“Now Thank We All Our God”

Nov16

I’m almost done writing the first draft of my next book. My first two books in this series about the stories behind hymns were focused on hymns on a particular theme. My first book was a small book about the stories of 31 hymns that were based on the Psalms. My second book had 51 stories about hymns based on the theme of peace and comfort.

My current book is about seasonal hymns – the stories behind hymns written to celebrate the seasons of the church year from Advent and Christmas, through Easter and Pentecost, and ending with Christ the King Sunday. I’m also including hymns written to celebrate national holidays, like Thanksgiving. Of the 120 hymn stories in this book, I just finished drafting the story of the 114th hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God.”

The pandemic has provided me an atmosphere that’s very conducive to writing. If I’m supposed to stay at home and avoid seeing people I don’t live with, sitting at my computer to research the history of hymns is the perfect thing to do. I started writing this book in March. I’ll admit, it was a little hard to focus on Advent hymns during Lent, and Lenten hymns during the beautiful sunny days of summer. I’m finally caught up, and am now in sync. I’m writing about Thanksgiving hymns just in time for Thanksgiving.

Which leads me into why I’m writing this blog post today. Not only is “Now Thank We All Our God” a hymn of thankfulness that is appropriate for this time of year, the hymn was written in 1636, during the peak of the plague that spread throughout Europe – a time we can somewhat identify with this year, the year of our own pandemic. Because the parallels between 1636 and 2020 are so notable, I decided to share the story on my blog.

“NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD”

I’m writing this on Sunday, November 15, 2020, less than two weeks before Thanksgiving. This is the year of the Corona Virus, COVID-19. Public Health officials are urging us to stay home for Thanksgiving – to NOT gather with friends and family. The risk of spreading the virus is too great. It’s easy to feel disappointed or depressed by the havoc the virus has wreaked on our country and the whole world this year. This Thanksgiving is not a time that many of us are inclined to feel very thankful.

Almost 400 years ago, the world was in a similar predicament. The Thirty Years War was raging and the plague was spreading throughout Europe. In 1636 Martin Rinkart, a Lutheran pastor in the walled city of Eilenburg, Germany, wrote the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God.” Throughout the Thirty Years War, Eilenburg, as a walled city, was flooded with refugees seeking safety. That resulted in overcrowding, widespread hunger, and disease. Also, the city was sacked three times during the war, once by the Austrian Army and twice by the Swedish Army.

By the mid 1630s, Rinkart was the only pastor still alive in the city, and he was left with the task of officiating at the funerals of everyone who died – sometimes as many as 50 funerals in a day. One was for his wife.

Despite this horrible situation, Rinkart regularly invited refugees into his home for meals, even though he barely had enough food for his own family. He wrote “Now Thank We All Our God” as a prayer to be sung before a meal. The first verse expresses gratitude to God for his “countless gifts of love.” The second verse is a petition for God’s continued care. The last verse praises God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – “the one eternal God.”

During his ministry, Rinkart wrote 65 other hymns, but this is the one that is still in wide use. Even today it is one of the most frequently sung hymns in German churches.

In the 1850s, Catherine Winkworth, an English hymn writer and educator traveled in Germany and became very interested in German hymns. She selected about 400 German hymns, translated them into English, and published four hymn books of German hymns in English. She is the person who brought “Now Thank We All Our God” to the English-speaking world.

This year may be the perfect year to sing or read “Now Thank We All Our God” before we eat our Thanksgiving dinner, just as the author intended it to be sung – as a prayer before a meal.

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;
who, from our mothers’ arms, has blest us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

Oh, may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,
and keep us all in grace, and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all harm in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
the Son, and Spirit blest, who reign in highest heaven,
and one eternal God, whom earth and heaven adore;
for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

What I’ve been doing during the pandemic

Oct9

For the past seven months I’ve had lots of quiet time at home – the perfect environment for writing. I’ve set aside this blog, mostly, to concentrate on my latest book – Talking with God through Music: Seasonal Hymns. Right now I’m on page 186 of the first draft. I think I have about 50 pages left to go. I’ve had quite a productive few days of writing, so I decided to take a quick break from the book today to blog about how much fun I had this week while working on the book.

Right now I’m on the last page of the chapter devoted to reflections on hymns about Pentecost. Compared to other major church holidays, like Christmas and Easter, not many hymns have been written for Pentecost – the day the Holy Spirit came to fill Jesus’ followers with God’s presence – the day often considered the birthday of the church. I came up with a list of twelve hymns I wanted to include in this chapter. After doing my research, I ended up with nine hymns in the chapter.

My process for researching a hymn to determine if there is a special story associated with the hymn is:

Find the hymn in multiple hymnals, and compare versions.
Google the hymn title along with the words “hymn history” and other relevant key words.
Match up the “Internet facts” with my personal associations with the hymn.
Put together a story about how the hymn helps us “talk with God,” or I decide not to include the hymn in the book.

One of the hymns I wanted to include in the Pentecost chapter was “Where the Spirit of the Lord Is.” Even though some people may call it just a “chorus” rather than a “hymn” because it has only one verse and is rather short, I think of it as a very meaningful hymn.

When I was part-time organist at the Presbyterian Church in Cambridge, there was a small choir that sang once or twice a month. I usually selected a short hymn for the choir to sing at the opening of the service to draw the congregation into an atmosphere of quietness, to sense that we were all together in the presence of God. The choir often sang this hymn.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is peace;
Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is love.
There is comfort in life’s darkest hour;
There is light and life,
there is help and power
In the Spirit, in the Spirit of the Lord.

I did my usual research to find some story about the hymn that would be inspirational to write about for my book. I googled “Where the Spirit of the Lord Is hymn history,” but the only information that popped up was the name of the composer, Stephen R. Adams. I googled his name along with several other words, but found nothing. I really wanted to include this hymn, but I was coming up with nothing. After a few hours of searching, I was just about ready to give up. I googled one last combination of his name and some words – I don’t remember exactly what they were – and I scrolled down a few pages and found a story written by Adams’ son, Craig Adams, about his father and another hymn he had written, “Peace in the Midst of the Storm.” That was it! The perfect story to illustrate how the Holy Spirit works in our lives, just as described in a song Adams had written the year before, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is.” Here’s the page I wrote about this hymn for my book.

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STEPHEN R. ADAMS GREW UP IN NEW ENGLAND, the son of a Nazarene pastor. He started to study music when he was seven. Ten years later he became the organist of his father’s church. Shortly afterwards, his family moved to the Midwest. He continued to serve as a church organist while he went to college at Indiana University, where he studied Greek philosophy and English literature. He later settled in Ohio and served as a church organist, choir director, and hymn writer.

Adams’ most popular hymn is “Where the Spirit of the Lord Is.” It has just one verse, but the words tell us a lot about what the Holy Spirit does for us. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is –

… there is peace … there is love.
There is comfort in life’s darkest hour;
There is light and life,
There is help and power …

Adams wrote this hymn in 1973. The next year, Adams was serving as the worship pastor for Xenia First Church of the Nazarene in Xenia, Ohio. About mid-morning on April 3, 1974, one of the largest tornadoes in history charged through the town of Xenia, carving out a mile-wide path of destruction. Adams happened to be inside a furniture store, just down the street from the church, when it happened. He was buried alive beneath the rubble of the furniture store. Adams’ son, Craig Adams, described what happened:

Trapped in a pitch-black cavern of panic and isolation, Dad cried out to God, fearing death. He recounts that, miraculously, God met him in a supernatural way and brought the most unthinkable and powerful peace he had ever known. His darkest moment was filled with the brightest hope.

Adams didn’t have the strength to lift up the concrete and steel surrounding him, but he was able to pull chunks of rubble toward him until he was able to create a hole large enough for him to escape. Once outside, Adams walked up the street to see what remained of the church where he had been just moments before the tornado hit. Only a few partial walls remained standing. A few days later, Adams and his pastor walked over to the former furniture store and learned that everyone else that had been in the store during the tornado had died. His pastor told him, “God doesn’t promise to take us out of the storms of life. He does promise, however, that he will be right in the middle of them with us.”

That’s what this hymn tells us – “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is peace… love… comfort… light and life… help and power…”

——————-

Even during a pandemic, the Spirit of the Lord is with us. And, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is peace… love… comfort… light and life… help and power…”

“This Little Light of Mine” and a Home Town Protest

Jun24

Well, it happened again. I turned up too much information, and I need to share it somewhere. It’s too much for the book I’m writing, so I guess it needs to go into another blog post, just like the last time this happened, when I wrote about “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” This time the song is “This Little Light of Mine.”

I’m still spending most of my days working on my newest book, Talking with God through Music: Seasonal Hymns. So far I’ve written hymn reflections on 12 hymns for Advent, 21 for Christmas, and 9 for Epiphany. “This Little Light of Mine” is my last song for Epiphany. Then I can move on to Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. Eventually I’ll get to the patriotic hymns of summer, hopefully while it’s still summer. My goal is to complete the book before the end of the year, and to have written reflections on about 100 seasonal hymns.

But as I said above, I learned a lot about “This Little Light of Mine,” and I want to tell you about it.

According to the National Public Radio (NPR) series, “National Anthem,” produced in 2018,

Fans know “This Little Light of Mine” as a beloved children’s tune, recognized around the world. But it’s also a spiritual, which was transformed by the nation’s civil rights movement into an anthem of singular power.

In the 1960s, during demonstrations for civil rights, the singing of “This Little Light of Mine” helped to steady the nerves of protestors while angry police officers threatened to beat them up. Freedom singer Rutha Mae Harris recalled, “Music was an anchor. It kept us from being afraid. ‘Everywhere I go, Lord, I’m gonna let it shine…’”

Fifty years later, in 2017, the song was still having the same impact. Reverend Osagyefo Sekou used “This Little Light of Mine” to defuse tensions during a counter-protest before a crowd of white supremacists and alt-right supporters gathered for the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“We had originally said we were going to stand silently,” says Rev. Sekou, a recording artist, author, theologian and activist who helped train volunteers at the counter-protest. “But the Nazis were marching past us in these various battalions, cursing and yelling – mostly homophobic slurs – at us. And you could feel the energy of the people who weren’t with us… [They] were getting amped up.”

Sekou says he knew, in that moment, he had to change the atmosphere. “I know song can do that. So I just broke into ‘This Little Light of Mine.’”

In a moment captured on video, the clergy and volunteers … are shown standing in a line, their voices rising over the chants of “You will not replace us” from the rally crowd. “The tensions went down … and it shook the Nazis,” Sekou says. “They didn’t know what to do with all that joy. We weren’t going to let the darkness have the last word.”

There’s another story about another movement for justice and the role “This Little Light of Mine” played. This story is from “Sojourners” magazine, December 13, 2013.

Two years before Occupy Wall Street demanded economic reform at the national level, … hundreds of protestors marched on Bank of America and Wachovia in the fall of 2009. In the midst of the subprime mortgage crisis, with people facing ballooning interest rates and foreclosures on their homes, organizers delivered a theological statement against what they called “usury” – the Old Testament sin of collecting interest from the poor.

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” sang 70 customers inside the cavernous lobby at BOA headquarters. “Even in my bank, I’m gonna let it shine!” they sang, marching seven times along the gleaming glass and polished marble walls….

The writer of this Sojourners’ article ended the story saying,

I hadn’t known this little light might shine through simple acts of justice: sitting on a bus, ordering coffee at a lunch counter, or transferring your money to a credit union built for people, not profits. I didn’t know all these little flames, brought together in a simple Sunday School song reverberating around an office building, could enflesh the presence of God, even if they weren’t hot enough or bright enough to right the wrongs, nor turn oppression into justice nor usher in the kingdom of God. I didn’t know it could be enough just to catch a glimpse of that kingdom, wherever two or three were gathered in Christ’s name…. I didn’t know this little light might actually free people, here on earth, not completely, but at least give them a bit more freedom from things like debt, or hunger, or poverty, or violence, or loneliness….

And then there’s a story I personally experienced just a couple weeks ago. But we didn’t sing “This Little Light of Mine.” About a hundred people gathered at Veterans Park in downtown Cambridge, Wisconsin, population less than 2,000, to support the Black Lives Matter movement. According to the 2010 census, the population of Cambridge is 96.8% White, 0.9% African American, and 1.7% Latino. We’re a typical small town of the Midwest. And although racial injustice doesn’t touch us very directly in our everyday lives, we do recognize injustice when we see it, and at least a hundred of us, probably many more, want to do what we can to bring about justice. What we did in the park that evening was listen to a couple speakers, hold “Black Lives Matter” signs, meet some of our neighbors who share our same concerns for justice, stand together in silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, and pray together, led by one of our local pastors.

If we hold another demonstration in the future, I hope we sing “This Little Light of Mine” as so many other freedom protesters have done in the past. Why do I care so much about singing this song?

Although most people know “This Little Light of Mine” as a Sunday School song or as a Freedom song for peaceful protests, it is definitely a song that belongs in the Epiphany chapter of my book, as well. The word “epiphany” means “appearance or manifestation.” Epiphany as a church holiday refers to January 6, the twelfth day of Christmas, and it commemorates the Wise Men finding the Christ Child and bringing him gifts. This is considered the first manifestation of Christ to Gentiles. Probably the most well-known Epiphany carol is “We Three Kings of Orient Are.”

But the Epiphany season is about much more than the Wise Men’s journey to find Jesus. It’s about other ways God has given us an “epiphany” – an “aha!” moment – about the nature of God and our relationship to God’s world. A common theme of Epiphany is light. It is with light, that truth is revealed to us. That’s why we sing “Jesus, the Light of the World,” another Epiphany carol. And Jesus told his disciples to be the light of the world, as well. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16, New King James Version)

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine! [sing 3 times]
Let it shine! [sing 3 times]

Shine all over Cambridge, I’m gonna let it shine! [sing 3 times]
Let it shine! [sing 3 times]

That’s the song. Regardless of who is singing it, and for whatever purpose, the first verse is always the same. The simple pattern of the first verse can easily be filled in with new words to fit any justice issue – to shed a light on whatever injustice needs to be illuminated – racial injustice, economic injustice, gender injustice, and so on.

As the writer of the Sojourner’s article explained,

I hadn’t known this little light might shine through simple acts of justice… I didn’t know all these little flames, brought together in a simple Sunday School song … could enflesh the presence of God…

“It Came upon the Midnight Clear”

May12

I’m having the time of my life during this “Safer at Home” interlude in our lives. I average about eight hours a day on writing my newest book, Talking with God through Music: Seasonal Hymns. I’ve written a dozen reflections on Advent carols, and thirteen reflections on Christmas carols, with eight more to go. Then there are ten more to write for Epiphany before I can move on to Lent and Easter. Eventually, I’ll get through the whole year of seasonal music. Meanwhile, I’m reliving Christmas these days.

After I research and write each reflection for the book, I give it to Mim for feedback to be sure the text flows well enough to make sense to her. Yesterday I finished writing about “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” and gave it to Mim to read. She approved. But then I told her about my frustration of having to leave out so much information that I had gathered. I didn’t have room to include it all if I wanted to stick to the format of having just one page for each reflection. When I told her about all the interesting facts I was leaving out, she said, “Why don’t you write a blog post about it so you can include everything you want.” So that’s what this is – my extended reflection on the Christmas Carol, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.”

As we’re experiencing a colder than usual spring these days, imagine yourself back in the Christmas season, singing the carol, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.”

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Tune Name: CAROL
Composer: Richard Storrs Willis (1819-1900) American composer and organist.
Author: Edmund H. Sears (1810-1876) Unitarian minister.
Scripture: Luke 2:13-14
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

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Edmund Sears grew up on a farm in western Massachusetts, near the Berkshire Mountains. He once told a friend that as a child he imagined that the hilltops touched heaven and that angels rested on the hilltops between heaven and earth on their errands for God.

His parents taught him and his two brothers the importance of moral values, and they encouraged them to study – once the farm work was done. He graduated from Union College in New York, and worked briefly as a lawyer and a teacher, but soon went to Harvard Divinity School to become a Unitarian minister, graduating in 1837, at age 27.

The American Unitarian Association supported his work as a missionary in the frontier area around Toledo, Ohio for about a year. Then he returned to Massachusetts, where he accepted a position as pastor of a small Unitarian church in the town of Wayland. Meanwhile, he got married, and by the time his family grew to include four children, he realized he needed a larger church that could support his whole family. He accepted a call to a church in Lancaster, Massachusetts and served there for seven years.

The mid-1800s were stressful times in the United States. Americans were dealing with the affects of the Industrial Revolution, the Mexican-American War, the California Gold Rush, and the issue of slavery. The social disruption resulting from all these factors put a lot of pressure on Sears as the pastor of a large congregation, where he was trying to provide both leadership and personal support to the members. Sears had a breakdown and retreated back to the small town of Wayland to recover.

While recovering, Sears wrote the poem “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” This poem is focused on two ideas: first, the angels that appeared on the night of Christ’s birth to announce, “Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men!” and second, the dismal condition of the world in his day (and still today as we sing the song). The third stanza (often omitted from today’s hymnals) emphasizes the “woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long.” The last stanza reassures us that the time of peace will come eventually as the prophets foretold.

This carol has been controversial throughout its history. It may be the only Christmas carol that doesn’t even mention the birth of Christ. Since Sears was known to be a Unitarian, many religious conservatives claimed this carol proved his lack of belief that Christ is truly divine, and therefore the hymn should be removed from hymnals. Other churches rewrote parts of the carol to bring the birth of Christ into it. Because this hymn focused on the awful conditions on earth to contrast the angels’ message of “Peace on Earth,” this hymn is often considered one of the earliest hymns of the social gospel movement.

A year after writing this poem, Sears had recovered enough to accept a call back to the small church in Wayland to serve again as their part-time pastor. He also went back to writing extensively. He was quite outspoken about equal rights for men and women, and for the abolition of slavery. After the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, Sears declared from the pulpit that “when the human and Divine law were in conflict it was the duty of all to obey the latter.” In 1856, Sears preached a sermon entitled “Discourse” in which he not only condemned slavery as evil, but he directly condemned slave owners, as well. The sermon was considered such a strong argument against slavery that the Massachusetts Abolitionists printed it as a pamphlet to be widely distributed.

How the music for “It Came upon the Midnight Clear” became associated with the text is a mystery. Shortly after the poem was written, Richard Storrs Willis composed a musical exercise, “Study No. 23” in his “Church Chorals and Choir Studies.” Willis later wrote in a letter to a friend, “On my return from Europe in [1876], I found that it (the tune) had been incorporated into various church collections apparently to Edmund Sears’ text.” No one knows who is responsible, or in what circumstances, the poem and the tune were joined together. However, the pairing has lasted for more than a hundred years, and it has become one of our favorite Christmas carols.

Imagine a choir of angels resting on the hilltops of the Berkshires as they return to heaven after their appearance on Earth for Christ’s birth. Perhaps with that image in mind, Sears wrote “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” As he pondered the angels’ message, and thought about all the anguish we’re still suffering down here, he wrote five stanzas. One of the most relevant stanzas to us today is seldom sung:

But with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And we, at war with earth, hear not the tidings, which they bring:
O hush the noise, and cease the strife, and hear the angels sing!

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Is Mim Going to Jail?

Mar24

fullsizeoutput_200f As usual, I was sitting at my computer, working on my next book. Floey walked over to me, sat down right beside me, and looked up. She waited for me to finish the sentence I was typing. “What’s up, Floey?” I asked.

“I’m worried, Mom.”

“Are you worried about the Corona Virus, Floey? I don’t think dogs can get it, and Mim and I are being really careful to stay away from people so we don’t get it.”

“No. That’s not it, Mom. Well, maybe I’m a little worried about that. But so many good things are happening because of the virus. Mim’s cooking almost non-stop in the kitchen. We had a chicken dinner. Then she cooked up chicken soup from the carcass. We had a roast beef dinner, and then pulled beef sandwiches. A pork roast dinner, followed by pulled pork sandwiches. Chili. Barbecue. I can hardly keep up with doing the pre-wash of all the pots and pans she’s using! And then we go for long walks every day, all three of us together. I couldn’t be happier, except I’m worried about something else.” A tear rolled out of her eye.

I wiped the tear from her cheek and put my hand under her chin. “What’s worrying you, Floey?”

“Remember, a few weeks ago you were doing your annual catch up of accounting for the year to get your business files ready to take to the accountant to do your taxes?”

“Yeah. I remember. I hate that time of the year. But that’s all done now. We dropped off the files with the accountant a couple weeks ago. Why are you worried about that?”

“I overheard you say something to Mim while you were working on the accounting. I think you said, ‘I’m afraid we may have to pay taxes this year instead of getting a refund.’ And Mim said, ‘Oh, no! I hate paying taxes to the government! I really disapprove of how they are spending the money! I don’t want to pay for wars I don’t agree with! Maybe we just shouldn’t pay the taxes!’ And then you said something about going to jail. Is Mim gonna go to jail??? That’s what I’m worried about!” Another tear fell from her eye.

“Oh, Floey.” I got up from my desk chair and sat on the floor beside her. I gave her a big hug. “No, Floey. Mim is not going to jail. We’ll pay our taxes whether we agree with how the government spends the money, or not. Mim was just frustrated. Did you overhear the rest of that conversation between Mim and me, Floey?”

“No, Mom. I was so scared when I heard the word JAIL that I went into the closet to hide.”

“Well, let me tell you the story I told Mim. Do you remember a couple years ago I used to go to the Dane County Jail a couple times a month to play the piano for the women’s worship service?”

“Yeah. I remember. You used to tell us about the conversations that happened at each service. I remember you said that God was always there. Right?”

“Yeah. I did say that. On average, we had about ten women in each service. For security reasons, the jail limited the number of women who could be in the chapel at once, because no guards were present inside the chapel. The guards escorted the inmates from their cells to the chapel, and then they locked the chapel door and left us all together inside.

52b21b2c62fef-image “Before the women arrived, Chaplain Julia and I arranged the chairs into a circle. The inmates, the chaplain, and I all sat together in the circle (except for when I left the circle to go to the piano). The chaplain started the service by introducing the theme for that particular service, and then we sang a hymn. Much to my surprise, the women always sang enthusiastically. Then we usually went around the circle, each person reading a verse or two of the selected scripture. After the reading, we went around the circle a second time, each person saying what that scripture meant to them, or whatever else was on their minds, such as an upcoming court appearance, concern for their children, what might come next after their jail time, and so on. That time was followed by a time of silent prayer when the women could write down their specific prayer requests to give to the chaplain. During this time I played soft background music on the piano, whatever hymns came to mind, based on the conversations we’d just had. Then we went around the circle again, each of us praying specifically for the person who was sitting on our right. The service ended with us singing another hymn, and a final blessing.”

Floey smiled at me. I still had my arm around her as we sat together on the floor. “Those were good times of sharing, weren’t they, Mom.”

“Yes, they were. I played for the women’s worship service for about five years. During that time I got to know some of the women fairly well. Although county jail is intended for short-term incarceration, less than a year (prison is for longer terms), some women stay in jail for longer than a year as their cases wind their way through the legal system. I remember one woman in particular, Gloria (not her real name). She was in jail for about a year, and then she went on to serve her sentence of several years in prison. Her crime was not paying her taxes.”

“Really, Mom? Several years in prison for not paying her taxes?”

“Yup. She was a nice, fairly quiet woman, probably in her 30s. Both she and her husband were in jail, although they couldn’t see each other. And they had a special needs child, that we often prayed for in our worship service. Gloria didn’t want her little girl to be placed in the state foster care system. She was afraid that her daughter’s special needs would not be adequately met if she was bounced from foster home to foster home throughout the duration of Gloria’s incarceration. Fortunately, a long-term friend of Gloria’s, who lived out of state, finally was approved to care for her.”

“Wow, that must have been a real relief for Gloria.” Floey was listening intently to every word I was saying.

“Yes. The fact that a friend would be taking good care of her daughter really put her mind at ease. Shortly after that happened, the time came for her to leave jail and move on to serve her time in federal prison. I remember well what she said at her last women’s worship service. She had quite a testimony.”

“What did she say, Mom?”

“She said…

I’ve changed a lot over this past year in jail with all of you. When I first came here, I thought I was better than every one of you. My “crime” wasn’t like yours. I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t do drugs. My “crime” was white collar, and it was a statement of conscience. I was simply standing up for my beliefs. I didn’t pay taxes because I didn’t think I should pay taxes to fund things I didn’t believe in, like an unwarranted war. I was a good, church-going, responsible member of my community.

But over this year, getting to know all of you, and others who are no longer in jail, I’ve learned that we’re all alike. Our specific circumstances in life may be different, but we’re all doing the best we can with what life has given us.

I’m glad for this year in jail I’ve had with all of you. Thank you for helping me learn that we’re all in this life together.

Floey put her paw on my hand. “That’s quite a testimony, Mom. I wonder how Gloria is doing in prison now. And how her daughter is doing.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know, Floey. Obviously, I’ve lost touch with her. But she sure has given me a lot to think about. That’s why I told Mim this story a couple weeks ago when she said she didn’t want to pay taxes because she doesn’t approve of how the government is spending her tax money. Gloria felt the same way, and is spending years behind bars, isolated from her family and friends, because of acting on her beliefs.”

“Speaking of isolation, Mom, I guess we need to respect what the government is telling us to do now, even if we don’t completely agree with it.”

“I think you’re right, Floey. I’d rather spend some time alone, thinking about how I should be living my life, than going to jail to think about it there, like Gloria did.”

“You know, Mom, it’s good that God can help us gain insights wherever we are. Let’s go for a walk. I’m hearing lots of birds chirping this morning. Let’s go listen to them down by the marsh. Maybe that’s where God has something to tell us today.”

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The Message of a Kaleidoscope

Feb4

As soon as I got home from playing at the Presbyterian Church in Cambridge on Sunday, Mim, Floey, and I hopped into the car and drove to Chicago for a late lunch at the Buffalo Ice Cream Parlor. This was a special weekend.

Chicago looked like a magical kingdom in the clouds.

Forty-seven years ago I accepted a new job as an editorial researcher for The World Book Encyclopedia. I needed to find an apartment and move to Chicago fast to be ready to start work the next Monday. I had less than a week to get settled. For a couple days I slept on the couch of a childhood friend June, who was living in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago at the time. I spent a couple days walking the streets of different “safe” neighborhoods, looking for “For Rent” signs. One evening I went with June to a neighborhood Bible Study. Less than a dozen people were there. One of them was Mim. When June introduced us and explained to Mim that I was looking for an apartment, Mim immediately offered to let me stay with her in her small apartment (one bedroom, but she had bunk beds) until I could find a place of my own. The next evening we went to the Buffalo Ice Cream Parlor to work out the details. The next day I went home to pack up my stuff and move into Mim’s apartment.

1973 – Mim and me in our first apartment.

Hard to believe that happened 47 years ago, and we’re still living together. The original building of the Buffalo Ice Cream Parlor was torn down and replaced with a Shell gas station while we still lived in Chicago. But, the restaurant lives on in one of the northwest suburbs. Lunch wasn’t quite the same, but we had fun reminiscing about our first meal together. After lunch we drove by our first apartment in the Logan Square neighborhood, and then by the two-flat we owned in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood. We spent the night in a dog-friendly hotel.

Mim and Floey enjoying almost balmy weather.

The next morning we drove through the Edgewater neighborhood to see an apartment we had lived in for six years. That apartment was near the lake, so we took Floey for a walk along the lakeshore at Montrose Harbor. The weather was perfect – warm and sunny.

As we reflected on the many transitions we’ve made in our lives, we talked more about the transition we are currently in the middle of – going from full-time caregiving in our home to semi-retirement. Monday’s reading from Mornings with Jesus, (a Guideposts Publication) seemed particularly relevant. The author Heidi Gaul was talking about kaleidoscopes. Here’s an excerpt:

… Nestled on my porch rocker, I peek through the lens of a child’s toy, watching colors and shapes dance and play. As I twist the tube, patterns transform and change…

In my mind’s eye, I see another picture reminding me how different we are as individuals and especially as Christians. Each of us adds something new to this ever-changing creation, displaying the touch of the Master’s hand. One might resemble the bright yellow chips as he visits bedridden members of his church; another, the soft green bit as she calms babies in the nursery…

If we follow Jesus, our “colors” will change according to whatever form of service we’re called to during that season of life. Our responsibilities may vary, but our purpose – furthering Jesus’s kingdom – doesn’t. We are created to serve with the humility and love Jesus shared.

When we work together in harmony, the product of our labor is ageless and beautiful…

The images produced by kaleidoscopes suggest a new way of reflecting on the many transitions we go through in our lifetime. As Pastor Jeff reminded us in his homily last weekend, in each phase of our life, with each transition we go through, we need to remember what God has told us,

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
[Micah 6:8, New Revised Standard Version]

My collection of kaleidoscopes. The one on the left was a Christmas present to me from Mim’s mother the first year she lived with us.

A Word for the New Year

Jan13

fullsizeoutput_2bc7 Almost every day for at least the last ten years, I’ve started my morning in the comfortable sitting area of my downstairs office. I light the seasonal arrangement of candles on the coffee table, and settle into my Lazy Boy recliner. I spend from ten minutes to an hour quietly beginning the day.

Before I start reading, I mentally sing a hymn to focus my mind into a worshipful or meditative state. I don’t sing out loud, because hearing my voice would be an unwelcome distraction. I don’t play the piano because that’s about ten feet away from where I’ve already settled into my chair. Singing the hymn mentally is just the right way to get my soul ready.

The first few years I sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” for this centering exercise. Then I sang “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” for a few years. One year I took a brand new hymnal I’d just received, and mentally sang one or two hymns a day, from page one to the end of the hymnal. Last December I decided to use “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” to focus my mind throughout Advent. I sang one verse a day, until I came to verse 3.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high
and order all things far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show
and cause us in her ways to go.

From that day on, I’ve mentally sung this verse every day. Even after Christmas. I’m still singing it every morning. I intend to use this song throughout 2020, and I’ve made WISDOM my special word for the year.

If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know that I’ve been selecting a special word each year for the past seven years.

JOY was the word for 2014. I delighted in looking for joy somewhere each day.
GRATITUDE was my word for 2015. Throughout that year I developed the habit of listing at least three things each day that I was especially grateful for as I went to bed each night. I still do it.
KINDNESS was the word for 2016. I learned to look for examples of kindness being exhibited by people I saw around me, and thought about new ways I could show kindness myself. I made up new words to use as a second verse to the song “This Is the Day that the Lord Hath Made” – “What can I do to reflect God’s Love? I can be kind to everyone…” I mentally sing these two verses at the end of my quiet time every morning.
HOPE was the word for 2017. That was a challenging year all around the world, and I tried to focus on being hopeful, despite how fearful I was of the political situation.
PEACE was the word for 2018. I looked for hymns about peace throughout the year, and I started to write my book Hymns of Peace and Comfort. I published the book last year.
LOVE was my word for 2019. I chose that word because I realized that of the four Advent themes – Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, Love was the only word I hadn’t used yet as a “special word.” With the help of Mim and our dog Floey, I realized last year how much our home is filled with love. Our house may never become uncluttered, but anyone who comes to our door knows they are alway welcome. We’re truly thankful for the love God has shown us through friends, animals, and each other.

I expect 2020 will continue to be a year of transition for us, from full-time caregiving into gradual retirement, whatever that means. That’s what Mim and I need to learn. And that’s why WISDOM seems like the perfect word for me to focus on this year. And that’s why mentally singing the third verse of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is the perfect way for me to begin each day.

HAPPY NEW WORD! HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Love from all three of us – Marian, Mim & Floey

Mim sharing our love with Quincy, one of Floey’s best friends.

Ready or not, it’s here!

Dec10

HYMNS OF PEACE AND COMFORT is published! This is the first full-length book in the series of books I’m writing about selected hymns and how they help us talk with God – Talking with God through Music. This book includes reflections on 51 hymns based on the theme of peace and comfort. For each hymn, the melody line and verses are shown, followed by the basic facts of the hymn – who wrote the words, what scripture the text relates to, who composed the music, and the name of the tune. The selection ends with some kind of story. It may be what prompted the author to write the hymn. Or, what impact the hymn has had on individuals or globally. Or what experience I have had with the hymn personally.

My original vision for this book was for it to be about 100 of my favorite hymns. When I started to select the hymns to include, I narrowed my list down to about 300 hymns. Oops! That’s too big for a manageable book. With a 2-page spread for each hymn, plus a few extra pages thrown in to organize the hymns into meaningful sections, I would have a 600 – 700 page book. Very few people like to pick up that big a book to read, myself included. So, I decided to develop a series of books, with each book focused on a particular theme. In 2018, the year I started writing this book, my word for the year was Peace. (Each year, instead of making any New Year’s resolutions, I choose one word to be my focus for the year.) Since I was already thinking about Peace, I decided to have this book include hymns of Peace and Comfort.

fullsizeoutput_22b8 To be sure my vision for this series of books would speak to others as well as me, I developed a prototype – TALKING WITH GOD THROUGH MUSIC: Reflections on My Favorite Psalm-Based Hymns. The prototype was a short book that I published to get feedback from its readers on the concept of the book, and to get readers’ suggestions on how to make the new books in the series most meaningful for them. I appreciated all the comments I received, and incorporated as many of the suggestions as I could.

At this point, my plan is for the next book in the series to be the hymns of church holidays, which will be mostly the carols of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, and the hymns of Easter.

Now for the title of this blog post – “Ready or not, it’s here.” The books have arrived. If you would like to buy one (or more, possibly for Christmas presents), we need to go back to early 20th century technology. If you would like to buy Hymns of Peace and Comfort, let me know how many books you want and what your mailing address is. You can reach me by:

Email MarianKorth@gmail.com, or
Call 608-212-6197, or
Write Marian Korth, 112 Waverly Dr, Cambridge, WI 53523

The books are $10 each (tax included), plus shipping; or two books for $15, plus shipping. I will send the book(s) along with an invoice. You can mail your payment by check or cash to me after you receive the book(s) and invoice.

I had hoped to set up PayPal on my blog to enable payment by credit card, but after spending a couple hours trying to figure out the integration of WordPress and PayPal, I decided to go back to baking Christmas cookies instead. I hope to have the capability added to my blog by the time my next book is ready, hopefully in about ten months.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a PEACEFUL New Year!

I take Christmas baking very seriously!

My Sister Nancy

Nov14

Nancy-Clark 2 adj Today, November 14, would have been my sister Nancy’s 82nd birthday. She died eleven years ago, just a few days after her 71st birthday. (My age now.) I was alone at our Christmas Mountain timeshare when she died unexpectedly. Mim called me with the shocking and sad news. I spent the rest of my retreat time at Christmas Mountain that week paging through a hymnal and playing all of Nancy’s favorite hymns on my portable keyboard.

I’m at Christmas Mountain again this year on November 14, finishing up the next book in my “Talking with God through Music” series, Hymns of Peace and Comfort. A lot of the hymns I’ve written about in this new book are the same hymns I played eleven years ago, as I was seeking comfort from God while I absorbed what it meant to lose a sister. Music is truly a gift of God.

Nancy was almost like a second mom to me. She was eleven years older, so I saw her more as an adult than as a kid to play with. She was a big sister I was really proud of. She was smart (salutatorian of her high school class), musically talented (played piano, organ, and trombone), very Christian (she read her Bible and prayed every morning before getting out of bed), and she was always kind and loving to others.

To say she had an influence on me is an understatement. I like to say that I was smarter than she was (I was valedictorian of my high school class), but she beat me in everything else. I learned to play piano and organ like her, but my arms were too short to play a trombone. When I learned to read, Nancy subscribed to a children’s daily devotional magazine for me to encourage me to read the Bible and pray every morning. I got in the habit, but I’m sure I missed more mornings than Nancy did. I have always tried to follow her example of being kind and loving to others. She was a really good role model for me.

Today is a good day to remember Nancy, and to thank God for all the wonderful people God has allowed me to spend time with in my life.

Me and my siblings – Danny, Nancy, and me

A Vacation Filled with Kind Strangers

Nov8

Last week Mim and I returned home from our third vacation of the year. We’re making up for the past 16 years of almost no vacations while we were doing assisted living in our home. This vacation had lessons for us to learn just as our earlier two vacations this year had.

Our July vacation reminded us us that God is always watching out for us, even in the middle of a remote hay field in South Dakota, far from any cell towers, when we needed to call someone for help.
Our September vacation taught us that it’s time to pay attention to our bucket lists and begin to do some of the items on the list, like going to a conference to hear one of our favorite writers.
Our October vacation showed us that there are a lot of kind people in the world, and we need to notice them as well as to be kind to the strangers that cross our path.

Our plans for our October vacation were to take three days to drive to Cape Cod, one of our favorite vacation spots from our past; to spend four days on the Cape; and then to take another three days to drive home. We planned to pace our travel to spend one night in the Finger Lakes Region of New York so that we could have dinner and a nice long visit with Dorothy, an old friend from our Chicago years. We paced our drive home so that we could spend one night near Cleveland and have dinner and conversation with Claudia, a friend from my freshman year in college whom I hadn’t seen in more than fifty years. (We reconnected about ten years ago on Facebook.)

Our purpose for this vacation was to simply relax and have a good time. That we certainly accomplished! We hit the fall colors at their peak. The scenery across Ohio, New York, and Massachusetts was beautiful. Most of our days were sunny and in the 60s – perfect weather for a fall vacation.

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But the real theme for this vacation – the kindness of strangers – became apparent the first evening of the trip. We checked into our hotel in Maumee, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, about 4:30. We settled into our room and went for a walk to get some exercise. We asked the hotel clerk where we could get good, thick, juicy bar burgers for dinner. She recommended the restaurant at the Holiday Inn across the street. We walked there, and enjoyed very juicy cheeseburgers, fries, and a bottle of wine. As we were finishing up, our waitress came over to say that our bill (about $50) had been paid for us by a man sitting at the bar. When we protested to her that there must be some mistake because we don’t know anyone around here, the man came over to our booth to explain.

He was a veteran who said he shouldn’t be alive. But he is, so he’s determined to do nice things for others whenever he can. He said he just wanted us to pay the tip. I said we would gladly do that, but then he changed his mind, pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off two twenties, handed them to the waitress and asked if that was enough. There were tears in her eyes. Then the man sat down in our booth and motioned his two brothers to come over. He’s from New Hampshire and was meeting his brothers from Minnesota. This hotel was a good midway point for them to meet. Their father had passed away this year, and his brothers were bringing him some of their father’s antiques.

It turns out the three brothers had grown up in Deer Creek, a very small town in central Minnesota, near where a very good friend of ours had grown up. We enjoyed visiting with the three of them until their dinners were ready. The one who paid for our dinner said that he likes to do something “to make someone’s day” every day that he can. We assured him that he had made our day, and that we would pass on the kindness to someone else.

What a start to our vacation! The real theme for this vacation had been defined: looking for strangers who were going out of their way to be kind to strangers, and watching for opportunities for us to be kind to the strangers who crossed our path.

The next day we drove to the Finger Lakes Region of New York and had a wonderful evening visiting with our friend Dorothy. She was a nurse who had served in the military in Viet Nam in the 1970s, and then settled in Chicago for several years before returning to her roots in New York. We met her through Nurses Christian Fellowship when we all lived in Chicago.

On Dorothy’s recommendation, we started the next morning at the National Women’s Rights Historical Park in Seneca Falls, only about 20 miles from where we had stayed. This is where we experienced our second “random act of kindness” by a stranger.

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We had just finished exploring the first building of the park and were ready to leave when a bus tour of about 25 women (and a few men) started streaming through the door, which blocked our exit. One of the women on the tour introduced herself to us and invited us to join their tour for a special presentation by one of the Park Service Rangers about the history of the women’s movement. The speaker was excellent, and we learned a lot of history, enough to convince us we need to add a longer visit to this park to our bucket list.

The next stop on our trip was Sturbridge, Massachusetts. We had planned to spend most of the next day exploring Old Sturbridge Village, a living museum we had visited about 35 years ago, but we discovered after checking into our hotel that off-season hours had just gone into effect, and the museum would be closed that day. So we had to come up with Plan B. fullsizeoutput_2b82

We decided to drive to Plainfield, Connecticut, the small town where I had been a high school English teacher from 1970 – 1972, my first job out of college. We drove around Plainfield looking for the high school, and eventually found it, but the building I remembered wasn’t there. In its place was a much larger school. As we were walking around the school taking pictures, a school bus driver came over to us and asked if we would like her to take a picture of us in front of one of the most beautiful trees. (Obviously, she was our next kind stranger!)

The second “kind stranger” to approach us that day was a security guard who came out of the school to be sure we were not there to shoot anyone or cause other mayhem. After I assured him that I was a former teacher of the school from almost 50 years ago, he explained why nothing looked familiar – that the site of the old school was now a field for track events, and that the new school had been built on the land behind it.

We hadn’t even made it to the Cape yet, and already four strangers had impressed us by their kindness.

The pattern of running into kind strangers continued throughout the vacation – from the staff at the timeshare who went out of their way to be helpful, to the other guests at the timeshare who generously shared travel tips.

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Our timeshare was right on the ocean. We went for short morning and evening walks on the beach, but we spent the majority of our time exploring Cape Cod National Seashore.

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Then every evening we returned to our timeshare to watch the sunset over the ocean.

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On Cape Cod there’s so much to see… fLhxL7P+QliXyU283wi4Kw
And watch… iCn4lBMlRu2JyWZBRcnPtA

And hear… fullsizeoutput_2b85

And taste… fullsizeoutput_2af9

Thanks to the kindness of strangers, we knew just where to go to experience all these things at their best.

The theme of the trip continued throughout our drive home. On the ninth evening of the trip we had dinner in a Lebanese restaurant near Cleveland with my college friend Claudia and her husband Ron, whom I had never met before and was therefore a stranger to us. We had a wonderful time visiting and learning more about how we each had spent the last fifty years. And the stranger, Ron, paid for the dinner. Not quite the same situation as the first dinner paid for us by a kind stranger, but definitely a continuation of the theme of this vacation.

fullsizeoutput_2b45 The last night of the trip we stayed in Chesterton, Indiana near the Indiana Dunes National Park. The owner of the hotel was the final kind stranger of our trip. After being sure he gave us the best room possible to meet our needs, he gave us detailed directions about what roads to take to get to the Park Welcome Center and where to go once we got there.

Thanks to him we were able to get a good overview of the Park in the very short length of time we had to explore it.

The first night of this vacation set the tone for the whole trip – the kindness of strangers.

As I’ve been thinking a lot about kindness the last couple weeks, I remembered a book I read a few years ago, The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless across America by Mike McIntyre. The book was written by a journalist who hitch-hiked across America without a penny in his pocket. He wanted to see whether or not he would find kindness in strangers who might help him on his journey. The book consists of forty short chapters. Each one tells the story of an encounter with a stranger who showed him kindness in some way. It was a fascinating book.

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I wrote a blog post about this book and a couple other books on the theme of kindness in December 2016. Here’s the link.

The best thing that veteran in Maumee, Ohio did for us the first night of our vacation wasn’t paying for our dinner. It was reminding us to be kind to one another, especially to strangers.

But the best part of this vacation was coming home again, as always. Floey was so glad to see us that she crossed her paws and listened to us tell her all about our adventures. She couldn’t take her eyes off us.

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Whispering Winds

Whispering Winds Blog … Taking Time to be still and listen for God