songs, albums, and concerts
Bright blessings, Merry Mystics! Here’s a new song I hope you’ll enjoy: “Pure Delight.” I introduced it as part of my sermon today.
I guess you can tell that my musical tastes were partly formed in the 70s. Wacka-chicka-wacka-chicka!
Do you know the eucharistic chant, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”?
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand; Ponder nothing earthly-minded, For with blessing in His hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, Our full homage to demand.
That’s a translation by Gerard Moultrie from the ancient Greek Liturgy of St. James. In the Episcopal churches of my childhood, we sang it as a communion hymn, using the Ralph Vaughan Williams arrangement of “Picardy”, a French medieval folk melody. It’s a haunting melody and an elegant arrangement, and I must admit that the words too are beautiful—but they don’t fit my idea of what communion is all about.
So, of course, I wrote words of my own. Here’s my wife, Kelly Autrey-Webber, leading the singing for a Sunday service:
Sheet music for “As the Loaf Is Broken Open” is available on our web site here. As usual, it may be freely downloaded and copies for noncommercial purposes.
Hello, friends,
Here’s a mostly-musical video piece I made for the annual meeting of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ. (Not sure they’ll be inviting me back!) It includes a song about how hard it is to change anything in church.
May you be blessed with a merry and mystical new year!
It’s a burden, isn’t it? It’s hard not to feel like a failure, when your church is struggling and you don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. You know that you shouldn’t feel that way; you know you shouldn’t feel responsible for saving the church. You tell yourself that your people already have a savior, and it isn’t supposed to be you. But still.
This is a presentation I made for the 2021 spring meeting of the Prairie Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ. It’s about eighteen minutes of prayer, song, and reflection, written especially for those working with struggling churches.
When I was working on this new composition, my wife asked me, “What’s it about?”
“Death,” I said.
“Ah, another commercial success in the making,” she replied.
Well, this song isn’t exactly about death. It’s about mortality and hope. I don’t know where the path leads after death. But I do know the One who walks with us on that path. And therefore I know that, as Julian of Norwich wrote, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
This is a four-part choral piece; the video below shows a socially-distanced quartet performing it, consisting of myself, my wife Kelly, and my daughter Fern, with my friend Ron singing and conducting. The music, as it moves from lamentation to hope, changes in melody, key, and time signature; the final melody is a traditional Welsh tune, Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn.
The words are below. Sheet music is, as always, available in our Free Stuff area.
The mainspring wound at birth is bound In time to be unwinding. The candle flame that binds my name Burns down to my unbinding. In joy I sang; the heavens rang With all my fiery yearning. But now I see that I must be Too soon to dust returning. The mortal path on which I walk Is one of certain sorrow. It ends before a silent door, A day with no tomorrow. Yet even so, one thing I know: Your love has always found me. All shall be well, all shall be well, For you are all around me. Love will be sustaining me On hilltop and in hollow, In sun or rain, in joy or pain, Whatever path I follow. I shall not fear though death be near, I shall not break though bending. You love me still, and still you will, Beyond this journey’s ending.
I think my hymn “I Remember” is a good one for Lent and Easter. This week, I made a revised version, with a new fourth verse that I like better than the original. I wrote a different accompaniment, too: simpler and more contemplative, and thus better suited to a solo performance.
The video is my daughter Fern Athena Webber, singing “I Remember” as part of our Zoom church service at the Open Prairie United Church of Christ.
I remember how he spoke, How minds were shocked And hearts unlocked. He made me see How I could be Like him. My soul awoke. I remember how his touch Could heal the sick. How very quick Was his response To human wants! Could I not do as much? I remember how he prayed Alone, apart, With open heart. Am I not free In prayer to be Restored, renewed, remade? I remember how he died, His body torn, His love reborn, His heartbeat stilled, His love fulfilled. May his way be my guide.
As usual, sheet music for this version (in E minor) is available in our Free Stuff area.
Many of us here in the USA, and many people around the world, were shocked and dismayed last week to see rioters breaking into the US Capitol building. People have been asking me for advice: what can we do to help move our country toward health and wholeness? The general answer hasn’t changed, I believe: live lovingly. Seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. But as for more specific actions? I’m not really sure. I’m thinking and reading and praying a lot these days, just trying to understand what the heck is going on here.
In the middle of all this thinking and praying, I’ve written a song. It’s political, it’s harshly ironic, and it’s not suitable for children. I’ll understand, Merry Mystics, if you want to skip this one. But if you want to know what I’m writing these days, here it is:
P.S. My son Fox and I are working on a video to go with the song. Stay tuned.
I wrote some music this week, something to lead into a time of prayer during my church service on Sunday morning. I used an ancient melody: some plainsong that I remember from my childhood in the Episcopal church. Here’s my wife Kelly Autrey-Webber singing it; the organist is Charlie Gebeck.
As always, the score is available in our Free Stuff area.
(If you’re a Merry Mystic in the USA, you may have expected me to be posting something about the election, now just four days away. Believe me, I’ve preached and sung about it, and voted early! But at this point, I just need some prayer. I hope this helps you too.)
Last November, I posted some sheet music for an easy choir piece for a processional for Advent. Now I’ve been leading an online book study for my book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness. For chapter eight, I wanted to demonstrate my Advent Processional. But because of the coronavirus, it isn’t feasible to record a choir singing it.
Unless everyone in the choir is me.
[vimeo id=430167452]
This song is also available as a hymn for group singing, with a piano accompaniment, over in our Free Stuff section.
