Ride the Morning Winds -- Grace Hawthorne

 

We could say that she was drawing inspiration from an ancient songwriter, and was probably reading this poet’s words in a particular style. Grace Hawthorne (her actual first name begins with J.) was a poetess, who in the middle of a writing career that was focused on speaking to children through music, pondered what it would be like to “Ride the Morning Winds”. So, it must have seemed rather natural to try to communicate through the thoughts of someone who thought of himself as a child before his Creator-God. She wasn’t thinking like a meteorologist to produce something for the evening news (including a surface map like this one, showing the Great Blizzard along the American East Coast in 1888). No, Grace was not so focused on the phenomenology of the weather. She was thinking about the One who is phenomenal, the One who makes the wind and us.

 

It was 1980, and Grace Hawthorne had already spent much of her time professionally writing for children’s minds. From musicals to hymns, Grace tried to see the world as a child does. We don’t know what precisely sparked Grace’s imagination when she composed a couple of verses that included thoughts about wind, but we can guess what she was doing. The words she penned are remarkably like those that the psalmist-king David wrote when he lauded his Creator for intimately knowing and staying in touch with those He makes. Did Grace read from a Living Bible (LB) paraphrase as she imagined the ‘morning winds’ (Psalm 139: 9-12) and the extent of His reach? The LB was intended for young minds, according to its editor (Kenneth N. Taylor), so it’s not surprising that someone like Grace would draw on its pages for a song poem. More than the wind, the psalmist David also saw God overcoming the seas and darkness, too. If that’s true, for both the child and the adult, a relationship with Him cuts one of two ways. You cannot run if you’re trying to avoid Him. Right, Jonah?! On the other hand, if you have no where else to turn, He’s there. What would Mary Magdalene say about this? Grace Hawthorne sounds like a Mary Magdalene-type of believer. She thought her world was ‘frightening’ and ‘frantic’ (v.1), a place in which she sometimes felt lost, but knew she could find ‘my part’ and be shown how ‘to walk’ (v.2) with His guidance. That’s a lot of good to tell kids, and the rest of us, too. Grace’s song coaxes one to seek out the rest of David’s words, and see just how inside myself is this God.

 

He knows me…that’s the rest of what Grace may have discovered, if she didn’t already know it, when she read all of Psalm 139. How can I go all those places, by riding the wind? Or see through the darkness, or travel to the farthest oceans? It’s not that He’s here to make my life amazing, though He can. Perhaps He just wants me to know that He knows me, you know? I’m an image of Him. He says so (Genesis 1:26), right from the start. Think on that, and those morning winds, wide seas, and deep darkness seem less daunting, don’t they? Just grab hold, and see where He can take you. For now, and in the time to come – you won’t want to miss it!

   

Biographic information on the author here: https://hymnary.org/text/god_the_father_god_of_glory

See here also: https://www.hopepublishing.com/403/

See the following for the bible paraphrase that the author may have been using: The Living Bible - Wikipedia

Since I Have Been Redeemed -- Edwin O. Excell

 

He sure lived up to his name! That might be said without too much exaggeration about Edwin Othello Excell, a hymnwriter, publisher, and songleader, particularly after he began his musical career in earnest in the late 1870s-early 1880s and moved to Chicago in 1883. It was just a year hence that he reflected on the blessings he had received in a five-verse poem “Since I Have Been Redeemed”, one of the first he wrote in his Chicago–based career. Could Edwin have been excused if he did exert himself a bit more than most, in order to reflect his surname? Thousands of written songs, dozens of hymnbooks, and countless people that he touched personally through his song-leading are in Edwin’s credit column, a resume that not many others of his generation could match. But, most likely without hesitation, Edwin would probably say that the source of his energy was another’s name, and not his own.

 

Edwin Excell did not start out to be a musical dynamo, though that’s what he would achieve by age 69 when he died. His father’s role as a minister (German Reformed) and author must have played an embryonic role in Edwin’s early development, and after he turned 20 and was married, he left the brick-laying and plastering vocation in order to pursue the music that he loved. He’d already been engaged in this as a singing instructor and songleader in church services and at revivals, but more formal education and a relocation to Chicago to begin his life as a music publisher firmed-up Excell’s career path by 1883. No specific circumstance is known for what moved Edwin to express his thoughts in 1884. Yet, as a 33-year-old launching out on this path in 1884, one can imagine that Edwin must have been enthusiastic about what he was doing. There’s no gloom or hesitation within his musical voice in the verses he penned – it’s about why he ‘love(d) to sing’ (v.1). Everything evidently flowed from Edwin’s sense of ebullience ‘since (he) had been redeemed’. Besides the music he loved to sing, Edwin had purpose – ‘to do His will’ (v.2) – and to do it without reservation (v.3), bringing a ‘joy’ that Edwin said he could not adequately express (v.5), and an assurance that a home beyond also awaited (v.4).  Five verses could not contain all that Edwin wanted to say -- that would take nearly another 40 years and authorship of or contribution to nearly 90 songbooks. It is estimated that Excell’s songbook production had reached nearly the 10 million mark by 1914, the largest among publishers at that time. Many of these publications undoubtedly contained Excell’s two or three thousand songs that he wrote as well, another expression of Excell’s passion for the life he must have felt was summed up in ‘Since I …Redeemed’. Is other evidence necessary to expose what was coming out of Edwin Excell’s spirit in 1884, and why he wrote?

 

Edwin Excell’s life challenges the rest of us with a question. How much am I doing to say ‘thank you’ for my Creator’s inspiration? I cannot buy my way into His presence, that is true. But, there must have been times when Edwin was in front of a crowd, trying to stir their passion in song for God, when he knew that if he didn’t exude a certain gusto, the crowd would not either. The zip of one person can provide the initial momentum, pushing others to exercise their own gifts to lift His name and reputation. A certain phrase, perhaps a unique story, or a combination of factors speak to the variety of ways that He works in his created ones. He certainly did, in a big way, in one named Excell. See if you can find how He’s working for you, and become a kind of ‘excell’ for him.

 

See this site for all 5 verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/i/n/c/sinceihb.htm

 

See here for more extensive biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Excell

 

See here for biographic information on the author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/e/x/c/e/excell_eo.htm  

Safe in the Arms of Jesus -- Fanny J. Crosby

 

Might this one be one of the most personal of her thousands of hymns? Someone might think so, if the story of why Fanny (Frances Jane, often called ‘Aunt Fanny’) Crosby wrote “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” could be presumed as true, straight from the sorrowing heart of this poetess/hymnwriter, who was living in New York (see its seal here) with her husband at the time. It was a loss that no parent should ever have to endure; and, Fanny was as human as anyone else, yet with a light inside her that would not allow her to be despondent. Had this 39-year old suffered through something that continued to gestate for another decade, finally to be ‘born’ as a three-verse empathetic expression that was just waiting for one of her collaborators to spark into existence? ‘Safe …’ was reportedly one of Fanny’s favorites. See if you agree with her, after hearing the story.

 

Among the qualities of Fanny Crosby that are most remembered are the physical challenges of blindness that somehow did not seem to hinder her life of poetry, hymn-writing, and urban missionary work in Manhattan. And yet, an incident that befell Fanny and her husband (Alexander van Alstyne), before Fanny really began writing the bulk of the thousands of hymns attributed to her, may have spurred what she felt deep within herself about the death of children. She and Alexander lost a daughter soon after birth in 1859, a loss about which neither parent spoke much. She talked of this time only decades later, in the last years of her life, and in an offhand way to tell others that she knew what it meant to be a parent, if only for a short time. Those friends closest to her suggested that Fanny’s quick recitation of a poem, when prompted by William Howard Doane in 1868, indicated that she had carried the pain of this child’s sudden demise all this time. It’s said that Doane popped in on Fanny in her Manhattan apartment with just 40 minutes to spare before catching a train, and asked if her ear could discern what words would match the tune he had to give her. True to her reputation, the words almost immediately emerged, apparently after she crouched on her bedroom floor in prayer for a short time. Fanny was reportedly heard at times comforting a grieving mother with the words of the hymn. And why not, for when the words she penned to offer some solace were spoken, who wouldn’t feel consoled? Fanny knew intrinsically that Jesus-God is, above all, compassionate. Most of her words are not ones of sadness, but of hope and succor. ‘Safe’, ‘gentle’, ‘sweetly’, ‘rest’ (v.1), are just some of the words that leapt from the soul of Fanny; bespeaking of the intimate reassurance she felt from His embrace. She did not ignore pain, however, with words like ‘corroding’, ‘temptations’, ‘sin’, ‘blight’, ‘sorrow’, ‘doubts’, ‘fears’ ‘trials, and ‘tears’ (v.2) on her mind; but, these were nevertheless all things that the departed child would need not experience here on earth. Her last thoughts of Jesus in verse 3 note His ‘refuge’ and the ‘trust’ one has in His presence.              

 

What Fanny says hardly needs any other expressions or explanation. She knew what it meant to be a child of God, and must have felt at ease, even in the midst of a personal tragedy, when she pondered being as a child in His arms. I may grow old, but I’m still His child, awaiting His warmth and never-ending security. We’re never too old to find Him, as a child runs toward some outstretched arms. His home can be yours today. Do you feel safe yet?

 

See more information on the song story in these sources:

Then Sings My Soul, by Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003  

This link, showing all three verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/a/f/e/safearms.htm  

Also see this link for author’s biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby

And here also: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/r/o/s/crosby_fj.htm