It's Me (Standin' in the Need of Prayer) – Anonymous

Could have been anyone, right? Who hasn’t needed at least one prayer spoken for himself? And so, the anonymous authorship of this traditional spiritual hymn could be appropriate, for you or me or anyone else who’s ever cried out “ It’s Me”, perhaps not in those exact words, but with a purpose to let the Creator know I’m hurt. My hurts are personal, and with maybe nowhere else to turn, I let Him know with urgency that I need Him. Maybe the anonymous songwriter may have seen others being mistreated or felt the circumstances of life for his or her community were just unbalanced (as in a 19^th Century plantation of the Deep South, shown here). Lacking power, God’s intervention was the only way for some people who may have sung this simple tune to find justice.  Or, maybe the situation was not very specific, and the songwriter just felt a need to stay in touch with the source of Divine power. Whatever the context, the song is just a way for the writer to say that moment was personal, counting on the Omniscient to hear.

Traditional spirituals like “It’s Me” (also known as “Standin’ In the Need of Prayer”) frequently found their voice in the American South among enslaved negroes in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This spiritual’s publication by 1925 (by two brothers named Johnson, in The Book of American Negro Spirituals) made it a well-known commodity in the following decades, perhaps in part because the struggle for racial equality continued long after the song’s initial publication. Younger generations would also have heard of the slavery – and the spiritual foundations that helped the oppressed endure -- from their progenitors. You can assume from the relationships mentioned in the song that a person articulating its words belonged to a community. He had parents and siblings, and neighbors, and others in the larger community whose names he may not have even known. They all shared something in common – a struggle, but not a lonely one. They counted on God. Perhaps they compared themselves to the people of God prior to their Exodus years. Yet, those people did not survive merely because they were part of an oppressed group. Even Moses, the leader, needed his own personal encounter with the I AM (Exodus 3-4), before whom he could express his deepest insecurities. The ‘It’s Me’ songwriter most likely was part of a faith group, too – note that he’s familiar with elders (some versions of the song instead mention a ‘preacher’) and deacons. He ‘went to church’, yet believed that was not sufficient to capture God’s attention. He verbalized ‘It’s me’, with his own needs.

Is it selfish to pray for oneself, putting aside others’ needs? If that was the only method I used when I pray, the answer would have to be ‘yes’. I care about those I call brother and sister, father and mother, the deacon, and the elders, and the preacher too. Even that homeless fellow whose name I know not is someone God wants me to befriend, and to feed and clothe. That’s prayer in action. ‘It’s Me’, on the other hand, indicates I ought to think of myself when I talk to Him. Why? Who knows me better than me? Maybe no one else does, other than the One to whom I’m talkin’, right? It’s the chance to confess, to draw close to Him who knows me best, to seek His intervention, and His management of me and my ‘stuff’. If I were really selfish, I wouldn’t be askin’ Him to help me with my ‘stuff’ – I’d keep it to myself. So, have you said ‘It’s me’ lately?

See here for all four verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/t/a/n/standinp.htm

See some information about the song here also: https://hymnary.org/text/not_my_brother_nor_my_sister_but_its_me

See this site for information about the genre of music into which this song falls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_(music)

This World Is Not My Home -- Albert E. Brumley

He was on his third place of earthly abode when he declared that he wasn’t really satisfied with the places he’d lived. Albert Brumley said “This World Is Not My Home”, so he wasn’t really trying to accuse any place’s residents of being unfriendly, namely Spiro, Oklahoma where he’d grown up, Hartford, Arkansas where he’d gone to music school, and Powell, Missouri where he had met his wife and lived with his family in 1936 (see the map). It was a pretty rough time all over, during the Great Depression, so perhaps that underscored Albert’s inclination to yearn for a place beyond this planet to call home. It was a musical habit that was one of Brumley’s trademarks.

Music and faith were wound into Albert Edward Brumley from an early age, making his life’s passion that he lived out into his early 70s a calling he undertook with conviction, despite the economic poverty from which he sprang. His inauspicious start as the son of cotton sharecroppers left him with meager resources to pursue the music that he decided by age 16 was his path. But, his upbringing by parents of Christian faith, who also routinely used music in the home as a socializing tool in the community, gave Albert dual drives to overcome the financial hurdles. He also found a Christian music benefactor in Hartford in neighboring Arkansas – Eugene Bartlett – who gave Albert his start in formal training and a music publishing business there. Singing schools that he conducted and marriage – to Goldie, whom he met in Missouri – would also contribute to Albert’s progression. Albert’s composing habits, to write his ideas on various scraps of paper and to make Goldie his sounding board, are probably the background to most of his songs, including ‘This World…Home’. This 31-year old musical master – reportedly, some might have labeled him an oddball – was undoubtedly living in Powell, and still working out his musical ideas with his wife and the music company Bartlett owned, when he penned the words about home in 1936. What led he him to write them is not clear, yet his theme about the Christian life’s destination is not uncommon among the hundreds of songs attributed to him. He thought about his eternal inheritance a lot. Heaven = Home. If Brumley had been a math genius, that’s the eternal equation he would have authored.           

Got a clear picture of heaven? I don’t think I look often enough, honestly, to say what it is I see behind the most obvious facade. Is it awesome? Yes. But, Albert thought it was more appealing to draw a picture of God’s goodness to stir his spirit. The Lord is his ‘friend’, and angels coax him toward the goal (v. 1, and refrain). Albert also sensed that others are waiting, rooting, and celebrating (vv.2-3) as the day of reunion approaches. Has earthly life been good, or not so much for you? Look ahead, and see if you can imagine it the way Albert did. That’s the best therapy for what goes on here.  

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.  

  

See a thorough biography of the author/composer here: 

http://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/tennessee/brumley.htm

 

See brief biography of the author/composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_E._Brumley

And, here: https://hymnary.org/person/Brumley_Albert

Here, also: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/r/u/brumley_ae.htm

 

See biography on composer in Our Garden of Song, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.

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