In 2009, the ELCA had its nationwide synod assembly (which meets every three years) not far from where I grew up. I was a teenager about to go to college and unable to get a summer job, so I sort of backed into volunteering there for a day. Mostly this was an excuse for people to go "oh, a young person, hooray, children are the future!" because the demographics of these kinds of conventions skew older. They also sang 525, which is a good one.

That was the year that the vote to allow clergy in same-sex relationships passed (dramatically and narrowly). I was not there that day so I didn't get to witness that excitement. What I was there for was the vote on whether to enter "full communion" with the Methodist denomination. I'm not exactly sure what "full communion" means but it's like, your pastors have full rights and authorities in the other church, or something? The ELCA had several relationships like that with other denominations, but for the Methodists it would be their first time, so that was kind of a big deal.

Anyway, the discussion was like, "does anyone have any comments about this proposal?" And then there was just a slew of "yeah, this one time, after the natural disaster the Methodist church in X area pitched in with us to help out and it was really great, yay Methodists" "I agree, the Methodists are wonderful" "Charles Wesley straight up wrote 'Look and be saved through faith alone, be justified by grace!' in 'Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,' which is pretty much as Lutheran as you can get without being Martin Luther." And then one guy chips in "uhhh...I think we should...postpone this vote, my congregation has not had time to deliberate and talk it over because we've been deliberating and talking over the gay clergy thing" *awkward silence* "nah let's vote for it" "yeah!" "yes!" and just on and on. Like, this is why no one likes church meetings, it's just awkward dissent or more and more and more anecdotes supporting something we almost all agree on already and is a waste of our time. So then the proposal got voted up overwhelmingly. And then the leader was like "to celebrate this moment, look under your chair for a copy of 'Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing' that we placed here just in case the motion passed, wink wink, let's all sing."

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, but synod assemblies are boring, and Charles Wesley's theology, we like. So there you have it.

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After two and a half years, a move across the country, and a global pandemic, this is the last hymn in the hymnal. I'm glad I chose the format I did, it was a good way to make sure I didn't skip over some of the boring ones in a rush to get to my favorites. If you stare hard enough you can find things to like or dislike, or at least notice commonalities in, among anything. A lot of what I had to say wound up being irreverent, but I hope some amount of earnestness came though. As the pandemic illustrated vividly, being able to sing hymns of praise together with others is for me a big part of the power of worship! Without that, it's a lot less rich and engaging.

So farewell for now, and if I happen across a used copy of the old Episcopalian hymnal from my new church, well, maybe I'll see you again for round two. ;)

Remember the familiar doxology that was the last verse of 557 and 565? You can also sing it to Old Hundredth. Well, you can also sing it to lots of things, a lot of the "long meter" (8888) are interchangeable. But this one is especially common with Old Hundredth, so it's listed here as well. This version is worse for singing as a canon (for labor choir!), though.

Pretty literal paraphrase of Mary's Magnificat (so this could also go in the Advent section, or "Evening," because this song got associated with evening prayer way back in the day, liturgically speaking). The listed tune name is "Gospel Magnificat," which makes you think it's supposed to be contemporary/guitar-friendly. However, in poking around the index, it seems to be given as just "Magnificat" there. Also, in poking around the index, I noticed that the "topical index" lists some songs which aren't really hymns, they're just part of the "liturgy"/"service music" section there. So if you look up "Praise/Thanksgiving," in addition to "this entire enormous section," it lists an arrangement of the Magnificat that's literally just a round (canon) version of one line in Latin. It's probably good that it's not in the "real" hymn section because I'd probably have even less to say about it than this one. I'm not sure if there are any others like this. Just weird stuff you notice when you're poking around in the index trying to find something new to say now that we're almost done.

This is a somewhat better-known text to the (excellent) "Jupiter" melody; the "splendor"/"surrender" rhyme is neat, although some of the other feminine rhymes are stretches. The best-known lyrics to this melody might be neither of these; there's a British patriotic song called "I Vow To Thee, My Country" about the honor and duty of serving one's country that's probably a little too pro-war for this volume, even though there's a second verse about "but my real home country is heaven, where my ultimate loyalties are, and no war."

Bit of a mini-hiatus there doing fun things IRL, but we're almost done!

This is yet another Marty Haugen song. I can't remember if I've mentioned this (it feels like the thing that would have come up) but "Soli Deo Gloria" means "to God alone be the glory," and Bach was said to begin his manuscripts with the acronym SDG.

Instead of the familiar "prophet, priest, and king" for Jesus we get "priest, teacher, prophet in time and space," nice. And "a billion voices in one great song"--sure, it works in the nonspecific sense of "lots and lots" where the Bible might use "144,000," but it's cool to me that this was probably written at a time when the total number of living Christians was approximately one billion. That's a large number! But it makes it "of our time, but not limited to our time" in a similar way that the hymns about "keep the ship travellers safe" are specific and universal.

Hymns in the wild: last Sunday I got to sing in church alongside people I know, the sort of person who will confidently sing the alto part from the hymnal and give me a reference to sing along with instead of me awkwardly trying to sightread the harmonization. Another post-pandemic milestone! ;)

Lyricist's name is "Stopford," which is pretty goofy. I guess it was his mother's maiden name and they wanted to keep it in the family, but that's still not a very common English name!

I like the idea of having "the arts," "knowledge," and "law" each use their skills and talents to praise God, culminating in "all who work and all who wait." (Milton allusion?) Reminded me of some good graduation-type hymns. Also, we have "the north to southern pole," now we have some more latitude to go with the time zones!

This is a different melody for 873. No harmonization, just a melody, although it also has naturals and flats. And the refrain is "Hosanna! Hosanna!" instead of "Rejoice! Rejoice!"

Hymns in the wild: when I'm not feeling well, I like to turn on classical music or something relaxing without distracting lyrics. Today I wasn't feeling well. So sure enough, the classical (online) radio station was playing "medley of 16th century hymn tunes." Nice! I recognized "Father, We Thank You."

The composer's name is J. Jefferson Cleveland, which is slightly interesting because that's two different US presidents.

We also get multiple key signatures: the refrain is in D major, and then the verses are in two flats (B-flat major? G minor? It ends on A, which would be the seventh note of the B-flat scale, and then transitions back to the D major refrain).

Lyrically, we have a distinction between "holy cymbals" and "clashing cymbals." (My sister will be glad to know at least some cymbals can be holy.) The 20th-century update of Psalm 150 loses momentum, however, and turns into "Praise God because it's all right." Which is a little bit too hip for me.

Years ago there was a hymn contest themed around working people/labor justice/etc. And the opening line that came to me was "O carpenter's son, who came to dwell among us..." which would scan well to this opening line (12 syllables). I did not make any further progress, whether due to lack of inspiration and/or concern that the theme would be too hippie for me to do justice. But that's what I associate this tune with now. The way music has sort of its own way of getting stuck in the brain is very weird.

Also, the altos get a lot of D.

This is a Martin Luther original, and is pretty wild, even though it's just paraphrasing a few lines of the book of Isaiah. The "Holy, Holy, Holy" song attributed to the angels is often incorporated into the Communion liturgy--the Rule of Three is applicable here, three holies are cooler than two or four. Although this is "peculiar meter," it almost works as a sonnet (fourteen-ish lines of ten), I like sonnets so I noticed this.

When my choir was practicing this I, as the vocab nerd, got picked on to be asked "what's a lintel?" (It's a doorframe.) And then everyone else's question was "what's going on with this song?" One of the guys answered "I think Isaiah was tripping on the good stuff," and that's been my association with it ever since.