One of these young musicians was far from home, but he’d probably say that he’d found a home thousands of miles from his native land in the 1990s. South African-born Brenton Brown was actually in Oxford, England (see its coat of arms here) for one reason when he happened to find another reason to be there, namely a music career that his fellow Rhodes scholars may not have suspected was part of the experience he would embrace there. Somewhere along this early journey, Brenton crossed paths with another Christian musician, Glenn Robertson, and together they produced “All Who Are Thirsty”, perhaps a collaboration they pursued through the Oxford Vineyard church. (This blog entry will focus on Brenton Brown, unless someone out there can send some biographic information on Glenn my way...see comments link below.) The fruit from this vineyard would include several other songs, and must have been just a taste of what Brenton would decide was worth a life of growing and drinking from the deep well he’d discovered. After you learn more about Brenton, you might say he has needed this spiritual juice to strengthen his and his family’s whole being. Read on.
He was in his mid-20s when Brenton Brown went to England on a Rhodes Scholarship from his home in South Africa, an expedition that really has not stopped in the 25-30 years since that time. ‘All Who Are Thirsty’ was one of the earliest of Brenton’s co-productions, and perhaps expressed something he needed personally and physically, as well as spiritually. The poetry suggests he was feeling a bit frail, with words like ‘weak’, ‘thirsty’, ‘pain’, and ‘sorrow’. ‘Deep…to deep’ further indicates Brenton and Glenn were finding common cause with what the psalmist/s (Sons of Korah) poured from a feeble spirit in the Psalm 42 (v.7) lament. Could it be that Brenton’s chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) suffering helped spawn the verses he needed to strengthen himself? His wife is likewise a CFS sufferer, a coincidence that probably speaks to Brenton as loudly as his own condition. After a fire burned up their Malibu, California home and most of their things in 2018, one wonders whether Brenton and his family (including two daughters) were singing anew about their pain, sorrow, and thirst. As the worship minister at Oxford Vineyard in the 1990s, and eventually the worship development team’s coordinator, Brenton must have been attuned to what were not only resonant issues for himself, but for the church at large there. How many people in that community, inside and outside of the church, would have had troubles that needed a hearing, needed an empathetic spirit to let them know they were not alone? The simpler arithmetic would be to count the numbers who didn’t, and don’t, have such a need. Do you think the Browns found the situation any different when they arrived in Tennessee (Nashville) after moving from California in 2018? Planet Earth has a terminal condition, certainly not unique to Brenton Brown.
As Brenton and probably Glenn, too, could tell us, the sensations of which they wrote in the 1990s were not incidental episodes that go away permanently with the singing of a worship song. Hurts need constant attention, salve either for my own injury or a temporary balm that I might be able to offer for someone else’s ache. But, perhaps it would be inaccurate to suggest that Brenton and the rest of us need to sing about thirst and pain and weakness all the time. Would that exercise be called wallowing in our tears? It’s probably enough just to recognize we’re all needy creatures, and that there will be a time and place when we’ll be transformed. There’s a light in the distance. Can you see it, and are you moving toward it, toward Him? Brenton knew he was hurt, but he also saw the ‘stream of life’ and a magnificent ‘mercy’. He wasn’t content to wallow in self-pity. Try Brenton’s prescription, if you’re hurting.
See biography on one of the authors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenton_Brown
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