My Opinion

On our ride to Flint a few days ago, I paged through an old hymnal, one of a few that one of the ladies from our church handed to be last Sunday. The title was The New Christian Hymnal. The copyright was dated 1929. Once I started flipping pages, I realized I knew many of the songs. The decision was then made to begin again and count those that I could readily sing from the page in front of me with familiarity. It took awhile and passed the time as the miles ticked off under our wheels. When finished paging, I realized I knew 243 out of 451 songs in that book. That book was published long before I was born and yet I was taught the hymns collected in that book; a book I had never seen before.

I wondered what kind of significance my rememberance of those songs had in the big picture of life. What does it mean that my computer stored all those tunes all these numbers of years? When I add to those in that book to the additional ones I've learned since those days, it would be a phenomenal number of tunes floating around in my head.

Some things don't change as life gets more complicated. Music was taught to the Israelites to stick the words of God in their brains so that they could pass them on. Today we have the printed page and the printed internet :) We don't have to memorize things anymore and yet I believe our minds recall tunes.

The collection of songs in the book I was purusing were put together at a significant time in American history. l929 was the time of the Great Depression. People were desperate for financial survival. I'm sure that was felt deeply in the life of the church as well. I think the songs reflect that mood. Some are songs of lament while others are songs of battle. Come Thou Disconsolate is a lament song while Am I a Soldier of the Cross is a battle song. Lord Like a Publican I Stand and Out of My Bondage are songs of repentance and sorrow for sin. From Greenland's Icy Mountains and Far and Near the Fields are Teeming are both songs that have the great commission to spread the good news of the gospel around the world. I recall singing Come Thou Disconsolate at one of my grandparent's funerals; they died within a year of each other in 1952 and l953. I was only ten years old and yet remember fifty five years later that the words of the songs fit our sorrow at the time. My grandparents were both only fifty nine when they died.

My point in all this is two fold. One is that the songs we sing in our church life are significant for praising God but also for solidifying the word in our computer...even into our heart. It is important to teach children songs of the faith whether or not the song has a long history or is a new expression of praise. The other point is that songs written in a particular time period, reflect much about life in that era. Songs written today don't talk too much about somber things. The praise of God is lighter and with perhaps more warmth and thanksgiving today. I'm not sure everyone would agree with my analysis but I do feel we should remember that God is praised through His people and His people relate to Him within the context of their culture and political as well as physical lives. That means that songs written in the early part of the 20th century reflected the times in which they were written. It also means that songs written today, reflect our concern over our culture and a deep desire to live within the personal relationship we treasure with our Savior and Lord.