Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness:
Come before his presence with singing.
Psalm 100:1-2
Two weeks ago Hannah told us that she has been called to be the choir director in her ward at BYU-I. She was uncertain about the calling. She has sung in choirs in church, in high school, and at college, but she isn’t sure about directing one. I told her not to worry, directing choirs runs in the family. I’ve sung in church choirs since I was ten (when we lived in ward where there was a choir) and I’ve been the choir director and the congregational chorister in every ward I’ve lived in since I was 21. I love singing and I love directing choirs. That’s mostly because I love sacred music and most particularly, our hymns.
Even as a small child, I loved singing hymns. Back then, we used the old dark blue hymnals (copyright 1948). Singing from that hymnal over the years, I came to know the hymn numbers of all my favorite hymns by heart – Come, Come Ye Saints #13, Redeemer of Israel #195, We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet #196, Come Thou Fount #70, Come, Ye Disconsolate #18, and my favorite, Abide With Me #51.
Back in those days we were in church most of the day on Sundays. We had meetings in the morning and then a break and then we went back in the evening for sacrament meeting, which was two hours long. That evening meeting was hard for us children to sit through. To entertain ourselves in a quiet (supposedly) manner, my brother Steve, my cousin Rick and I devised a game. We would take a hymnal and one of us would whisper a phrase and then we would open the hymnal randomly and insert the phrase before or after the hymn title. Despite our intentions, the game was not very reverent. Most of time the phrase/title combination was just silly or didn’t make any sense, but sometimes it was hilarious. For instance when the whispered phrase was “In the bathtub” and the hymn title was Behold Thy Sons and Daughters, Lord (#24). How could we not laugh at “Behold Thy Sons and Daughters, Lord, in the bathtub?” Or even better (or worse), “Gently Raise The Sacred Strain (#92) on the toilet.” Inevitably we would laugh out loud and draw the wrathful attention of my mother or grandmother. Someone would get a pinch and a stern look and the hymnal would be taken from us and we would sit in remorseful silence for a while. But I learned that hymnal from cover to cover.
Things changed in the 80's. Our meeting schedule changed and instead of being in church all day, we were there for just a single three hour block. And in 1985, a new hymnal was published and the old dark blue one was replaced with a new dark green one. We had to learn all new numbers for our favorite hymns. Come, Come Ye Saints became #30, Redeemer of Israel #6, We Thank Thee o God for a Prophet #19, Come, Ye Disconsolate #115, Abide With Me #166, and sadly, Come, Thou Fount was not there at all. It took a while, but now after 35 years, I know this hymnal better than I did the old one.
Serve the Lord with gladness:
Come before his presence with singing.
Psalm 100:1-2
Two weeks ago Hannah told us that she has been called to be the choir director in her ward at BYU-I. She was uncertain about the calling. She has sung in choirs in church, in high school, and at college, but she isn’t sure about directing one. I told her not to worry, directing choirs runs in the family. I’ve sung in church choirs since I was ten (when we lived in ward where there was a choir) and I’ve been the choir director and the congregational chorister in every ward I’ve lived in since I was 21. I love singing and I love directing choirs. That’s mostly because I love sacred music and most particularly, our hymns.
Even as a small child, I loved singing hymns. Back then, we used the old dark blue hymnals (copyright 1948). Singing from that hymnal over the years, I came to know the hymn numbers of all my favorite hymns by heart – Come, Come Ye Saints #13, Redeemer of Israel #195, We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet #196, Come Thou Fount #70, Come, Ye Disconsolate #18, and my favorite, Abide With Me #51.
Back in those days we were in church most of the day on Sundays. We had meetings in the morning and then a break and then we went back in the evening for sacrament meeting, which was two hours long. That evening meeting was hard for us children to sit through. To entertain ourselves in a quiet (supposedly) manner, my brother Steve, my cousin Rick and I devised a game. We would take a hymnal and one of us would whisper a phrase and then we would open the hymnal randomly and insert the phrase before or after the hymn title. Despite our intentions, the game was not very reverent. Most of time the phrase/title combination was just silly or didn’t make any sense, but sometimes it was hilarious. For instance when the whispered phrase was “In the bathtub” and the hymn title was Behold Thy Sons and Daughters, Lord (#24). How could we not laugh at “Behold Thy Sons and Daughters, Lord, in the bathtub?” Or even better (or worse), “Gently Raise The Sacred Strain (#92) on the toilet.” Inevitably we would laugh out loud and draw the wrathful attention of my mother or grandmother. Someone would get a pinch and a stern look and the hymnal would be taken from us and we would sit in remorseful silence for a while. But I learned that hymnal from cover to cover.
Things changed in the 80's. Our meeting schedule changed and instead of being in church all day, we were there for just a single three hour block. And in 1985, a new hymnal was published and the old dark blue one was replaced with a new dark green one. We had to learn all new numbers for our favorite hymns. Come, Come Ye Saints became #30, Redeemer of Israel #6, We Thank Thee o God for a Prophet #19, Come, Ye Disconsolate #115, Abide With Me #166, and sadly, Come, Thou Fount was not there at all. It took a while, but now after 35 years, I know this hymnal better than I did the old one.
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| Some of my hymnals. |
I’ve been asked before which hymn is my favorite. It’s a hard question for me to answer. I love so many of them and my favor changes with need. I sing hymns all the time – not just in church, but in the car, while I’m working in the garden, while I’m working in the house. There is almost always a hymn running through my head. Most mornings I wake up with one playing in my head and usually it gets stuck there all day. Lately it’s been The Wintry Day Descending to Its Close (#37). The first verse goes like this and almost makes miserable winter weather like we had last week seem noble:
The wintry day, descending to its close,
Invites all wearied nature to repose,
And shades of night are falling dense and fast,
Like sable curtains closing o’er the past.
Pale through the gloom the newly fallen snow
Wraps in a shroud the silent earth below
As tho ’twere mercy’s hand had spread the pall,
A symbol of forgiveness unto all.
I have long taken pride in the fact that I can sing the words to all of the verses of many of the hymns from memory. In church I like to close my eyes when we sing to prove to myself that I can do it. I don’t think that’s a sinful sort of pride.
The hymns have been a joy and a comfort to me all my life. When I’ve been sad or lonely or discouraged, singing a hymn aloud or in my head has helped me. When I’m feeling happy, happy hymns fill my head and heart. When I arrived in Japan on my mission, everything was strange and overwhelming to me. In those first days and weeks and many times after that, at bedtime, while I was laying in my futon trying to fall asleep, I would sing Abide With Me and Come, Ye Disconsolate in my head. It was the only way I could ease my anxious and homesick heart enough to fall asleep. While I was in Japan, after much determination and diligence, I learned to sing from the Japanese hymnal (sanbika in Japanese). Over the years, I have collected a few hymnals in other languages as well – Italian, and Spanish. All the foreign language hymnals are slightly different from each other and the standard green hymnal. There are hymns that they sing in other countries that we do not.
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| Abide With Me in the Japanese hymnal. |
The Church is now in the process of compiling a new hymnal to replace the green one. This time there will be one standard hymnal for the entire worldwide church with the same hymns and the same numbers in every language. I don’t know when it will be ready. So once again I’ll have to learn new page numbers. I’m sure that, given time, I’ll learn to love it as much as I did Old Blue and Old Green.
And speaking of joyful noise, we drove down to the Thayn’s house for the weekend. Stacey and I drove down after work on Friday. Miriam was already there. The Fosters drove over from Toledo on Saturday morning. The reason for gathering was to celebrate two February birthdays, Rachel’s on the 7th and mine on the 11th. We had an Italian feast for lunch on Saturday – a cheese and meat tray, pizza, and fettuccine with pesto. After lunch Rachel and I opened birthday presents. Later in the evening we had birthday treats – biscotti, hazel nut gelato, a pavlova with lemon curd and fresh fruit. We played games, ate great food, and loved being together. We started for home again this afternoon and just got home an hour ago. We had a great time.
And speaking of joyful noise, we drove down to the Thayn’s house for the weekend. Stacey and I drove down after work on Friday. Miriam was already there. The Fosters drove over from Toledo on Saturday morning. The reason for gathering was to celebrate two February birthdays, Rachel’s on the 7th and mine on the 11th. We had an Italian feast for lunch on Saturday – a cheese and meat tray, pizza, and fettuccine with pesto. After lunch Rachel and I opened birthday presents. Later in the evening we had birthday treats – biscotti, hazel nut gelato, a pavlova with lemon curd and fresh fruit. We played games, ate great food, and loved being together. We started for home again this afternoon and just got home an hour ago. We had a great time.
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| Measuring how big Mabel is. |
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| Our Italian feast. |
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| A birthday gift from Miriam - wonderful books! |
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| Playing games. |
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| Snuggling while we watch Frozen 2. |
One year ago at this time, we were in Italy. That was a great adventure. We still talk about it all the time. Every one of us wants to go back. I don’t know when that will happen. But a new and different adventure looms on our horizon. This week Stacey, Miriam, and I will leave for our big Florida Adventure. I plan to send out the Journal while we are there, but I don’t know if I’ll have a way to process photographs. My camera is tricky these days. I have to go through a multi-step process here at home to unload the photos. I don’t know if I can do that where we will be. If I can, I’ll send out the Journal on schedule. If I can’t, I might wait until we come home again to report on the whole adventure. So you might not get a Journal for a few weeks.
