Flee As a Bird -- Mary S. Dana

 

It was her way of therapy as she grieved. Thirty-year old Mary Dana (some 11 years later, she remarried and took the last name of her second husband Robert Shindler) had experienced enough death in her life in the period around 1839-1840, and one of David’s psalm images gave her some solace, as she thought about “Flee(ing) As a Bird” to escape and find in the Lord the One who could provide comfort. Perhaps she’d had enough of funerals and even the beautiful flowers at them that are intended to bring hope and healing (See here the typical habit of placing flowers at a gravesite in a cemetery, like this one in France, on 4 July 2011.) And so, Mary turned to writing verses to express her feelings, crying out to Him on behalf of herself and others like her. Evidently, she had found what she so desperately needed in His embrace, and thus she urged others with her poetry put to music.    

 

Mary suffered one tragedy upon another, then another, and another. At what point in watching as many as four others die did Mary think of fleeing? Her young son and husband both succumbed during a fever that became rampant in Iowa where they had recently arrived in 1839. This was after she had apparently already lost a sister and a brother in the space of the previous two years. She soon thereafter returned to her native South Carolina, perhaps as a way to leave behind the gloom and start anew. She must have felt like she was in flight, much like the bird fleeing to a mountain in David’s Psalm 11:1, even if that psalmist felt that this refuge-seeking method was ill-advised. When one is afflicted repeatedly, the reaction is oftentimes a gut-level response to fear, and one could excuse Mary if she was indeed feeling so much distress that she retreated into a secluded place. Unlike David, she must have thought that the mountain shelter was where she eventually found the succor of the Lord, for her poetry indicates that it was in this isolated place where she could wash in the ‘clear-flowing fountain’ that He provides (v.1). In short, she needed a place where only His voice – not death’s -- was in her head and heart. Instead of standing firm, as some might advise, Mary said to ‘haste’ (or ‘fly’, as some versions have it) in order to avoid ‘th’Avenger’ (v.1). Indeed, could Mary have also read of the many episodes when Jesus retreated, including so often to mountains, to pray by Himself and seek His Father’s face? (See Luke 5:16; Matt. 14:23/Mark 6:46; Luke 6:12-13; Luke 21:37; 22:39-46.) Especially if it’s sin that is ‘weary(ing)’ the soul, one needs to find Him in His space, to find ‘His bosom’ on which one can rest. Other miseries will surely come, but Mary said that He would not ‘forsake’ (v.2) someone who would ‘haste’ to Him, who needed to be free of ‘sighing’. He ‘wipe(s) every tear’, a promise that Mary must have read with hope in her bible’s concluding book (Revelation 7:17; 21:4).

 

Mary wrote the tune for ‘Flee As a Bird’ in the key of either D- or E-minor, but evidently not as a way to wallow in her sorrow. Instead, the uplifting parts of her lyrics are counterpoints to the burdens she bore that she could not just wish away. The woe she felt was not easily laid aside, but was certainly salved when she realized that He’s the remedy. Part of life’s challenge is not to wear rose-colored glasses and pretend that troubles are insignificant, but to know to whom you and I can go for strength, a most-certain strength. He also suffered in His physicality, and so His own body felt pain and His spirit also felt desolate, but He ultimately overcame. Hence, part of the minor key sensation that you and I hear in ‘Flee…’ must also be an acknowledgement of His awesome power to conquer death. Try hearing 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 in a minor key in your head, which is what Mary might have been thinking when she thought of death. You can hear it too, if you got Him with you.

  

Read about the hymn’s origin here: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780271096308-004/html  and here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071689 and here: https://drhamrick.blogspot.com/2018/11/flee-as-bird.html

 

See the hymn’s original verses and the short biography of the hymnist here: https://hymnary.org/text/flee_as_a_bird_to_your_mountain  and http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/f/l/e/e/fleeasab.htm  and http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/h/i/n/shindler_msbd.htm

 

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It Is Good to Sing Your Praises -- Anonymous Psalmist

 

This worshipper wanted something that would mark the Sabbath Day appropriately. And, though it was called ‘day’, the Sabbath (known as the Shabbat in Hebrew) actually began on Friday at sunset (a sunset at this blogger’s address was captured on 26 September 2025, shown here), perhaps a time marked in a quiet and yet sublime majesty in color that declared the Creator’s hand was still at work, like that shown in the photo here. That would have been reason enough to begin the praise hymn as this anonymous psalmist did on that occasion, as one of the opening lines of the hymn spoke of His artistry in the sky above. “It Is Good to Sing Your Praises”, he said, as he reflected on the various ways that Yahweh had blessed those he had made, and especially those whom He had chosen as His cherished possession. Think about that for a few moments…can the blessedness of you be diminished when you look at the sky and realize that the universe’s composer is the same One who has selected you?  

 

Perhaps that was the thought process of this nameless songwriter, that he wanted to acknowledge God’s goodness and almighty nature in one breath. That would be a rather daunting proposition, would it not? But that rather impossible task did not stop this psalmist perhaps as long as 3,000 years ago from jotting down something that was meant to be used on the Sabbath, according to biblical scholars. In fact, Psalm 92, from which ‘It Is Good…’ draws its verses in a close paraphrase, is the only psalm with the superscription ‘For the Sabbath Day’ associated with it. So, it seems likely that this psalm would have been uttered-sung by faithful Jews every 7^th Day, a day dedicated to the Lord as He directed them in the 4^th Commandment (see Exodus 20:8 and Deuteronomy 5:12). To laud Him for His creativity in what one could see in nature was one theme in the psalmist’s poetry, interspersed throughout the verses and recalled in the paraphrase of ‘It Is Good…’, when the 1912 version with three musical verses was first published. That 20^th Century writer used phrases ‘…morning lights the sky’, and ‘…good when night is falling’ (v.1), ‘…works Thy hands have wrought’ (v.2), and ‘…planted…fruitful trees and ever verdant’ (v.3) to echo what the original psalmist penned. A second theme is how God had made the psalmist a blessed person indeed – ‘…my life victorious’ (v.2), and ‘…His goodness to the righteous’, and ‘…my rock, my strength and refuge’(v.3). This carried with it an acknowledgement of God’s omnipotence and sovereignty --  ‘…(He is) on high exalted, reignest evermore in might’ (v.2)  -- and of necessity, His justice for those engaged in wrongdoing – ‘…enemies shall perish, sin banished (v.2), and ‘…just and true are His ways’ (v.3).

 

It never grows old or irrelevant, does it? The facets of God that the psalmist saw are the same ones that still endure today. There are other songs that speak of God in the same way as does ‘It Is Good…’, and yet this Psalm 92 retranslation (now over a century old itself, since its inception in 1912) has a distinctiveness that is useful for us who aspire to devotion. As the only psalm specifically written for the Sabbath Day, the songwriter was intent on making sure that he didn’t sing just anything randomly, but constructed something that would remind himself and the worshippers of how they related to God in the most fundamental ways. He’s a creative being, which we humans cannot ignore, and so much of what we see from His hand speaks of His basic goodness. He’s good, and draws to Himself, and protects and nourishes those who want to be His. Do you and I have a better option than Him who has such a nature? You’re in no better hands than in Him whose hands the ancient psalmist saw draw the morning and evening skies. Take a look outside in the morning and evening, and see if you agree.     

 

Read about the Sabbath here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath

 

Read some details of the hymn here, including when a 20^th Century version of the psalm was first published: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/t/i/s/itisgood.htm

 

See the NIV Study Bible and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible for information on Psalm 92.

Give to Our God Immortal Praise -- Isaac Watts

 

Isaac Watts was most likely doing what he was known for most as he composed the words for “Give to Our God Immortal Praise”. It was a talent he’d had since childhood, and when fused to his knowledge of scripture as an adult, Isaac was doing something that perhaps was about as natural for him as breathing is for the rest of us. It was 1719 (or perhaps earlier) when this 45-year-old minister in England (see its flag here) penned some rhyming phrases that expressed what he coaxed his hearers to remember and appreciate about the God that earlier generations had first lauded in a different form that Isaac felt compelled to reconstruct. It was a method based on a philosophy that he’d learned from his own father, and it could be summed up this way: Don’t worship by rote, nor conform to a practice of one’s Christian faith that is compelled by a state authority. One’s faith must by freely practiced to be genuine. God does not want your worship to be mechanical…make it personal, with words that say what you really feel in your own vernacular.

 

Isaac Watts’ Nonconformism – objection to the exclusivity of state-authorized methods of Christian worship in 17^th Century England – included his practice of rewriting traditional songs used in the Anglican Church, including the Psalms. Watts evidently felt that merely mouthing the exact words of a psalm was not conducive to sincere worship, and so he sought to take the ideas that a psalmist had verbalized centuries earlier and recraft and update them so that they would resonate with Christianity in his own experience. One that he took on as a challenge was apparently Psalm 136, which contains a very familiar song of its own for the Jewish people. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Indeed, those first words of Psalm 136 are the words that Isaac felt compelled to repeat in verse one his own version in ‘Give to Our God…’. The latter phrase ‘his love endures forever’, is voiced 26 times in the psalm, so you can imagine that Isaac might have wondered whether this expression had become rote in the singing of the psalm in the Anglican Church. And, would the Christians of Watts’ era have had more reason to praise God than what the Hebrews acknowledged when they sang Psalm 136? Watts did not want to excise the thought of repetition, so instead he had the churchgoers of his own era sing ‘Repeat His mercies in your song’ to conclude alternating verses (verses 1, 3, 5, and 7) as well as the phrase 'his mercies ever shall endure' (verses 2,4,6,8) of his hymn’s eight stanzas, as a way of reminding worshippers what their spiritual ancestors had done. The Jewish generations sang of God’s creative power, and of his mercy in rescuing them from Egypt, to bring them to their inheritance in Canaan. Watts added to the psalmist’s message by recognizing the Gentiles’ predicament -- dead in sin (in Watts’ original verse 6) -- and what the Father has done through Christ for everyone -- He sent His Son with pow­er to save (in Watts’ original verse 7) – with the latter being something that none of the Psalms could fully capture for those of us freed by Jesus. Thank God that Isaac and others of his time had the courage to challenge their era’s conventions and prompt Christians to exalt the Son for what he’s done!

 

Psalm 136 says much of value to praise God, but what would it be like if Christ had been forced out of the picture by a state that said you could not change the words of the ancient text to give it more meaning in the A.D. era? Isaac saw a big gap there, and indeed his life was spent making the old texts for singing mean more. We learn new words for saying the same message, but by doing so we can make them more personal. That’s what Isaac was after. This father/godfather of English hymnody (he reportedly wrote some 750 hymns) was part of a movement that has continued for centuries beyond his own time. It is about making the themes and expressions of Christianity more meaningful for each generation, by using new words to say the ancient thoughts one more time in one more new way. It’s rather ironic that sometimes you might hear some people say ‘why aren’t the old hymns good enough…why can’t we just sing an old Isaac Watts hymn’? Hmmm…if we could see Isaac’s face today, would he be wearing a wry smile, or rolling his eyes? Giving Him praise isn’t suspended just because we’re using new words.              

  

See all the hymn’s original verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/g/i/v/e/t/givetour.htm

 

Also see the following website for information about Isaac Watts.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Watts

 

See also here for the author’s biography: https://hymnary.org/person/Watts_Isaac

 

Read about the religious philosophy to which Watts adhered here : Nonconformist (Protestantism) - Wikipedia

 

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