Song of joy and wonder, sound so wild and free; 
Voice of wind and thunder, boundless as the sea; 
Music of God, the love that casts out fear; 
Song that sang in Jesus, sing within us here. 
- Marty Haugen

The song that will be our hymn of the month for May ("Word that Formed Creation") is yet another one where I have to reread those words that I am singing to get the full depth of it.

With Trinity Sunday being the last Sunday of the month, in many of the verses, Haugen really gets to the interplay of the God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the things we experience every day: creation, love, and music.

​Each verse ends with a statement that shows what God has done in Jesus and then asks that God work the same in us. "May the love of God sound within us all, raise us up anew, and sing within us to renew us all."

Marshall

So often in church music, we find two different names for the same tune especially with a lot of early Appalachian hymn tunes. This week we will hear/sing the same Appalachian tune but will see it listed with two different tune names.

In the Gathering Music, we see the tune called RESIGNATION and yet when we sing the same tune later in our hymnal, the tune name is listed as CONSOLATION. I'm sure our psychologists in the pews could have a lot of fun with the similarities and differences in the two terms used as hymn tune names here. And yet, in even other sources, the same tune might be referred to as IRWINTON.

Back 100 years ago, these shape note tunes were very localized and not published widely. Shape notes were a type of musical notation where each note of the scale had a different shape. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that some began collecting these songs from various regions and publishing them to where they could largely be shared beyond the reach of word of mouth from one region to another.

In William Walker's collection Southern Harmony, published in 1835, this tune is listed as RESIGNATION; while in the collection The Sacred Harp, published in 1844, the tune is referred to as IRWINTON. And yet in others from around the same time, you might find that the tune is referred to as CONSOLATION, as it is in our hymnal. And even within those collections, there might be slight variations in the harmonizations of those tunes, something that still carries into today in our modern hymnal. The choice of tune name also hints at the source of its harmonization. 

Here it is as RESIGNATION as it would have been sung straight out of those days in The Sacred Harp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRdS5dIVmbM

Marshall

It is always amazing to recognize that the imagery Jesus gives us throughout the Gospels is that of the earth. In the Emmaus road encounter, the disciples only recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread -- food, nourishment, that which comes from the earth.

In her liturgical response about this moment, Anne Krentz Organ ends every phrase with a IV chord slightly lower than the V chord most of us steeped in Western classical music would expect, but a phrase ending more common in folk music to create anticipation of the next phrase. It gives this sense of having to return to the earth to find Jesus there. 

In "Alleluia! Jesus Is Risen!" (another text for the tune EARTH AND ALL STARS that we used throughout the month of September with its original text full of  "loud boiling test tubes," athletes and bands, hammers, engines, etc.), Herb Brokering also reminds us of  the image of Christ as vine. Again, that image of Christ being found in something that comes from the earth. 

May we continue to look for Christ in the nourishment we receive from the earth. May these songs help us to remember that throughout the week. 

• Be Known to Us, Lord Jesus
• Alleluia! Jesus Is Risen!
• Thank You, God

Marshall

Help then, O Christ, our unbelief; 
and may our faith abound
To call on you when you are near
and seek where you are found: 
- Henry Alford

The tune SHANTI has long been my favorite tune paired with Henry Alford's text (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbe3bpi_9Pg ). It allows for so much more introspection and reflection on these words. 

In our hymnal, it is paired with DUNLAP'S CREEK, a much livelier Appalachian
tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEm3pTaZCZ4

In some ways, I think we could learn a lot more from this hymn by singing it with both tunes first being able to reflect on this text and its meaning through SHANTI and then to share it joyfully through DUNLAP's CREEK. Two tunes from two different time periods that each shed a different light on this text. 

Marshall