Where No One Stands Alone -- Mosie Lister

This fellow was by himself, but then again, he really wasn’t. He was physically alone, yet anything but abandoned. A road in the northern part of Georgia (with scenery off  to the side perhaps something like this picture, near Helen) was where Mosie Lister was en route to somewhere, when he must have been thinking of solitude. “Where No One Stands Alone” was a place and a circumstance that Mosie thought really mattered more than that isolated car trip in the hilly area where he found himself that day. He thought about not just some temporary methods to get himself through that lonely stretch of road, but about his whole life and beyond. Mosie would need more that what crossed his mind that day in 1955; he would, in fact, need some other inspiration a year later to complete the thought that began during his automobile journey.

The 34-year old Thomas Mosie Lister had lived only about one-third of his life when he composed the first portion of “Where No One Stands Alone”. He’d been composing for 15-20 years already, so he knew what he was doing, and had discovered that time in a car was not wasted. No, he said that something about the pulse of the car helped his mind concoct musical ideas. On that day in 1955, he sang the song’s chorus section, with only the air in the vehicle for company.  He’d certainly felt lonely, at least a few times, and expected to encounter additional similar experiences. And, there was also the ‘unknown’ that no one eagerly anticipates. So Mosie, who’d been in the car countless times, came up with his own therapy for loneliness. He admits the chorus was not accompanied by verses for many months; perhaps the time by himself in a vehicle was what really got to his spirit initially, like what other people might say who feel abandonment acutely. You just call out for the touch of someone else. Later, he says he sought to write the verses by thinking of another lonely person’s desperation. What was it like for him, Lister mused, as he read the great Psalmist David’s words (Psalm 27)? That’s when the words flowed, and Mosie found the rest of his musical voice. What was it like to be king, and yet feel forsaken? That’s where I don’t want to be, Mosie reasoned. And, if God could answer David, he’ll listen for my forlorn voice too. What Mosie couldn’t have known at that point, was that he’d be around as a mortal for nearly another 60 years, before standing in the ‘unknown’ territory of eternity. He had plenty of life remaining, multiple ventures to pursue, songs to write, honors to accumulate. But, nothing else matters if you don’t have companionship.

Mosie would go on to write hundreds of songs and be inducted into two music halls of fame (Gospel Music, 1976; Southern Gospel Musical Association, 1997) before retiring from mortal existence and earning his next life’s reward after 93 years. What did he learn along the way? While he wrote about lonesomeness-avoidance, it’s revealing that Mosie must have sought some isolation while living – otherwise, he couldn’t have written “Where No One…”. I couldn’t read and write about Mosie, if not for some alone time too. There was another fellow who was alone once, also (1 Kings 19) – and discovered that he wasn’t, in spite of everything. You think that maybe being alone, is really to discover you’re not alone after all? Listen for Him. He’s there.    

The following was the only source for the above song story: Stories Behind Popular Songs and Hymns, by Lindsay Terry, Baker Book House, 1990 and 1992.  

See also the following for the composer’s biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosie_Lister

My Faith Looks Up to Thee -- Ray Palmer

Ray Palmer was just a young fellow, but he had feelings and physical symptoms that belied his age and clouded his future. So in 1830 he composed a poem “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” as a very personal prayer – a needy individual calling out for divine help. Its creation offers a method that other writers may find is not easily duplicated, for did Palmer really intend the outcome that came about when he sat down and poured out the words in despair? Would anyone else intentionally submit to such a process? If they knew that’s how God works, would that alter their music-writing ventures?  

Ray Palmer’s first effort at songwriting would not be his last, and his first had been incubating for perhaps several years before it was hatched.  Palmer’s schooling as a teenager had been suspended for a time out of financial necessity, but his education continued later in his youth and coincided with his heart turning to God. He eventually attended and graduated from Yale University with an aim toward ministry, while coincidentally teaching part-time at a girls’ school in New York City – no doubt a taxing schedule. He had been ill, both physically and emotionally, for a year when he sat down as a 22-year old to reach inside himself and find God’s help through words from his heart. He wanted something that he could carry as a reminder, to lift his spirit daily, for he must have seen a long road in front of himself. ‘Would the previous year’s experience be what ministry entailed?’, he may have worried. His devotion to God had spawned in his teens, and he was still clinging to that faith and to the road to ministry he had set before himself. But, there was no denying that loneliness, depression, and sickness also inhabited his being – he admitted this too. He kept the four-stanza composition in a notebook in his coat pocket. His poem might have remained between himself and its addressee (God), if two years later he hadn’t bumped into his friend Lowell Mason, a music-writer who was hunting new songs for his latest project. The rest, as has been said, is history. Palmer would write a few dozen other song poems during his life, yet he may have employed the best technique for this part of his ministry just as he was beginning.

Palmer probably never forgot how his prayer played out – that we know the story of its conception assures us of this. It really sticks with a believer, to sense when God has heard and delivers His response. Ray admitted to Him how he felt in his verses – guilt, weakness, fear, overwhelming sadness, and even some distrust. Perhaps Ray felt that he had nothing to lose at that point. After all, the year had already been pretty tough on him, so why not be honest, while telling Him you still think He’s capable of delivering the Providential goods? That Palmer was still engaged in ministry two years hence, when he encountered his friend and shared the poem, tells us that God did reply. Maybe God taking his servant’s request-prayer to the next level—making it public, and lifting it for others to see for the last 185 years--was what Palmer could not have anticipated. What do you think Ray would say if he were here today? He’d probably say ‘See, God’s still here…and He may have a surprise for you’.     

Information on the song was also obtained from the books  Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990, Kregel Publications; 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

See following site also. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/m/y/f/myfluptt.htm

Tell It to Jesus Alone – Edmund Simon Lorenz

One fellow wrote the words, and another translated them into the language we know today.  Edmund Simon Lorenz must have been lonely and sad at times, or at least knew some people who were, perhaps stirring him to write “Tell It to Jesus Alone” in the latter 19^th Century, perhaps as he lived in Ohio (see picture of its seal here).

Its words must have spoken to Jeremiah Rankin, for he translated the song’s words from the original German to English a few years later. Their paths crossed in the mid-1870s, leading to the creation of the song’s English version. Was there something that Lorenz might have shared with his like-minded colleague Rankin as the two discussed how friendless and lonesome people needed to hear the therapy recommended in the song’s words?

Edmund Lorenz was just 22 years old when he crafted the musical remedy for the dark feelings he describes in “Tell It to Jesus Alone”, a period in which he also was entering upon his life’s purpose.  He’d already been a German language teacher and a school principal when he apparently decided after a few short years that he wanted something else, prompting him to move to Dayton, Ohio to become a music editor at age 19. Over the next decade he studied theology in several places, including in Germany, and invested himself in his faith as an ordained minister via the United Brethren in Christ Conference in Ohio. He also was married and began to have children by the late 1870s. Apparently, something still missing in his life or in others he observed in 1876 must have contributed to his thoughts about grief, lonesomeness, and other anxieties he dwells upon in the four verses and refrain of “Tell It…”. Was he troubled particularly prior to finding a mate and family life? Did he talk with others who were approaching life’s end, since death’s prospect (verse four) was part of his vision? The same questions might be asked of the 48-year old Jeremiah Rankin, the translator of the song into English. Lorenz and Rankin intersected during their collaboration on Francis Murphy’s Gospel Temperance Hymnal  in 1878, the episode in which they must have decided that “Tell it…” could be transformed from Lorenz’ native tongue (and first published in Fröliche Botschafter) into English. The two men were a generation apart, yet no doubt appreciated the emotions described in the hymn, as well as its recommended treatment for the maladies afflicting the soul. Friendship.  

‘Who’s an island?’, Lorenz and Rankin must have mused jointly. No one in life’s journey wants to be alone. Even the most hardened, ruthless criminals stuck in prison may be punished with something still more severe  -- solitary confinement. The two composers may have noticed something else about human friendships. Sometimes they fail us, just because there’s something like a fallibility clause in our human nature. It’s just part of the landscape of our existence. That’s why Jesus’ entry into the picture is so great. He’s been like me, but He’s also something better – in fact, He’s transcendent, an ‘Overcomer’. He’s the model for me. Could that be why He wants me to think of Him as my friend?

See here for information on the song’s composer:  http://www.hymnary.org/person/Lorenz_Edmund

Also see here for more information on the composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/l/o/r/lorenz_es.htm

See here information about the English translator of the hymn: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/r/a/n/rankin_je.htm

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

See here for all four verses and refrain of hymn: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/e/l/tellitto.htm

He Knows Just What I Need -- Thomas Mosie Lister

He was a 34-year old Southerner living in Atlanta (see the city’s seal here)  

who’d been engaged in music since he was a teenager, mostly as a singer, though his approach had changed just a few years earlier. Thomas Mosie Lister’s adjustment in his music life may have helped spawn “He Knows Just What I Need” that he composed in 1955, though the beliefs and musical talents no doubt had already been gestating in his being already. Was there something in what he penned that had been waiting to make its appearance, something he’d been feeling that he finally found the words to say? Perhaps it was the greater focus on the musical gift that spurred this song’s emergence. Mosie also must have experienced some challenges too, some holes in his life that found their voice in his composition.

Mosie Lister had sung in various Southern Gospel quartets for over a decade in the mid-20^th Century, a career that helped prepare him for another musical role in the 1950s and gave rise to the words he’d write in 1955. He’d had a respiratory infection that forced him to suspend singing for a while, but after recovering he resumed singing with the Statesmen, perhaps the most well-known of the groups that included his bass voice. By 1953 he had started his own music publishing enterprise, wherein he composed and arranged as an extension of his musical avocation. He soon made it his full-time professional venture, with his wife Wylene’s encouragement, and it was soon thereafter that he wrote “He Knows…”. What was his experience at the time, as he and his family resided in Atlanta? The words of two of the three verses he wrote speak of lonesomeness, a sense of being abandoned. Was this a personal admission Mosie was making? Or, maybe he wrote for someone close to himself, perhaps his wife or one or both of his twin daughters. Mosie and his family must also have been churchgoers, a place where he might have observed heartaches of spiritual family members too. This was an environment from which he did not try to escape apparently, as Mosie later became a minister. He knew, either personally or vicariously, that this inner struggle was common, but also knew how to address a friendship-starved heart.   

Theres’ no wavering in Mosie’s tone, even as he shares that he or someone he knew was in a struggle. Note how he begins two of the verses with some significant words – ‘My Jesus knows’. He acknowledges the human condition may leave one empty, but he doesn’t wallow in that. Begin by realizing He’s watching, and take that barren sensation that nags at you to Him. Mosie must have been confident to write this way, certain that God, perhaps even through people around him, could help. Believe He’s engaged, even if you have no proof. It’s called faith.

See this link for composer’s website: http://mosielister.com/Bio_2_8CA5.html

Also see here for more biographic information on composer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosie_Lister

You Are My Hiding Place -- Michael Ledner

Michael Ledner felt really vulnerable as he reflected on his circumstances one day in 1980. He couldn’t ignore how he felt, though he was a firm believer in the One to whom he turned as he sat on a bed with a guitar and his bible close by. “You Are My Hiding Place”, he called out to God, using the words of David, his ancient spiritual compatriot who likewise sought Him who can reassure the lonely. He wasn’t completely certain he wanted to dwell in this place, however, or if he wanted to share with others the feelings the song evoked. It was a private moment. It took his travelling halfway around the globe to discover others needed to link with that intimacy, to rest in the comfort He offers.

Up and out of the pit came Michael Ledner, from a low moment into a broader appreciation for His God and the life he began to experience after this difficult period. Ledner was separated from his wife at the time and living in a tiny room in Arizona, so small that it must have been easy for him to feel isolated and forgotten. But, he clung to something – or rather, someone -- one day as he read Psalms and strummed his guitar. King David’s Psalms 32 (one of the ‘maskil’ Psalms) and 56 provided the inspiration that Michael needed, as he pondered and worshipped alone, but not without purpose. He’d often turned to music, not unlike his predecessor whose words struck him and provided the prose Michael used to vocalize his own hiding place, some three millennia later. (David sometimes sought physical refuge in a cave, not too unlike the manmade one shown here, along a coastal area in Israel.)

But, as he reflected for some time afterwards, he wondered how wise it would be to share his feelings. Was he being a weakling?  He recorded the song for himself a couple of different times, including once with a few friends, but he didn’t really share it otherwise in churches he visited for a while. It was still a difficult part of his life, as his marriage finally and permanently dissolved. Many months later, he was in David’s homeland, and again he shared the song with some visiting friends. Unbeknownst to him initially, they took the song back home, where it found wide acceptance; a formal recording by Maranatha Music soon ensued. From a private, difficult moment, to another where his experience found broad camaraderie with other believers, this was a sweet turnaround for Ledner. It was his renewal moment, and his life progressed positively after that. Many years later, he’d become a pastor and was married again, feeling as though he’d learned a valuable lesson from the day he sat in a small room with his guitar, bible, and feelings he didn’t want at the time.

Don’t run away, or try to ignore the pain – that perhaps best sums up what Michael Ledner discovered from a challenging episode in his late 20’s. He wasn’t alone after all. There’s no place to hide, but there is a person who can hide me. Seems kinda strange to realize this, until you understand, as Ledner probably did, that hiding in a place only makes you lonely. Hiding in a person is radically different.    

Sources for the song story are the books “Celebrate Jesus: The Stories behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs”, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2003; and “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006.