meditation on this hymn, see CALL TO MINISTRY, p. 19.

4th Day of Lent: Saturday

O Lord, to You Our Souls Are Raised

Paraphrase of Psalm 25

    O Lord, to you our souls are raised;
    show us your paths of love and faith.
    Forgive us, Lord, our sins of youth;
    teach us and lead us in your truth.

    Our feet are plucked out of the net;
    your mercy we shall not forget.
    We trust in you all the day long;
    remove our shame and make us strong.

    To you, O friend, we turn our eyes;
    have pity when you hear our cries;
    When sorrows of our hearts increase,
    deliver us and grant us peace.

Words: Lori Johnson © 2003 Possible Tune: The Eighth Tune

First Sunday in Lent

Taste and See

Meditation based on "Taste and see," Lift Every Voice and Sing II: 154

Last Sunday I attended the jazz mass at St. James Episcopal Church with my family. Though I have always enjoyed worship there, I was moved in a different way with the addition of the musicians whose gifts were shared as a blessing to all of us present. I was especially struck by the postcommunion hymn, "Taste and see," as it seemed to create a nexus for me in my life: partaking of bread and wine at the Eucharist, community, and my role as a physician. It was this last identity to which my mind was drawn as I pondered the physicality of tasting and seeing. These are sensual verbs; these are verbs of bodily function, and they created for me a link to my Tuesdays spent in an exam room in a Killeen, Texas, family practice clinic, completing my commitments as a clinician. The activities of my Tuesday afternoons and evenings have become an integral part of each week—it is part of the ordered agenda of life for me, and I am thankful. I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in people's lives in such an intimate way. I connect with people as they entrust to me their stories of, among other things, difficulty swallowing, problems conceiving, and anxiety associated with a breast lump newly found.

Beyond the usual clinical analysis of history and physical exam, beyond the education and reassurance provided to patients whose healing requires these medicinal arts, I am drawn to the intrigue of weaving these experiences—and explanations of their meaning—into the context of this hymn and, on a broader level, of worship in general.

The body and the Body

As a physician I am, among other things, a physiologist: I am a student of the function of the body. In this vein, function or physiology is an active verb, just as "taste" and "see" are. Liturgy, likewise, is active; it connotes work of the Body in its many parts.

Water

The human body is three-fourths water. It requires this much substrate for cellular functions to occur homeostatically, but, as important, it is water which, through its hydrostatic pressure, allows us to take form and even to stand erect. Without it, integrity of organs, including the skin, would cease to function as we know them to function. Similarly, the Body is hydroponic in nature: sacramentally, scripturally, and diaconally. It needs water to survive.

The story of the Body is rich in its wetness: primordial waters of creation, the water of the grave, Red Sea waters parting, water gushing from the rock in the wilderness, the immersion of Naaman in water, the water of Mary's womb, the Jordan River of crossing over and of baptism, the living water promised the woman at the well in Samaria, the healing pool of Bethsaida, the water gushing from the side of Christ on the cross, and the waters of Paradise. Our baptismal identity depends on the water: it is creative, it is womblike, it is mysterious, it is powerful, it is healing and life-giving, it is redemptive, it is passionate. This Body whose life is derived from water thus serves, cleanses, refreshes, and is relational.

Nourishment

In addition to water, the body requires caloric sustenance to energize the physiologic norms of the body. We find pleasure, comfort, even sensuality in the tastes and textures of food. We use it as a substrate for the functional nourishment of the body, but also for its communal properties.

The Body nourishes itself (and, indeed, all its parts) with the meal at the Table, but its claim is a seat at the greater family feast. The family, over food and wine, shares story, prayer, laughter, and sorrow anamnestically. The stories told have a common theme: God's provision of nourishment in all its forms. The stories are again rich in their nutrient power: the Passover meal; the feast told in Miriam's song; just enough manna and quail in the desert; a Promised Land of milk and honey; meal enough for Elijah, a widow, and her son; a wedding feast that saved the best wine for last; feeding 15,000 (when women and children are included); a feast for a prodigal son on his return; a last supper for and with friends. And perhaps most satisfying—a meal with a stranger at Emmaus, which in its glorious revelation relieved a hunger in two men who were famished by their recent loss of a dear friend and mentor.

In all these ways, through water, wine, and food, we taste and are able to see the goodness of God.

Hunger

For the physical body, hunger is an awareness, originating in nerve stimulation in the midbrain, which is perceived as a craving or even a noxious pain throughout the body. Its effects are systemic and, in extreme deprivation, it spares no part of the body the consequences of malnutrition. It is disruptive to the whole. The body in a hungered state simply wastes and withers, unable to maintain even basic bodily function.

Similarly, the Body that fails to find nourishment as depicted above will cease to experience its normative physiology. The hungry Body operates on a principle of scarcity incongruent with the real abundance found in God's creation. Parts of the Body take what they feel they need to function. Indeed, they hoard out of fear and do not share. And the Body still breaks down because its synergy is lost. And in the profoundly ironic crossing of symbols, the Body dies and desiccates without food and water fully shared. What started as dust returns to dust, and all seems lost.

New Life

But all is not lost. Through grace and God's unceasing offer of redemption comes new life in a resurrection of the Body. At a new crossroads between time as we know it and eternity as God makes it known through Jesus, the Body, restored to full health and wholeness, with all its parts, takes its seat at the Heavenly Feast in thanks and celebration for the one who invited us.

In anticipation of this ultimate experience, I find new perspective in my ministry as a physician. It stems from my baptized ministry, grounded in water, and I ponder how the stories shared with me in doctor-patient relationships, even focused on malfunctions of the body, somehow provide patient and physician with the opportunity to feed each other.

It is here, in the routine of life, with other people, that I am able to taste and see the goodness of God.

—Steve Thomason

5th Day of Lent: Monday

And Grace Will Lead Me Home

Meditation based on "Amazing grace! how sweet the sound," Hymnal 1982: 671

Do you have skeletons in your closet? I do—big time. I have been lost, I have been blind, I have been afraid. I have created and been surrounded by dangers, toils, and snares. I have felt wretched, and I have caused others to feel wretched too. But somehow, steadily, there has been amazing grace.

I think the first time I heard "Amazing grace" was in the early 1970s, when I was a war-protesting, bra-burning hippie-wanna-be listening to Judy Collins sing on the radio. A decade later, as I settled into the beauty and steadfastness of the Episcopal Church, "Amazing grace" was one of the standard hymns in my parish. Everyone knew the song, and we could all sing it lustily. And when we did, I always felt bathed in love—a love that recognized the mistakes I had made in my life and offered the grace which would, nonetheless, lead me home.

It was that grace that led me, almost ten years ago, to seek psychotherapy in order to deal with some of my skeletons. Part of it came from a childhood that included my parents separating and reconciling twice, divorcing once, remarrying, then divorcing again; periods of baseline subsistence (we called them the K-Mart Christmases), and the devastating illness of my father's alcoholism and ultimate death from that disease. As I began to work through my part in that drama, my therapist suggested I ask my mother for help in remembering the blocks of time that were blank to me. But when I asked Mom for help, she replied, through clenched teeth, "You cannot make me discuss the things I choose to forget."

That began a period of estrangement from my mother and my younger sister, who, likewise, could see no reason for revisiting the past. They lived in the Southwest, and my husband and I lived in faraway North Carolina, where I continued my therapy and began to experience the first stages of healing.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Church Publishing
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0898698677
• ISBN 13: 9780898698671
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Russell Schulz-Widmar