Room at the Cross -- Ira F. Stanphill

 

The song was born in Kansas City, Missouri, though the one who gave it inspiration is unknown. A listener, a preacher named Ira Forest Stanphill, was paying attention because he had, after all, solicited suggestions for a new song. What was in the heart of an unidentified Christian believer in that Kansas City church that helped spawn “Room at the Cross” is likewise unknown. But, the words stuck. Were the other suggestions less worthy, in Ira’s estimation? His own testimony suggests otherwise, and yet the one that had quickly captured his eye was indeed the first one that emerged from his handiwork. How many of Ira’s other works were developed the same way? Even Ira probably couldn’t tell, although why he chose his method for song incubation was not random. What was it in the song’s title that moved this songwriter? Let’s see.

 

It was 1946, and the 32-year-old Ira Stanphill was doing something in a KC church that he loved – preaching and singing the good news. Sometime during the worship service, Ira asked those gathered to offer titles for new songs that he would write for them to sing later. Ira was a well-known artist, with a gift that must have spurred the energy among those people, for he received some 50 ideas. These were deposited in one of his pockets, for the time being. Something resonated in the next few hours, and Ira says the song ‘Room …’ was penned very quickly. This was typically how Ira developed his songs – from the crowds to whom he spoke. ‘Room…’ wasn’t the only title that he tried out on a worshipping crowd later, though he admits it was the only one among the others that prevailed for long. Why’d he do things this way? His response was that he thought the songs connected with his real-world experience, and that hearers responded for similar reasons. In other words, someone in that KC church had been motivated by the thought that he/she was welcome at God’s redemptive moment. He wants me to join myself to His pivotal, history-changing act of sacrifice. You can hear this seminal thought emerge in Ira’s words, and presume that they resounded as well in the ears and heart of that anonymous person who first suggested the song’s title. Maybe that person had a story that told of coming to know God, of realizing that He’s opening his arms and waiting with a loving embrace. Ira variously describes His cross as a ‘shelter’ and a ‘fountain’ (v.1), that this divine Christ is a ‘friend’ (v.2), One who at once embodies ‘love’ and ‘strength’ (v.3). ‘Who doesn’t need what He offers?’, Ira wrote.

 

Ira Stanphill and his unknown collaborator seemed to capture something important about God. Jesus didn’t reserve that Calvary moment for his own, for He and His Father to shoulder with a Divine detachment. Certainly, only Jesus could do what He did that day. But He wasn’t alone. A crowd, even family, were there. Why didn’t God urge them to leave? Because He knew what we need, a need more urgent than one that could have shielded Mary and John and the others from an awful scene. In fact, I need to look at that hour most intently, and make the same sort of observation of myself. That’s real life, as Ira suggested. That’s the only way to get above and beyond what hurts most in life – death. Fix my attention on His to get over mine. Sound like a plan?  

 

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; and Stories Behind Popular Songs and Hymns, by Lindsay Terry, Baker Book House Company, 1992.

 

Also see this link for author’s biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/t/a/n/stanphill_if.htm

Also see this link, showing all three original verses and the chorus: https://www.hymnlyrics.org/newlyrics_r/room_at_the_cross_for_you.php

 

Mansion Over the Hilltop -- Ira F. Stanphill

A little poverty-stricken girl and a businessman, probably unaware that their chance encounter would motivate a songwriter, met in a rural area near Dallas, and that’s where this multi-pronged story began to take shape. Their names remain unrecorded, but what they said was unforgettable to Ira Stanphill’s ears, as he thought one morning about a “Mansion Over the Hilltop” that the child and the businessman had mentioned on two different levels. That this song’s genesis involved three different people, each from a different circumstance, illustrates yet again how much like a fingerprint a song can be. A songwriter like Ira may often hear a story that captures his imagination, but the path each song travels is unique, allowing us as to appreciate that each one is special, with twists and turns not unlike the loops, whorls, and arches (forensic terms in the science of fingerprint analysis) that whet the appetite of a musical detective. Yum!

The circumstances that coalesced one evening when Ira Stanphill attended a revival are the fingerprint of ‘Mansion Over a Hilltop’. Ira was in his early 30s in 1945 when he was doing what a preacher, musician, and songwriter in the Gospel genre like himself would consider normal: He was attending a conference that he probably expected would stimulate his passion, and hopefully that of many others, for God. A businessman who’d had a rough time, but who’d also had an epiphany, was speaking. Business had been bad, and this struggling entrepreneur had sought some relief in a drive through a rural area. He found more than he’d thought he would, and unexpectedly from a small child, too. Her appearance perhaps reminded him of his own situation – a poor waif, with a broken doll, standing next to a ramshackle house she called home. Yet, she smiled. Why? Because she had hope, with her father building a brand-new home not far away, over the nearby hill. What a gift hope is, the downtrodden man thought, not just for what we might attain in this world to overcome destitution, but especially how this world’s cruelties will be overcome by what awaits the believer in the afterlife. ‘My mansion is secure’, the businessman reassured himself when he thought of his future with God. That spoke to Ira similarly, and after sleeping on the message he’d heard, he quickly wrote “Mansion Over the Hilltop”.

From a little girl’s hopeful answer, through one discouraged adult’s heart, and into the soul of a poet-songwriter who could put a musical exclamation mark at the conclusion of this episode, this account reiterates for us that He’s at work. Is it just coincidental how things happen for good, even in difficult times? The businessman noted as he related his story to Ira and the assembled crowd, that his heart was pierced by the unsuspecting girl’s hope-filled words. Could that, in fact, be God nudging you and me, as if to say ‘I’m here…and I haven’t forgotten you’? I’ve had at least one life episode in which I thought I felt that nudge. Coincidentally, the first one that I remember, like the businessman’s situation, involved my professional/vocational life. ‘Will I be a failure?’, I remember calling out to Him in my angst one day. He answered ‘No, you won’t be’, not too soon thereafter, and I skipped like a deer, rejoicing that He’d touched me that way. I’ve never forgot that He sent me on my way, to live my vocational dream, and to experience life in a kind of mansion for the last three decades. You and I just need to remember that another hilltop’s view will reveal an altogether different edifice – words cannot do it justice. Climb that hill!      

The primary source for the story on this song is the book Stories Behind Popular Songs and Hymns, by Lindsay Terry, Baker Book House, 1990. Also, see The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.