God, Who Stretched the Spangled (Heavens) -- Catherine Cameron

 

This one gestated inside her for months, and that might have been necessary for Catherine Cameron to really capture something essential about creativity. When she looked up (see the image of the heavens here, as it was seen by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, released for us to see on 11 July 2022) and thought about “God Who Stretched the Spangled (Heavens)”, and evaluated herself and the others around her, Catherine marveled and bid God to instruct us mortals even more about what it means to mimic Him in creativity. Do we appreciate that finding Him in the world of science can be both a terrifying and a thrilling exercise in discovery? ‘Be real, real, careful out there!’, as someone has said. Approaching and actually contacting Him is an awesome thing, and to see and comprehend what He’s made – including each of us – should make you and me behave with great care, for we are in His image (Genesis 1:26-27; Exodus 9:6). Catherine Cameron makes us think about that.

 

Catherine shared that she was experiencing a creative renaissance in the mid-1960s – in a way she was growing in her likeness with God – when she wrote about Him who created, and found an urge to stretch human ingenuity ever closer toward Him. That’s a laudable goal. It was the space-race years, as one group of humans tried to reach the Moon before another group of humans might try to do the same. Catherine was nearing or right at 40 years of age (depending on which year she actually wrote ‘God, Who Stretched…’), and she responded, when asked about her creation, that she was hearkening back to her teenage years and the poetry she found herself contemplating then. The incongruity sometimes between the words and the music that believers were prompted to offer to Him just bothered Catherine. Should not both the lyrics and the melodious sounds flow in the same direction? She determined that that was her objective as a creative being. But her response would not be like an eruption, an explosion of innovation. Instead, it was more like a small flame that was kept alive for several months that caused her poetry to emerge in four verses, matching a tune that was ready and waiting for her words. (The tune she chose initially was the 1797 Austrian Hymn by Joseph Haydn; Holy Manna was another tune, written in 1825 by the Columbian Harmony, that is often paired today with Catherine’s words.) Catherine’s poetry in two of her verses (one and three) exalt God for the universe and the basic building block of life – the atom – and proclaim our aspirations to be like Him, even as we risk ‘life’s destruction’ (v.3) spurred by our own curiosity. Catherine seemed to accept that risk, while deploring some of our inventions, our ‘modern cities’ (v.2) that leave us empty as a people ‘lost to purpose and to meaning’. Self-indulgence is a trap, and perhaps that is what Catherine saw in so much of the everyday hubbub of modernity, a blur of people wrapped up in themselves and what they do to approach self-actualization. What about God-actualization? That seemed to be Catherine’s aim for our race in verse four – ‘honoring You’, so that ‘our goals and Yours are one’. If we see a ‘horizon beckon’, we should acknowledge that we’re seeing Him in the majesty of His handiwork. His symphony is abiding every day for us to see and hear.             

 

There are some 85 verses in the bible that speak about image, so consider them when you think about His creativity. Read them closely, and you can see without much effort that He’s the only one we should acknowledge with respect; no other images are acceptable (Exodus 20:4; Leviticus 26:1; Deuteronomy 5:8), and note how many times God says, as if through clenched teeth, ‘vile images’ (especially in Ezekiel). That is such a crucial part in knowing and relating to Him -- that each of us is His image-bearer (Romans 8:29), a responsibility with lots of gravity. It can also mean celebration, as Paul reminds us in that letter to the Romans. He’s the only one, and each of us is like Him in that image-ness, made to follow Him in renewal (see also 1 Corinthians 15:49, 2 Corinthians 3:8, and Colossians 1:15; 3:10). It’s admittedly hard to fathom, isn’t it? What a gift! Though I cannot completely grasp His creativity, it is like encountering a new discovery in science, something wondrous but also potentially pretty dangerous. Catherine included the ‘secrets of the atom…unimagined power’ in her 3^rd verse, hitting upon something very true. How dangerous is the atom today, or for those who probed it a century ago before they really understood radioactivity? Humans can get twisted sideways into various contortions, even without the radioactivity of an atom. Today is 9/11, the anniversary of a day 25 years ago when humans destroyed rather than created. It’s been something like 60 years since Catherine created her ode to God about us creating and trying to be more like Him who put this gene inside us. How do you think we’re doing? Go create. Watch out for the Destroyer, but know the Creator is greater.      

 

Read the story of the hymn here: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-god-who-stretched-the-spangled-heavens and here: https://hymninfo.com/songs/god-who-stretched-the-spangled-heavens

 

See information on the image here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Webb%27s_First_Deep_Field.jpg …This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA, ESA and CSA. Material from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA/CSA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if source material from other organizations is in use. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space

Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee – Henry Van Dyke

May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
   may the LORD rejoice in his works—(Psalm 104:31)

Henry Van Dyke was inspired when he was 59 years old, although what caused his inspiration was probably not unlike what he had probably seen many times before. The hymn’s genesis was over 100 years old already, a timespan that the timeless God might call young, really. Three artists contributed to the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” over the 125 years of its birth, development, and complete fruition. There was a fourth – he was actually the first -- whose original imagination connected in a unique way with the last of these artists.

Henry Van Dyke apparently saw something in the Berkshire Mountains (see picture) in western Massachusetts that year of 1911, something that motivated him in an artistic way, similar to his two German predecessors who wrote about their emotions in a compelling way. Friedrich Schiller wrote “Ode to Joy” in 1785, nearly 40 years before his compatriot Ludwig Van Beethoven borrowed its theme and many of its words to compose his choral-orchestral Ninth Symphony in 1824. Some 87 years later on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Van Dyke was visiting a college to preach a message, and wrote the poem that called out to the same sensation that had motivated his ancestors. It’s said he immediately directed the college’s president to use Beethoven’s music in concert with the poem. So, could that have been the hymn’s premier?  What were Van Dyke’s sermons like during that visit? Perhaps someone remembers and has recorded them, but nevertheless this joyful hymn is a sermon all by itself, and one that is well-known both inside and outside of the church. One wonders if Van Dyke insisted on the Schiller/Beethoven connection with his poem in order to appeal to the secular world, as well as to those of Godly faith.  To whom was Van Dyke writing in his hymn?     

The easy answer, looking at his own words, is that he’s addressing God. ‘Thou’ and ‘thee’, the poetic equivalents of ‘you’, are used liberally by Van Dyke as he lauds Him. Consider the first few words he composed. Is ‘Joyful’ a name for God, according to Van Dyke? ‘Joyful, joyful, we adore thee’ – it sounds like an address. If that’s what Van Dyke intended, he indeed created something unique, for God is not addressed this way biblically, at least not directly. Did the composer see something in the Berkshire Mountains that drew him nearer to God’s creative genius? Undoubtedly. Genesis tells us that God saw it was good to create, so He must have felt some emotion, a divine satisfaction. Is it joy when a mood takes me to another plane, next to Him, even? That’s what He does for me, especially those days when I’ve had enough of the ‘here below’. The Creator-Joyful’s mountains communicate volumes, lifting the human spirit. Schiller and Beethoven, though most often considered gifted secularists, also reflect Him. Look at Schiller’s Ode to Joy. He knew joy’s author. Maybe a more perfect joy was what the stone deaf Beethoven – by the time he wrote his Ninth Symphony – was reaching for too, when he composed. Joy. It’s Him, and it’s our way to Him.   

Information on the song was obtained from the books  “Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990; and “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006. 

Also see the following websites for information on the hymn’s tune, which was set to music by Beethoven in ‘Ode to Joy’. Ode to Joy was also a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785…see the link to it here:

http://www.raptusassociation.org/ode1785.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_joy

Lord I Lift Your Name on High – Rick Founds

Rick Founds found something. His name lends itself to this kind of declaration, and since he’s a songwriter, he may have even used this way to introduce one of his creations, this song “Lord I Lift Your Name on High”. He’s written many songs, and strummed on his guitar numerous times, but the day he wrote the words of this song, he says he was struck by God’s plan for us. It was a new thought, even though it was a day like many others, and he was doing what he did lots of other times in his own personal time with Him. 

 

What new thought? A. God has had a plan, since the beginning; and B. He, the Creator, subjected Himself to creation, kinda behaving like a part of His Creation, to implement this plan. The words of Founds’ song tell us that God put Himself into a four-step cycle: Heaven-Earth-Death-Resurrection. He’s the only one who’s ever gonna do all four of these – think about it, Founds says in this song. It’s probably something I’ll never completely fathom, but something Founds says about God’s behavior helps us understand. God is like rain, Founds has said. It falls to earth, nourishes what’s there, evaporates into the air, and then returns again – as when brought by thunderstorms (see the picture above). It’s not a perfect analogy, but rain is perhaps the most basic ingredient to life on this planet. Most of the human body is water, and most of what we see growing here does so because it receives moisture. Have you noticed that scientists get really excited when they think they’ve discovered water on Mars, or on one of the other planets? Thinking of His creation, it really makes sense that God would behave like rain in order to replenish us.

 

 I drink water after I run, and I need God like that too. Rick Founds was studying from His electronic Bible, and playing with his guitar, and he’d done this many times, undoubtedly because this combination fed him emotionally, spiritually, and creatively. He grew, just like plants do when they get water, and the song God gave him to share with the world is just like that rain. I wonder how Rick Founds feels knowing that he has helped carry God’s water to believers like me? What a sensation! Even more, how must Jesus feel, having been the Godly rain for us? Maybe He’ll tell us one day. For now, this song keeps coming back to remind me that God is intimately familiar with what sustains my spirit. And, He knows the physical fuel is necessary too. I’m headed to a church Potluck in a few minutes – fellowship, and food and drink. He has sent me all that I need. 

 

 

The source for Rick Founds’ Lord I Lift Your Name on High” song story is the book “Our God Reigns: The Stories behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs”, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2000. Also see “The Complete Book of Hymns-Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. ,2006.

I Sing the Mighty Power of God – Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was a father to many. In fact, you might say he was prodigious in producing offspring, and was a father to two different types of progeny. Yet, biologically speaking, he had no children of his own, no one to inherit the Watts name. If you think this is an unsolvable puzzle, then perhaps you haven’t been in a hymn-singing church in a while.

The ‘father of English hymns’, as Watts came to be known, lived three centuries ago, and many of his 750 poems are still sung today. “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” is still a standard in churches today, and its history tells us how Watts might have been considered a father in a second way. In 1715 Watts put together a songbook, which doesn’t really sound that unusual, right? Except that this was a songbook for children, gospel songs, in which “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” appears. Kids are usually heard singing fairy tale rhymes, or some other ditties us grown-ups think of as cute, but not especially instructive for adults. The Divine Songs for Children is thought to be the first-ever hymnal published for children, a testimony of Watts’ care for children that is so well-known that it is memorialized on a statue of him in Southampton, England. Through his compositions, Watts put into action Jesus’ directive to allow children to approach the Lord, rather than ignoring or ‘shushing’ or ‘shooing’ them away. One can imagine him guiding personally small minds with his songs, and so endearing himself to kids -- although not his own -- as a father-like figure, or perhaps a gentlemanly uncle.

The song’s text is pretty simple, with few words to confuse or bewilder the mind. It seems to come straight out of Genesis, with plain words that all humans can fathom – our mighty God made everything in the universe. It’s not a time for theological, hair-splitting debate, just worship. Look on God with awe. Honor Him. Trust Him. Just like a little child, which is, by the way, how God seems to want me to regard my relationship with Him (Matthew 19:14). I think I’ll sing Watts’ song with a newfound appreciation for what he was thinking when he wrote for someone about three or four feet tall. Maybe the position on my knees would be about right the next time I sing these words.

Information on the song was obtained from the books “101 Hymn Stories”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; “Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990; and “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006. Also see the following website for information about Isaac Watts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Watts