Hello, Merry Mystics! Here’s my new hymn for Gaudete Sunday: “Rejoice! Rejoice!” (Unlike “Joy to the World!” which was intended to be about the Second Coming, this one is actually about Christmas.) I hope it will give you a smile. Sheet music is here:
Rejoice! Rejoice! (letter size, with piano accompaniment)
Rejoice! Rejoice! (legal size, for folding, voice only)
There’s also a video of it here.
Here’s a different take on the legend of the talking animals at the birth of Jesus: what if the animals were all just waiting for us humans to finally get a clue?
For the First Sunday in Advent, I introduced a new hymn, “Be Born in Us Tonight.” It treats the presence of Christ, not as something that happened in the past, nor as something that might happen in the future, but as something that can happen in us right now.
Hello, friends!
Here’s the fifth and final in my series of new songs/carols/hymns for Advent and Christmas. This one draws on a phrase from the writings of Julian of Norwich, an English woman who lived from 1342 to 1416. Julian was an anchoress—that is to say, she was a sort of hermit who lived in a cell built into the wall of a church. She had many visions, and she wrote them in her book Showings, which might be the first book written by a woman in the English language. In chapter 27 of the long text of Showings, she wrote:
But Jesus, who in this vision informed me about everything needful to me, answered with these words and said: Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well. … These words were revealed most tenderly, showing no kind of blame to me or to anyone who will be saved.
Julian accepted that “all will be well,” and trusted in God to know better than she how this is to be accomplished. I think there’s something very beautiful, and rather Christmas-like, in that moment of enlightenment and acceptance.
I wrote a slightly more flowery harmony and accompaniment for this one, because I planned for it to be sung by a quartet on Christmas Eve.
All Shall Be Well, Noël (full score) (letter size)
All Shall Be Well, Noël (voice) (legal size, for folding)
We have a lot of rousing hymns about crowning Jesus king. They’re fun to sing, but Jesus always preferred more humble metaphors.
Hello, friends!
Here’s the fourth in my series of five new songs/carols/hymns for Advent and Christmas. This one is about the way God leads us, starting (but not ending) with the Star of Bethlehem. The sheet music with hymn parts is here:
Beacon of Bethlehem (legal size, for folding)
Beacon of Bethlehem (letter size)
There’s also a video of it here.
Hello, friends!
Here’s the second in my series of five new songs/carols/hymns for Advent and Christmas. This one is a different take on the old story of the Animals’ Christmas. What if the animals at the stable were just waiting for human beings to finally get a clue? The sheet music with hymn parts is here:
Star-Struck by the Stable Gate (legal size, for folding)
Star-Struck by the Stable Gate (letter size)
There’s also a video of it here.
Hello, friends!
I’m working on five new songs (hymns? carols?) for Advent and Christmas. Here’s the first: Be Born in Us Tonight. There’s a verse for each Sunday in Advent, and one for Christmas Eve. The “full” sheet music has a keyboard accompaniment; the “voice” sheet music has just hymn parts, and it’s laid out for a US legal-size sheet, to print and fold.
There’s also a video of it here.
Hello, friends!
Here’s a little song in response to the recent election here in the United States. (We all have our own ways of coping!) The lyric is in sonnet form—plus a few parenthetical phrases. It’s just a trumpery little sonnet, really, and I offer it with apologies to William “Shifty” Shakespeare.
Generosity is always part of a well-lived life. Exploitation is not.