David and Orpheus
About one Sunday a month (over many years) I have been invited to give a homily during an interdenominational chapel service held at Spring Lake Village in Santa Rosa. By the way, the chapel is liturgically impressive to me, the work of the late Darby Betts, an Episcopal cleric, co-founder of Spring Lake Village, expert in liturgical theology. Go visit it some day.
One of the things I look forward to when I go there is their use of the classical hymnal of the Episcopal Church – many of the hymns dating from 1774, 1885, 1723, 1856 and so on – in other words, quite traditional, quite literary, hardly caught up in our 21st century themes of social justice, often quite mystical as in the lyrics: Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; / The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide: / When other helpers fail and comforts flee, / Help of the helpless, O abide with me. Or they are what I guess we would call pious as in: Jesus, Lover of my soul, / Let me to thy bosom fly, / While the nearer waters roll, / While the tempest still is high. The pioneers of Nebraska, according to Willa Cather, sang such hymns during the harsh winters on the prairie.
You can see, also, that they are not written in everyday English – the lyrics are poetic and, coupled as they are with melodies that stir one’s emotions, they can leave one after four or five verses a bit “high”! I love to join in their singing. At first I don’t catch the melodies so familiar to the Spring Lake congregation but by the second verse I’m rising and falling, caught in the swing or rather the tide of it – like the lyrics adapted in 1919 to an old English melody: For the beauty of the earth, / For the beauty of the skies, / For the love which from our birth, / Over and around us lies, / Lord of all, to thee we raise / This our hymn of grateful praise.
Of course we have in the Book of Psalms our biblical repertory of religious lyrics – all attributed traditionally to David, whose harp, whenever the evil spirit came upon King Saul, was able to leave Saul refreshed, no longer moody, dangerous. Also in our tradition the ancient Fathers of Church adopted the mythical figure Orpheus as a metaphor of Christ. His music could tame wild animals (unlike the effect of Rock Concerts). Indeed when his wife died he went down into Hades, the underworld, to bring her back, using his music to charm the Lord of the Dead, enthrall the watchmen of Hell, make the Furies weep – and thereby rescue her body and soul. (In the end he failed for reasons you will have to look up.)
We speak of the celebration of the Eucharist. For a long time in many parishes in the old days there was little of the celebratory about it – it was relatively silent, over in a half hour, quite muted – though as individuals private contact with God was no doubt made. Over the past half century we have been encouraged by the Church to make it a celebration again, to look at each other (people and celebrant), to understand collectively the language we are using – and to sing as often as we can – and out of this change so much new music has been composed, attuned more to the issues and tempo of today.
Still I like having that chance once a month to stand with the chaplain at Spring Lake as we commence a homily service that begins, for example – at a slow and peaceful pace: Breathe on me, Breath of God, / Fill me with life anew, / That I may love what thou dost love, / And do what thou wouldst do.