I Am Thine O Lord -- Frances Jane Crosby

Birthplace – Cincinnati, Ohio. Parents – Crosby and Doane. Or, perhaps another should get some credit for the composition of “I Am Thine O Lord”; see what you think after you learn what inspired the pen of 55-year-old Frances Jane Crosby in the year 1875. It’s apparent from reading about her life that circumstances did not have to be extreme for “Fanny” to write a poem that would later become a song. It probably helped her to know that her partner William Howard Doane was in tune with the same Spirit that inhabited her inner self. She was able to write on the spur of a moment, a gift that helps explain her abundancy as a hymnist – over 8,000 over her lifetime – that was more amazing because her hymn-writing career began so late in life. But, it’s never too late to connect with a new mission in life.

Fanny Crosby had many musical collaborators, but perhaps none as close to her as Howard Doane, whom she visited on occasion in his Cincinnati home. Though their musical teamwork was often the outcome of their get-togethers, during this one incident perhaps they both were not intentionally seeking such a result. It’s said they were sharing about God’s proximity and His impact, and how He had blessed them both. Indeed, Fanny and Howard were both success stories outside of their music-making ventures – she as a writer and musician with hundreds of secular works to her credit, and he a very prosperous businessman. Their conversation sparked her imagination, but perhaps there was some other synergistic element there too. It’s said that as the sun set that day, a shadowy scene portrayed His handiwork. While this would have been invisible to Crosby, was it something that Howard related to his blind friend – a further evidence of God’s presence, and an additional ingredient in the topic of their conversation? To the perceptive Crosby, could she feel the descending sun’s warmth vanishing bit by bit, but in a way calling out to her? Whatever the cause, Crosby was seeking to go deeper (vv.1-2) than she’d been up to that point. She recognized His presence had indeed come as she’d sought Him (v. 3), but understood that she would not fully experience Him here (v. 4). She reportedly spoke the words of the verses to Howard on the spot, obviously with the movement of the Spirit giving her the inspired words. Howard apparently wrote the music accompanying ”I Am Thine…” the following morning. It would be interesting to know how often the Crosby –Doane collaborative relationship worked in this way. They reportedly produced some 1,500 songs together.Isn't it great what Christian fellowship can do?

Can it be said that Fanny’s musical life is proof that God’s presence is persistent? Sometimes it seems He’s near, but is He gone at other times, particularly when evil seems so pervasive?  Would the planet lose its way in orbit if He was missing for even a brief second? Conflicting evidence might tell us ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are at once the answers to these questions. Maybe these are questions that Fanny asked herself too, spurring her onward to a renewed mission work commitment as she broached the age of sixty, five years after “I am Thine…” was born. To bring God close to those who needed Him most was her urgent desire. A Cincinnati evening wasn’t a one-time experience, but something Aunt Fanny wanted to build upon. What’s your building look like?    

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; and Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990. 

Also see this link, showing all four verses and the composer’s story about the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/a/t/iatolord.htm  

More in-depth biography of composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby

Jesus Thy Name I Love -- James George Deck

He would be pleased if you called him ‘brother’ when meeting him for the first time. That much could easily be speculated about James George Deck, since he was of the Plymouth Brethren in the 19^th Century. This composer-evangelist-missionary and Jesus-lover, because of his beliefs, would also have been happy if you joined him in the song “Jesus, Thy Name I Love”, because that would mean you shared this life’s theme with him, no matter what Christian church name you associated with. Knowing where and when he wrote this song, you get a picture of how Deck might have introduced himself, and his God, to those he was just getting to know.  

Deck’s life began in England, wound its way through different parts of Europe and Asia, back to England, and then to New Zealand (see its flag here). He was trained to be an army officer in Paris, took a commission (bought by his father, in fact) in the East India Company and served in India for two separate tours in the 1820s and 1830s. It wasn’t long before he heard a message of brotherhood in Jesus and began to ponder this alternative to the military career in which he was progressing. By 1835 while still in India, he made the commitment to full-time ministry, quit the military and returned to England with his wife and two sons. He eventually joined the Brethren, and began his life’s work. A split in the Brethren fellowship wounded Deck spiritually and emotionally, and no doubt contributed to a stroke he suffered by 1852, when he was just 45. It was then that Deck and his family departed for New Zealand. While needing to put distance between himself and the church division controversy in England, Deck still needed God, and still believed in the basic principles of the Brethren. So, he started a new life in New Zealand, in a hard-scrabble area of the Waiwero district, not far from Mouteka.  His wife died that first year in December 1853, a sign perhaps of the strain of a hard life on unforgiving land and a different climate. Eventually, Deck started a Brethren movement in this area, but that first year, he and his family were still settling into a new life. Jesus…He was the focus of Deck’s thoughts. Not controversy, not theological debates, just God, and a new beginning. This was the background for “Jesus Thy Name I Love” that Deck wrote in 1853.   

Deck obviously wanted to put some things behind him in New Zealand, and re-center on what had drawn him toward God in the first place. In the isolated area of Waiwero, though the land was tough for farming, it’s said that the Decks found Christian friends. Even the death of Deck’s wife did not leave James George bereft and downcast for long. He remarried and added several more children to his family through his second wife, although she too died some 10 short years into their marriage, in 1865. Still, Deck’s life included many fellow Christians and his 13 children. He indeed experienced brotherhood, while enduring loss. How’d he manage? The words he penned that first year in New Zealand must have been an unshakeable foundation for him. Something that would keep one standing though you might be on the opposite side of the globe from one’s birthplace…what would that be? Read James George Deck’s poem-song words, and see what you think of his solution.

A great in-depth look at Deck’s life is here:

http://www.bruederbewegung.de/pdf/linehamdeck.pdf

Other biographical information on the composer:

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

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/d/e/c/deck_jg.htm

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/t/jthyname.htm (all four verses of his song are here)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Brethren (infomation on church Deck was in)

Hallelujah to the Lamb – Don Moen and Debbye Graafsma

Don Moen has many friends and collaborators -- not just a vague impression you might gather from watching and hearing him, but a certainty when you read his biography. And, his life’s purpose – to be part of a community larger than himself - comes through in his music, including in the song “Hallelujah to the Lamb” that he produced in 1997. It’s appropriate that this song was in fact a collaboration with one of his friends, Debbye Graafsma. Though she is professionally a counselor, you might say they both minister to lots of people, bringing many to the divine Counselor. Their aim – how about the entire globe?

Here’s what Debbye relayed to this blogger about the song’s development: The song originally came as a Song of the Lord during a congregational prayer time. It was a simple AB chorus. My husband and I were pastoring a small rural church in Hamilton, Indiana. A ministry we were involved in called Cleansing Stream picked it up. Don heard it through a mutual friend, Pastor Jack Hayford. He wanted to expand it to be more of a choir anthem, so he changed the chorus, and wrote the bridge. I added the second verse to help him achieve his goal. I am amazed at how God takes the simplest things and uses them. He is so good to us... He gives us gifts and then blesses us when we give those gifts back to him. Thanks for sharing Debbye! Read some more below on Don’s and Debbye’s backgrounds.

In 1997 Don Moen had already been engaged in Christian music production for two decades, including since 1986 when he first began to produce his own works. He was 47 years old, and wrote this scoop’s song subject among 15 other compositions that appeared on the album Let Your Glory Fall . His co-writer Debbye Graafsma (40 years old at the time), was the daughter of missionaries, and like Moen, had been involved with music for the previous two decades. So, it doesn’t really seem accidental that the words of the music they co-wrote would seem to be inspired by their experiences and dreams about ministry. Moen’s official website (Don Moen and Friends) promotes this desire for outreach, to ‘connect worshippers worldwide’. And, it’s in the song, having the worshipper bond with others across the globe with words about ‘multitudes’ from ‘every tribe and tongue’. Graafsma’s missionary background must have called out to her as well through the song’s words. All of His people are one, can call upon Him in harmony, and rejoice in His Spirit moving in and among us. It’s a global movement that Moen and Graafsma remind us He inspires. The composers’ witness among believers, in their homes in Tennessee (Moen) and North Carolina (Graafsma), and far abroad (including most recently in Vietnam, where Moen was in April 2011), make the words of their joint endeavor come off the page – they live them.

Remembering some of the song’s key words – ‘You are Lord of all’ – is now made easier for me, knowing the background and focus of the composers. God wants to lift everyone to Himself, for no one to be left behind. No one needs to feel disadvantaged in this effort, the song reminds us. My praise on the American east coast is no more valuable than someone’s in Africa or Vietnam. We’re all covered by the same blood, and need to humble ourselves the same way to approach Him. ‘All the nations will see’, the song has me say. It makes a chill go up the spine, thinking about that future, certain, moment. It must have been something of which Moen and Graafsma had seen glimpses, perhaps when they sang with others around the globe, or maybe as they thought about the lyrics of their composition. One day, I’ll see more than a glimpse and have more than a moment’s inspiring thought. Halleluuuuu-jah!

Biographic information on the composers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Moen_(singer)

http://www.integritymusic.com/donmoen

http://www.last.fm/music/Debbye+Graafsma

http://www.facebook.com/dgraafsma

Don Moen’s official website: http://www.donmoenandfriends.org/

Information about the album on which the song appears: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Your_Glory_Fall

Father of Mercies – Frederick Faber and Alice Flowerdew

“Father of Mercies” -- if ever a hymn could be called a hybrid, this one certainly would. Think of it kind of like a cross-breed animal…like a Zebra and a Donkey – a Zeedonk (see the picture). Its history is a cut and paste affair, with portions of the hymn being written by two different poets, from two different churches, with some words from the original poems changed to the words we know today. And, the poets were even born in different centuries, so it might be hard to fathom what forces worked to bring this song’s verses together. Perhaps it helped that both poets were English and that their poems were both 19th Century compositions, despite the poets’ birthdates. More importantly, this song-poem’s message reminds the worshipper that God is universal, that His goodness calls out to all people, across time and other dividing lines. Alice Flowerdew spent some time abroad in Jamaica, as the wife of a British government official, until she returned to England in the early 19th Century following the death of her husband. She was 44 years old in 1803 when she wrote the words of the six-stanza poem “Fountain of Mercies, God of Love”, the first word of which was later changed to ‘Father’ for the song; the resulting text for verses two and three of the song “Father of Mercies” came from the first and fifth stanzas of her original poem. She was the caretaker of a ladies boarding school and a member of a Baptist church when she composed the words. Could the other ladies at the school or people at the church be for whom she was writing when she penned the words ‘all creatures’, ‘our hearts’, and ‘our Father’s hand’ in the two verses attributed to her? It would be no surprise, if following the death of her husband, that a group of women and-or fellow believers had become especially important to her. On the other hand, Frederick William Faber’s verse indicates he felt God’s presence very personally, since he chose the phrases ‘my love’ and my way’ to express his devotion to Him. Faber’s experiences by 1849, when he was 35 years old, suggest his personal devotion to God. Though he began his adult vocation in the Anglican clergy in Elton, he had switched to Catholicism by 1845, along the way enduring dissenters in the church where he ministered and intensely contemplating the roots of his faith. Faber never married, and he and some of his friends formed a pseudo-monastery. Though he moved to Birmingham, England following his conversion to the Catholic Church, he moved yet again to London soon thereafter. He was kinda like a ‘rolling stone’, but throughout he maintained his love of music, upon which he leaned to develop meaningful Catholic hymns in the publication “Jesus and Mary” in 1849. This collection contained “Mother of Mercies”, which was eventually changed to ‘Father..’, an echo of what had happened to Flowerdew’s “Fountain of Mercies…”. One wonders what Flowerdew and Faber might have said had they known of their poems’ union years later. It shouldn’t surprise us, though, that God’s purposes can create something valuable out of seemingly disparate elements. The church itself is a hybrid-- not everyone’s an ear, or an eye, after all. I think the next time I sing this song, I’ll look around and wonder what other hybrids God just might be crafting for His use. Information on the hymn was available at: http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/534423/ Information on the composers was obtained through the websites: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm#lk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_Faber http://www.ely.anglican.org/about/good_and_great/faber.html

A Mighty Fortress – Martin Luther

The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46:7)

There's not much one could add to the story of Martin Luther, and his great hymn "A Mighty Fortress". It's said that it's based upon Psalm 46, which many believe Luther sang often with his compatriot Philipp Melancthon when they felt their cause was in great distress. There's four theories regarding exactly when Luther wrote the song -- all were when Luther and his fellow strugglers faced a test, a confrontation with the government, or were remembering those who gave the supreme sacrifice in the struggle to reform the church. See the websites below…they will inspire and inform you. And, the next time you sing Luther’s hymn, thank God that his servant Luther stood firm, that he was girded by God’s promises – that our God is a ROCK. 

(Dec. 2019 update): Another possibility is that the deaths in the summer of 1527 of three people close to Luther prompted the hymn’s composition, those three people being Leo Kaiser (a martyr for expressing his evangelical faith), and Hanna Bugenhagen (who died from the Plauge) and her daughter who was stillborn.  
 

See the following websites for lotsa history on Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress”:

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

http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Poetry/A-Mighty-Fortress.html

Also see the biography entitled “Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World”, by Eric Metaxas, Penguin Books, 2017, p. 386 for discussion of the triple deaths that affected Luther in 1527.