Friday Five: We Who Sing Pray Twice

Mary Beth at RevGalBlogPals writes: "Music is a part of the human experience, and part of religious traditions the world over. It is evocative and stirring, and many forms of worship are incomplete without it.

Our title comes from a quote popularly attributed to St. Augustine: "He who sings prays twice." A little Googling, however, indicates that Augustine didn't say exactly that. In fact, what he said just doesn't fit well onto a t-shirt. So we'll stick with what we have.

"Singing reduces stress and increases healthy breathing and emotional expression. Singing taps into a deep, age-old power available to all of us. When we find our voice, we find ourselves. Today, sing like you mean it." And let's talk about the role music plays in your life and worship. (quote on singing from The Green Children Foundation blog)"

1) Do you like to sing/listen to others sing? In worship, or on your own (or not at all?)
Absolutely. I sing lustily and with good courage, and wish more people would. And believe me, I'm not someone you would pay to hear sing.


2) Did you grow up with music in worship, or come to it later in life? Tell us about it, and how that has changed in your experience.
I think my first worship memory is learning "Jesus Loves Me" at the Bowdoinham Baptist Church's Vacation Bible School. Then singing from the Armed Forces Hymnal at the Hainerberg Protestant Chapel in Wiesbaden; "Blessed Assurance" and "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" are a couple that stay in mind from that time. The little Sunday school in the firehouse in Milford, Connecticut, had a choir for a time and I was in it! I got a ride to rehearsals from the divinity student in his three-wheeled Messerschmitt car, and we learned Fauré's "The Palms", quite ambitious for a bunch of 10-year-olds. When we moved to Fairfield and I started going to First Congregational there, a professional organist and choir director enhanced worship and I learned a lot of new hymns. In college, thinking hard about Judaism, I learned to appreciate Jewish cantorial music. Later, back in the fold at First Church, Waseca, MN, our wonderful choir director Penny Peters gave us a wide variety of music -- Bach to Bernstein to what I can only describe as cowboy music. It was then I became an occasional "choir widow." I've enjoyed hanging around with choir people ever since, aided by Onkel Hankie Pants and our two daughters. Music continues to be an important part of worship for me.

3) Some people find worship incomplete without music; others would just as soon not have it. Where do you fall?
Well, as I said, I can't imagine worship without it. I have met a few of those people and I don't "get" them at all. Even Quaker Cousin goes to a "programmed" meeting where they sing!

4) Do you prefer traditional music in worship, or contemporary? That can mean many different things!
I love traditional music of all kinds -- Bach and the old hymns, but also "roots music" -- black and white gospel and even those sawdust trail hymns my father used to sing bits of. "Contemporary Christian" and praise music -- not so much. But I've heard examples of both that were good. And I like Taizé and some of the newer hymns that have shown up in the hymnals I collect. Also "foreign" hymns add a lot to our worship, such as "You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore" and "Toda la Tierra."


5) What's your go-to music ... when you need solace or want to express joy? A video/recording will garner bonus points!
Trying to come up with one I haven't shared before, I thought of this one. There's little or no information about the singing group and I'm not even sure where they are, though a tag "sda" suggests they may belong to a Seventh-Day Adventist church somewhere. I listened to several others, some with lovely photos of lighthouses, but this is the one that dampened my eyes. After a long absence from Friday Fives, I need all the bonus points I can get!

Tuneful Tuesday: It Came to Me in a Dream

This morning I woke up with a song running through my head:

...For dreams are just like wine
And I am drunk with mine.
I'm aware
My heart is a sad affair,
There's much disillusion there,
But I can dream, can't I?
Can't I adore you
Although we are oceans apart,
I can't make you open your heart,
But I can dream, can't I?

Although I have three recordings of this song, I hadn't listened to it for quite a while. I puzzled for a while about why it should have come into my head. Finally I decided that it was because, when I went to bed last night, I was in the middle of A False Mirror by Charles Todd. It's one of a mystery series set just after World War I, featuring a police detective who is haunted, literally, by his experiences in the trenches. In this book, there is a major character whose life is complicated by an unrequited love as in the song.

At any rate, that got me thinking about songs featuring dreams, so here are a few favorites in different genres.

1. I Can Dream, Can't I? -- Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal -- 1938.
Fain and Kahal wrote several songs for a musical called Right This Way which ran for only 10 days in early 1938. But two of the songs from that musical became classic standards -- "I'll Be Seeing You" and this one. Tommy Dorsey recorded it for a hit in 1938, and in 1946, the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra, with the Andrews Sisters, had an even bigger hit. In 1969 it was recorded by Mama Cass Elliott and in 1975, by the Carpenters. My personal favorite recording is by Bobby Short and appears on his album Late Night at the Cafe Carlyle.

2. All I Have to Do Is Dream -- Felice and Boudleaux Bryant -- 1958.
There were plenty of songs about dreams in the 1950s rock'n'roll scene, but the quintessential one, appearing on several Best Songs of All Time lists, is this one, a hit for the Everly Brothers in 1959. "Only trouble is, Gee whiz, I'm dreamin' my life away." Several other people have recorded this song, and who can blame them, as I can't resist singing along whenever I hear it -- but I don't know who could possibly do better than Don and Phil's rendition. You can find lots of videos of them on YouTube, but seriously, you need to have their Greatest Hits CD.

3. Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart -- George Croly (words) and Frederick C. Atkinson (music) -- 1854/1870.
Did you think you were going to get out of here without a Sacred Song? Think again! The Cyberhymnal lets you search hymns by keyword but I didn't need to search for this one. We sang it quite a bit at my old church and I've always loved this verse:

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies;
But take the dimness of my soul away.

George Croly, the Anglican clergyman who wrote this, doesn't really sound like my kind of guy according to some of the biographies out there (he was firmly opposed to any form of liberalism, for example). But this verse has always touched me. Recently the RevGalBlogPals read and discussed the book Listening for God by Renita Weems. Rev. Weems was brought up in a Pentecostal tradition, where ecstatic experiences are sought and expected. The book tells of how she deals with a period of spiritual dryness. I had a hard time relating to her concerns, mostly because I've never had the kind of mountaintop experience she seemed to be missing (and probably wouldn't know what to do with it if I did have one!) About the most I hope for is just what Croly asks: Take the dimness of my soul away. I couldn't actually find a recording I liked that had the verse I wanted. But it's in both the New Century Hymnal and the Pilgrim Hymnal, and probably quite a few more. The tune is called Morecambe.

4. Devil's Dream -- Traditional -- Date unknown.
And now for something completely different, both in musical genre and perhaps in spiritual connotation! Most sources agree that this is an Irish reel, and you will probably recognize it when you hear it even if you didn't know its name. Like the classical piece, Devil's Trill Sonata by Tartini, this piece appears to be technically demanding for both the fiddler and banjo player (it's often done by bluegrass groups). I downloaded two versions, one by Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys with banjo and other instruments as well as the fiddle, and one by the French-Canadian fiddler Jean Carignan. But here's a fiddler/guitarist on YouTube doing a very nice job with it.

5. When I Grow Too Old to Dream -- Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II -- 1934.
A few years ago, Sisterknits had the opportunity to hear Dave Brubeck at the University of Minnesota. She brought me back a souvenir in the form of a CD called Private Brubeck Remembers. In it, Brubeck takes us on a musical journey through his experience of World War II by playing songs that had meaning for him then and now. One of them is this one:

So kiss me, my sweet,
And then let us part.
And when I grow too old to dream,
That kiss will live in my heart.

The song was written in 1934 for the film The Night Is Young, an operetta set in Vienna. It's a beautiful, wistful waltz, evoking a time when lovers were too often parted. Do try to get hold of Brubeck's version, but if you can't, here is one that's a bit different. Look beyond the guitarist's unfortunate choice of attire and just enjoy the music:

6. Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream -- Ed McCurdy -- 1950.
In 1950, just a few years after World War II, just as the United Nations was getting going, Ed McCurdy wrote this song. I don't know whether he wrote it before or after June 25, when hostilities broke out in Korea. As the years went on, more and more people sang and recorded this song, but the dream sometimes seems further away than ever. My recording of this is by The Weavers, but I found a nice video of a man playing and singing it in his living room.
If you want something really interesting, check the "related videos" box for the one with Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel, and Palestinian poet Rashid Hussain. Mr. Hussain doesn't seem to be much of a musician, but I think he really is singing along.

What are your favorite songs about dreams? Leave a comment if you have one.

Friday Five, One Day Late (Again)

Sally over at RevGalBlogPals posted the following; I’m a day late, but then, I’m not yet an official RevGalBlogPal.

I have spent the week at Summer School studying the Gospel and Western culture, we have looked at art, literature, music, film and popular culture in their myriad expressions. With that in mind I bring you the cultural Friday 5.

Name a

1. Book
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. For several years after confirmation, I was not at all sure about God, and when I became a little surer about God, I was still not sure about Jesus Christ. Then I read this book and found a Christ I could believe in. The Incarnation is very important to me; although I do believe Jesus is fully human and fully divine, I would give up the latter before the former if forced to do so.

2. Piece of music
Hymns in general are the music that helps and challenges me spiritually. One that runs through my head a lot for some time now is "Great Is Your Faithfulness." “Morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed your hand has provided.” I have so much to be thankful for and this helps to remind me.

3. Work of art
I’m going to “cheat” on this one as Songbird did, and use a theatrical performance. In 1991, Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis produced The Nightingale, inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen story and featuring noted Twin Cities gospel singer Robert Robinson as the Nightingale. As a Christmas present, I asked that our whole family attend. It was a transcendent evening of theatre, not least because we five enjoyed it together; Robinson’s voice, the costumes and sets, everything worked together; and the story has a lot to say about what’s real and what’s not, an important spiritual lesson. (If you follow no other link in this post, do the Robert Robinson one and watch the video.)

4. Film
The first one that comes to mind is one of the first films I saw on my own in a movie theater. (I saw a lot with my brother when I was younger, but around age 12 or 13 I was going to the movies by myself in Milford, CT). It’s not, apparently, available on VHS or DVD, but if you ever see it listed in a TV schedule be sure to watch it. It’s called Hand in Hand, the story of a little Catholic boy and a little Jewish girl who become friends. I don’t know quite why this film has stuck in my mind so long, but it seems to have the same effect on others. Its message of religious tolerance and, by extension, acceptance of our many differences, would be as important now as it was then.

5. Unusual engagement with popular culture
I don’t know how unusual this is, but…a few years ago there was a choral music series at the University of Minnesota that we got tickets for, and the first in the series was The Blind Boys of Alabama. Now, although I like all kinds of music, my general practice in worship is pretty sedate. At, say, a Pentecostal service, I would normally feel about as out of place and self-conscious as I did at pep rallies in high school. But toward the end of the concert, the Blind Boys were wailing and strutting and jumping up and down (and some of the ones jumping were probably in their 70s) and that audience of Scandinavians and Germans and Anglo-Saxons, Lutherans and Episcopalians and Unitarians, were all on our feet, not just standing but bouncing up and down, and folks, we had church. A peak experience.

That have helped/ challenged you on your spiritual journey.

Bonus: Is engagement essential to your Christian faith, how and why?
I’d say yes, just because I like making connections (there will be more about this when I get to “c” in my alphabet) and because, if faith means something, it needs to be present not just in worship on Sunday but in every part of our lives.