I Am Resolved -- Palmer Hartsough

He sounds like a man on a mission, with the words of his conviction forthrightly in the title of what he crafted at the age of 52. In fact, perhaps it was really someone else’s mission that spurred Palmer Hartsough to pen most of what he had to say in “I Am Resolved” in the latter years of the 19^th Century. Palmer had only recently moved to Cincinnati to work hand-in-hand with a publisher, when in 1896, his boss asked him to stretch his creative muscles, to go further than he had with the song’s original words, evidently with a plan in mind to use the newest words in a wider way. Palmer initially may have had some folks in mind at a mission or a church whose music he guided, but perhaps it was the experience of a lengthy train ride that gave Palmer’s boss the idea for something more wide-ranging. After all, does a person have more than one resolution in life -- perchance multiple sub-resolutions that flow from one that is paramount?

Palmer Hartsough had been a music professional for all of his adult life when he spelled out his convictions in “I Am Resolved”, a musical pledge that someone could say eventually took him deeper into devotion some 10 years later. Hartsough may also have had some musical bloodlines that helped fix his calling in life, even as he progressed through his later years. Another Hartsough, Lewis T. (14 years Palmer’s senior), was active in music-writing and as a Methodist minister in 19^th Century New York, Utah, Wyoming, and finally Iowa; whether Palmer and Lewis T. were related is unclear, however. Palmer’s calling at the time he wrote “I Am Resolved” was music direction at a Baptist church and the Bethel Mission in Cincinnati, concurrent with his association with the Fillmore Music Company in the city. The company’s owner apparently coaxed Palmer's creativity toward some additional words for the song after accompanying several travelers who sang the original song on the way to San Francisco for a convention. This request no doubt posed no serious predicament for the music veteran Palmer, who’d been a travelling music teacher and music studio owner in the Midwest for many years before arriving along the banks of the Ohio River in 1893. Nevertheless, did this episode stick with Hartsough, or cause him to consider a new, tangential direction in its wake? Some 10 years later, as a 62-year old, Hartsough became an ordained Baptist minister, later serving in Michigan in that role until he retired in 1927 at the age of 84. That epilogue to “I Am Resolved” tells us something about Palmer: He wasn’t a malingerer, someone who was satisfied with marking time. He examined himself, and wasn’t afraid of a resolution that challenged his direction – even if it was one that he’d spent decades pursuing.

What was it Palmer resolved, or persuaded others to resolve in 1896? Don’t loiter about with insignificant pursuits in the world (v.1); keep the Savior Jesus in sight, with Him as your guide and end goal (vv. 2-3); doing these will get one to the only destination that really matters, despite potential opposition from others (vv.4-5). Are you set in your ways? Has the direction become a bit predictable, the air a little stale? Can you imagine Palmer Hartsough doing a little self-inspection, and implementing a course correction? Was it a 10-year process? If he could do it, can you or I do the same?       

See information on the song’s author here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/r/t/hartsough_p.htm (Palmer Hartsough)

See the song’s verses and a brief report on the song’s use here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/a/m/r/iamresol.htm

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/r/t/hartsough_lt.htm (Lewis T. Hartsough)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hartsough

Low in the Grave He Lay -- Robert Lowry

Who would have been there to see what he described, and was his narrative dramatic enough? Robert Lowry was imagining how an historic event transpired as he was reading and thinking about Easter in 1874. He had some text to lean upon, but not the exact moments that he wanted in order to memorialize this event with new words and appropriate music in the composition “Low in the Grave He Lay”. Was the 48-year old Lowry’s background in literature useful as he went about this task? Could he have been inspired by a picture of the resurrection moment (perhaps the Noel Coypel 1700 painting shown here)?

Robert Lowry’s hymn in 1874 was the result of several years of education and ministry, both in the pulpit and in music. His musical gift that developed from childhood bore fruit in the 500 hymns and over 20 hymnals that he co-edited by the time of his death in 1899. Much of his pulpit ministry experience had in fact occurred by the time of “Low in the Grave…”.  His reputation as a speaker reportedly included a brilliant imagination that held his listeners in rapt attention. In 1874, while he was serving as pastor of a Baptist church in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Lowry was also professor of literature at nearby Bucknell University. One Easter season, Lowry’s gifts in mental imagery, musical composition, and writing skill fused, as they undoubtedly did on other occasions, while he studied scripture. Though it’s said that Lowry was stirred by what the angels said to the women who visited Jesus’ tomb on the third day, his poetry suggests he also must have noticed the emotion of the soldiers in Matthew’s account. After all, they may have been the only ones who actually witnessed Jesus emerging from the tomb – an electric moment, to say the least – thus giving us readers an idea of what onlookers might have experienced. Lowry’s hymn reproduces that moment – though, maybe even he might admit he couldn’t do it justice. The hymn he wrote has also been titled “Christ Arose”, an exclamation that better expresses what Lowry was probably feeling than “Low in the Grave He Lay”.

What would it have been like to see Jesus come out of the grave? Skeptical historians might conclude that He emerged quietly, since that actual instant is not in fact recorded for us to examine. It was a unique incident – God’s only begotten son, rising – worthy of great fanfare, right? Salvation’s moment, humanity’s liberation. Hard to downplay it, huh? If its description’s absence in the Bible disappoints you, ‘that’s no problem’, Lowry might say. ‘I’ve got your answer’. And, rebirth won’t be just a mental image or a song, someday. I’ll see it for myself. Yeh!   

       

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

See these sites for biography of composer:

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/l/o/w/lowry_r.htm

http://www.hymnary.org/person/Lowry_R

Give to the Winds Your Fears -- Paul Gerhardt

What do you call a guy who’s 40-something, unemployed, and alone? A professional and relational failure? Maybe he sensed what others might be saying, because Paul Gerhardt’s words in “Give to the Winds Your Fears” suggest he had an acute familiarity with the therapy for anxiety in the face of a postponed life. He learned during his education to use hymns to teach and minister to believers…so what was he trying to teach and admonish believers in this song? Was Gerhardt suggesting that we merely cast off anxious thoughts as if they are but vapors, easily transported away by the wind? Would doing so make me stride more confidently, as the trees bend and a breeze captures my problems (like the fellow in the picture ‘Wind’, a 14th Century masterpiece by an unknown painter)? It does seem Gerhardt wanted me to think of my troubles as trivial, compared to the Almighty’s hand. ‘Hope springs eternal’ his hymn words suggest. He needed this hope, not just in his 40’s, but closer to the end of his life when his wife died, he had the comfort of only one of five surviving children, and he again struggled to secure consistent employment.

What fears had touched Gerhardt that caused him to minister to himself with this hymn at the time it was written? He had endured the Thirty Years War (in what is today Germany), a trial that initially derailed his vocational life’s beginning in the mid-17th Century. And, he did not marry until 47 years old, and only after obtaining his first position. He must’ve wondered if life would ever start, or if he’d just be in neutral interminably. After all, even by 21st Century standards, 40-something is kinda past halfway for most of us. A biography of Gerhardt’s life tells us that he composed the song during a time when he was most prolific as a hymnwriter, in the 1650s when he was a pastor at Mittenwalde (near Berlin). The year 1651 marked his first posting in ministry, so one might think he was still feeling challenged and anxious, wanting to impress his employer early on in ministry in 1653 when the hymn was written. That’s how I might have felt. He’d been waiting for an appointment for some time (nine years), since his graduation from the University of Wittenberg in 1642. Was his sense of angst amplified – ‘Lord, don’t let me mess this up after I’ve waited for so long!’? If it was, he had discovered how to respond, throwing his troubles in the Lord’s direction, at least according to the words he wrote.

What happened in Gerhardt’s ‘in between’ time, from 1642-1651, is enlightening. He didn’t mope or vegetate because his occupational wheels were spinning. His future and his legacy as one of the great German hymnists really began then. As a tutor in Berlin (while he waited for a real job, you might say), his poetry and hymn-writing captured the attention of someone important. Johann Crueger (someone with one of those real jobs) was a musician and professional worshipper at a church there. A lifelong musical collaboration had begun. And, while tutoring in a family, Gerhardt met his future wife Anna Maria. It seems Gerhardt was not just writing clichés in his hymn about fears and winds. To others he might have appeared to be stuck, but he made valuable use of this episode. Casting off doubts must have freed him for creativity, even while in an unemployed state. Freedom unleashes the believer for His purposes. So, is that why I’m given down-time for a season, maybe even a decade? Before I wish for something more exciting or profitable to come along, I think I’ll take a longer look at what might be under the surface where I’m at. Maybe this is where He wants me, for now.

All nine original verses to the song are at this link: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/g/i/v/giv2winds.htm

Biographic information on the composer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gerhardthttp://www.hymnary.org/person/Gerhardt_P

The Lord My Shepherd Is – Isaac Watts

Let’s play a little game, sorta like ‘Name That Tune’, except this is called ‘Name That Speaker’, OK? Try this one --- ‘Hmmm, named must your fear be, before banish it you can.’ Or how about this one ‘..do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor, or suffer your father's fate you will.’ That’s right, it’s Yoda – the little green creature of Star Wars, the master Jedi instructor! If you ever noticed, Yoda’s wisdom is often imparted with the verb or a portion of the verb of his sentence in last place, a rather peculiar trait, at least in the English language. Now, Isaac Watts lived some three centuries before the Star Wars genre, but one might ask if he was visited by Yoda, since he recast a familiar hymn with the verb in the last place. “The Lord My Shepherd Is” might appear to be a basic rephrase of the hymn “The Lord Is My Shepherd” written about 70 years before Watts tried his own hand at King David’s 23rd Psalm words. What was Watts up to when he moved the verb?

“The Lord My Shepherd Is” is an example of the extra-Biblical poetry that the 35-year old Watts, the “father of English hymnody”, was helping promote in 1719. This practice was first introduced by John Calvin in the 16th Century, a method which generally put forth alternate words to Psalm verses so that congregations could use more familiar words. “The Lord My Shepherd Is” was obviously adapted from David’s 23rd Psalm, which was recapitulated in the Scottish Psalter hymn that Francis Rous composed for us in 1650. While we don’t know exactly why Watts moved the verb (maybe he was just trying to emphasize his composition’s divergence from the original?) if you look closely, Watts made some interesting additions to the original Davidic/Rous composition. The changes show us what his state of mind might have been, as follows: Verse 1: Watts adds that ‘I am His’ (on top of ‘He is mine’) -- so one senses that he was really in touch with a reciprocal relationship with God. Verse 2: Watts proposes that the water is more than merely gentle…it imputes full salvation to the believer. Verse 3: He writes ‘If e’er I go astray…’, is this a confession of some sin by Watts? Then, there are three additional verses (4,5, and 6) that we often don’t see that correspond to the same ones in the Psalm (see the link below, which also provides some detail on three different tunes associated with the song). Verse 4: Watts avoids ‘rod’ and ‘staff’, in order to be more direct in noting God’s aid. Verse 5: Watts exults in the joy that his overflowing cup provides. Verse 6: Watts injects a call to praise, a pledge he offers for the temporal and eternal blessings from the Lord.

Watts felt more, obviously, than he thought David had communicated for him. By 1719, the theologian-, preacher-, and logician-Watts was an accomplished communicator. His earthly father was a Nonconformist, twice jailed for his beliefs. In his own nonconformist way, Watts’ song divulges an effort to renew David’s psalm, giving his fellow believers fresh thoughts about the Shepherd and themselves, something that wasn’t rote scripture. Watts’ wisdom was thus widely respected…some might even say its repute was ‘Yoda-like’ (a la the fictional character), although Watts preceded Yoda historically. And, both Watts and Yoda encourage those who would listen to battle evil by drawing upon a higher power. A verb-last speaking style, and a call toward a higher authority – not a bad combination, as promoted by two different voices. Maybe they’re not all that different. May the Shepherd-force be with you.

See this link for song audio, including an alternate tune and additional words beyond what you may know: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/l/o/r/lordmysi.htm

Biographies of the composer are found here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/a/t/watts_i.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Watts

Come Into the Holy of Holies – John Sellers

John Sellers wouldn’t be surprised if you think about what it’s like to be in a Temple (see the picture of a Temple room) when you listen to or sing the song “Come Into the Holy of Holies” that he wrote in 1984. He might also approve if you think about your commitment as a believer in ways you haven’t considered before. Both of these themes helped trigger his creativity as he wrote the song. Like another composer decades before himself, an experience in an army also played a part in Sellers’ makeup and the development of the song he wanted to express as a turn in his faith. Like George Bennard (composer of “The Old Rugged Cross” – see this blog’s March 7, 2009 post, or click here http://songscoops.blogspot.com/search/label/Bennard) decades earlier, John Sellers’ early Christian experience was with the Salvation Army. He learned the basics of music there, while his parents were officers in the organization. Later in life, Sellers found he wanted to experience more, and he discovered a church that worshipped more energetically than he had experienced before. A personal connection with the Lord was also a stirring idea to which Sellers was introduced at the same time. His creativity in music was stimulated, while he was concurrently studying about the ancient temple practices versus what Jesus’ death did – ripping the temple veil. Soon, the words to “Come Into the Holy of Holies” were spawned. The revolution in the human-to-God relationship had jumped off the pages of Sellers’ bible, and onto the musical score he wrote. When was the last revolution in your life? No, not the rebellious kind, not one that made you abandon wisdom and good sense. But one in which you knew viscerally that something was missing, and you needed a new beginning. John Sellers felt this, and it led eventually to his writing this song with a revolutionary invitation. Maybe the old rules and methods have become ends, rather than means, blurring the true objective. What if you disregarded time-worn, accepted, stale standards, and threw caution to the winds? Be sure, someone or group nearby would surely sound the alarm - - you’ve certainly lost your mind! Can you imagine if someone had walked into Jerusalem in 33 A.D. and said ‘Hey, let’s just walk into the Holy of Holies, whaddya say’? Someone did. But, the way He took down the veil hiding that room was most unsettling. His method doesn’t allow the easy, safe turnaround. If I decide to link myself to His example, I accept this fact, this potentially hazardous duty. Has God’s seminal act that ‘Good Friday’ touched me the way it did John Sellers? If it does, I join Him for the adventure, the ride of a lifetime. It leads me places I wouldn’t otherwise go…including heaven. The source for John Sellers “Come Into the Holy of Holies” song story is the book “Celebrate Jesus: The Stories Behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs”, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2003. 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.

In Remembrance – Ragan Courtney and Buryl Red

I’m a signpost. I hope that I’m a good one for God, and as I offer this scoop, I’m a double-signpost, one who’s pointing to a fellow signpost named Ragan Courtney, who in turn is engaged in pointing us to the Holy One. He offers this scoop in his own words below, telling us how he came to write the words in the song “In Remembrance”, and also how he felt when he heard the music that Buryl Red composed, bonding with his words and making this poignant melody. Its beauty and its viewpoint suggest to the worshipper that God is speaking to us – and that makes its message impossible to ignore. This song was written for the musical "Celebrate Life!" The Baptist Sunday School Board had asked me and Buryl Red to write yet another musical cantata to reinforce some particular catichemisic ideas for young people. It was not something that I found particularly exciting, so I put it off as I was busy with my life in the theater in New York City. A musical that I had written and acted in on Broadway had just closed and I had to face the fact that I had failed at my life's dream. In a deep scene of failure and depression, I went to an island in the Caribbean to try and recoup some sense of self esteem. I became deeper and deeper depressed, and in despair tried to take my own life. In the attempt, I was powerfully reminded that God loved me even as a failure. I turned from brokenness and found that Christ was there for me. In this renewal I began writing the book and lyrics to "Celebrate Life!" In the euphoric high of a new beginning, I understood the powerful words of the title that the Baptist had given me as a new musical work; but, suddenly, it was full of possibilities and I wrote it very quickly. If I had missed the gospel most of my life, perhaps others had done the same thing. I need to tell them that life in Christ is a celebration. I remember writing "In Remembrance" so quickly that I thought that it could not be a very good lyric. It poured out of my pen effortlessly. A couple of months later after I heard the music that Buryl had set to my words, I was stunned at its beauty. I really had no idea. Now years later it is in many hymnals and I hear from people all around the world who have used this song to aid them in worship. "Open your heart and let your brother in" the lyric says. That is what I did thirty-nine years ago and I am still celebrating! Ragan Courtney Thanks to Ragan! Your authentic story makes God’s movement in the song you and Buryl wrote very special and memorable. It’s great to remember that Jesus gave His life, and saved yours so He could touch you to write this song for all of us. What a great God! The text of Ragan Courtney’s story is from an e:mail he shared with me on 6/21/2010. http://www.sanctuaryaustin.com/about.html

(site of the Sanctuary Church where the Courtneys minister) http://www.worldinprayer.org/class/Blessings.pdf

( the song is part of the musical ‘Celebrate Life’)

Awesome God – Rich Mullins

We spend a lot of time in our cars, if you’re like me. So, it’s not a surprise that someone might have actually composed a tune or two while sitting behind the wheel. That’s how Rich Mullins came up with “Awesome God”, behind the wheel of his Ford Ranger. He was trying to stay awake, but unlike most of us, who’d probably turn up the radio, roll down the windows and let the wind blow, or maybe munch on a snack, Rich had a unique stay-awake method. It’s probably not a story that he would have told most people, this story of “Awesome God”, according to his friends. But, God can work even through the episodes that make us blush, or that seem mundane and ordinary. 

 

 

 Rich liked humor, the weird sort that probably challenged some people. It was definitely off-the-wall, as one of his friends relates. You see, Rich preached to himself that lonely night in his truck on the way to a conference in Colorado. He made himself out to be the fiery, Bible-wavin’ madman, who had a message for sinnnn-ners! Do you ever remember watching Flip Wilson do his preacher skit on his 1970’s variety show? That’s how I imagine Rich Mullins must have sounded in the cab of the Ford Ranger on the way to a youth conference the night he wrote “Awesome God”. He was the preacher-rapper. You can hear it in the lyrics of the song, ‘cause it has rhythm. It may seem irreverent; some might even say it smacks of an unholy, blasphemous, cavalier nature. Yet, check out the song’s words. And, when combined with the music that our God gave Rich Mullins to write that night, it creates a memorable melody. God does work to make us learn a history lesson, even one wrapped up in a song.

 

 

 It’s tragically ironic that one of Rich Mullins’ most well-known tunes was birthed in a place that also eventually was the place of his demise. Rich died in a car accident in 1997, on a road in Illinois, and like years earlier, he was on the way to an event many miles away. Perhaps Rich was like the rest of us, who get tired on the road. He was human, after all. Yet, if the tedium got to him, there was at least one time he ignored the boredom and looked beyond the highway, beyond his fatigue. It should make us realize that God works in all kinds of situations, even on a strip of pavement that makes us heave a sigh. Our God doesn’t get tired, and He didn’t avoid the tragic either. Now, that’s truly an awesome God. 

 

 

See the following website for information on the song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awesome_God Another source for Rich Mullins story is the book “Celebrate Jesus: The Stories behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs”, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2003. See also “The Complete Book of Hymns: Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2006.

A New Anointing - Rob Still

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. (1 John 2:27)

Rob Still was writing from a personal experience when he wrote “A New Anointing” in 2000. He’s been involved in music since he was twelve, and has been making it his career for some time. Rob has written advertisements for lots of corporate giants like Nike, Hardees, Wal-Mart, and General Tire, but 1996 was a turning point for him, when he felt the call of a different giant -- God. “I began experiencing personal revival,” he says. He likens it to a light switch, which lit in him a desire and the ability to compose worship music, including in the church where he now ministers, the Belmont Church in Nashville, Tennessee. His song-writing and worship renewal efforts extend far outside the confines of Tennessee, really testifying to the power of God’s influence when He chooses to touch people. Have you ever thought of yourself as anointed by God? How does it happen?

Rob Still thinks God’s anointing is something you and I can participate in, when other people receive this touch from God. Isn’t that compelling? Rob believes and acts upon Romans 2 – that people can be transformed during worship. His music lyrics convey this conviction too, that something special happens when worshippers are driven by a common spirit to ‘seize the day’, as someone else has said. We not only take advantage of God’s gift each day, but we also deal Satan reverses, Rob says -- “as His sons and daughters (we) participate in destroying the works of darkness". ‘This is the day’, ‘I will rejoice’, his song drives us to declare. I doubt that I have ever thought that I actually anoint others when I sing in worship, but perhaps Rob Still is right. If I sing the song and worship the way God intends, I know I always feel better. And the Spirit’s movement should be a positive experience, right? But, it’s something else to think that my singing, that my encouragement actually confronts and defeats evil.

I suspect that Rob Still has captured something that he’s seen repeatedly as he’s travelled to spread his God-given worship and song-writing expertise. He’s used his abilities to bridge divides culturally and generationally, in places like Argentina, the Philippines, and in Eastern Europe, including at the Sozo Music and Arts Festival in Baja, Hungary. Joy and positive anticipation about the future – those are things that universally energize human beings, so it’s no accident that Rob Still’s “A New Anointing” has a global appeal. I was initially intrigued to know that Rob Still ministers at a church named Belmont, because I grew up in another Belmont, in Ohio. As I read about him and the Belmont Church in Nashville, I’ve also wondered if there’s a special anointing experience there, since that’s where the song was born. Is the ‘new anointing limited to Belmont, or to people who have lots of talent, like Rob Still? It’s sometimes (truthfully for me, most of the time) difficult to totally, with complete abandon, rejoice in each day that God gives me, to feel His touch. But, I think now, this ‘new anointing’ entreaty isn’t just about putting on a happy face. It’s a determination that I engage in a deeper, more meaningful slice of life, and that I help others in this life-fight – we propel each other forward – as we sing to ourselves of God’s provision, both here and in the great New Day to come. God has anointed us with that promise too.

Information on Rob Still can be found on the following websites:

http://robstill.com/

http://robstill.typepad.com/worship/insights/

Come Share the Lord -- Bryan Jeffery Leech

(The Clownfish and the Sea Anemone share the ocean floor)

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had (Acts 4:32). Do you remember hearing this one growing up -- ‘Now share that toy with your brother’? Or, maybe it was a lollipop or the TV control your momma had to pry loose from your fist. Would Halloween exist if neighbors refused to share with kids, maybe even kids they don’t know? And what about Christmas? It’s down the tubes without that holiday giving spirit. How about our roads or even our global economy…what if we refused to share the transportation routes, or commercial goods with others? I confess that sometimes I have really wished that someone would get outta the way on I-495, or that I wasn’t all that fired up about Halloween or Christmas. How about you? Bryan Jeffery Leech has written a song that calls us to share, but curiously to share someone, rather than something. How do we do that? His song’s words tell us how, but its genesis also shows us something else, a reality we often miss or under-appreciate about God and each other. Leech was born in England in 1931, and came to the U.S. in 1955 for part of his ministerial education at Barrington College and Chicago’s North Park Seminary. But, he did not take up the composer’s pen for several years, not until he was in his mid-30’s. One might say, with hindsight, that maybe the Lord was patiently preparing him. Leech has authored over 500 tunes, written several plays and books, and pastored several churches from coast-to-coast. Still, when he wrote “Come Share the Lord”, Leech remembers he had a creative block that was broken only by sharing. It was 1982, and that autumn Leech had fixed in his mind that he would write a communion hymn, but then forgot about his resolution. Or, had he? At Christmas in England with his family, Leech composed a melody, “but my mind was barren of any lyric ideas”, he admitted. It wasn’t until the next summer that he played this orphan tune for a friend, in order to get an objective opinion about its utility. His friend’s reaction -- ‘It’s obvious: Holy Communion.’ Spurred on by this, Leech says he wrote the song’s lyrics that same hour. Do you think he realized how important, even crucial, sharing with someone else can be after this? Indeed, the song’s words, which had been gestating for months, gave birth in rapid fashion to a message, the same message that Leech discovered was active in his own experience – sharing. Leech is living evidence that God is a patient, but not inactive, being. When we know this, and can live it, our world changes. He provides, most notably in the people He puts around me. I guess I have forgotten this at times, if I’m honest. But, a great principle is at work in Leech’s composition, one that should motivate and energize us, and make us appreciate and spur forward each other – like Leech’s friend did for him. It’s called symbiosis in the science world, like the sea anemone and the clownfish that mutually provide for each other in the ocean (see picture above). We have each other as a family, as the song says, and collectively have the Creator as our model. A great, amazing calling is ours. His church should be the world’s greatest creative engine, but perhaps only when we share with each other, and thereby draw on one another and upon Him too. He may seem absent at times, but realizing that the great creative force who made me is nevertheless present is more than just comforting – it unlocks something inside. I love to think that I am mimicking God when I’m creative, and that He’s put this family around me to help me be more like Him.

Information on Bryan Jeffery Leech and the song obtained from these three websites. http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=3900 (article written by C. Michael Hawn, Aug 8, 2008) http://songsandhymns.org/people/detail/bryan-leech (Center for Church Music) http://www.fredbock.com/Promo.asp?page=258 (Fred Bock Music Companies)

I Can Only Imagine -- Bart Millard

Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar (Isaiah 33:17) Most of my dreams frustrate me. Only a few times have I ever remembered more than a few hazy images of what a few seconds earlier had been quite vivid and real. Most times I’m more likely to just roll over and return to making zzzz’s. Sound familiar? If I can believe what doctors say (and what I read on Wikipedia) about dreaming, then I feel still more cheated by my own mind’s trickery. According to the experts, an average normal human being dreams two hours every night, so over a normal lifespan I will spend six years dreaming. About what?! I cannot even remember most of the details of these episodes, yet I seem to need this bizarre activity to be healthy – rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is necessary for one’s well being, they say. Is our Creator trying to tell us something about our own minds when they are let loose, when our own thoughts can create images our logical consciousness will not permit? Bart Millard, lead singer with MercyMe and writer of the hit song “I Can Only Imagine” might be described as a dreamer, for he began considering his own imagination many years ago, and his thoughts stuck with him until he finally composed what had so struck him several years earlier. You can read about Bart’s story behind this song by linking to it here http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2003/002/14.16.html, or keep reading below.


 Bart lost his father to cancer in 1991, and he relates that he turned that loss into a time devoted to thinking about what his dad was experiencing on the other side of life’s journey. The phrase “I can only imagine” captured his thoughts, so that he wrote it everywhere, reminding himself of his own destiny and also easing the pain of his earthly loss. It was not until 1999, however, that Bart and his friends in MercyMe recorded the song with that same phrase. Bart says the song was written in ten minutes after he found the words he had recorded in a notebook many years before. Bart deflects the admirers who wonder how he was able to write a hit song so rapidly “….it had been on my heart for almost ten years”, he says. “I ask Him (God) questions. I have faith that Christ is real”, Millard shares. It’s clear that MercyMe’s lead singer’s imagination is not something he ignores as a hazy picture, a subconscious mind-trick at 3:00 AM.

What do you think of when you dream about paradise, about heaven? Pearly gates? Streets of gold, or a yellow-brick road such as the path to Emerald City in Dorothy’s journey through Oz? That’s what I tend to wonder about…it almost seems similar to some of the images in Revelation. Bart Millard wonders in the song what it will be like to be in God’s presence, to walk with Him, to actually see Him. I think that, like the song says, I won’t even be able to stand or say anything for a while, if heaven and the Lord are as brilliant as I imagine. A River of Life is there, I’m told, but I still cannot really grasp that people I now see only in my mind or with pictures are there. Dad, a grandpa I never met (and who’s last words I’m told were ‘what a life’), and friends in the last few years…Bill, Sarah, Bob. They’re there. And I wonder if I’ve discovered why God lets, or perhaps makes, me dream. Is it His way of subliminally telling me my hazy thoughts, though dim, are gonna become real, someday? That I should trust my imagination, and let it run wild, to rejoice in what awaits? I’m counting on it, aren’t you?