2025.03.02 IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll—

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know

It is well, it is well with my soul.

This old hymn rings inside me. It is both as grand as an operatic tenor in full voice, and as minuscule as the flutter of one wing of one tiny lady bug making her way slowly across the carpet going nowhere or other.

I am supposed to prepare myself for the somber season of Lent. I am supposed to notice transfigurations. And yet what seizes my soul is sound— voices and sounds all around me‚ all within me, some timid and hushed and some booming with rage and frustration. I listen to all these voices. I hear the sounds of silence, my late first husband’s favorite song. I sorrow his tears, my heart cries too. 

The lyricist of this old hymn, Horatio Spafford, lost all his real estate investments in the Chicago fire of 1871. His toddler son died of scarlet fever, and his four daughters died in a collision at sea while crossing the Atlantic. His wife survived and wrote to her husband, “Saved alone. What shall I do?” Horatio set sail to go to her and, while crossing, the ship’s captain told him they were just passing over the spot where the shipwreck had occurred. 

These words flooded Spafford’s soul. Mine too, the tears and fears of all the years.   

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll—

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know

It is well, it is well with my soul. 

2019.08.07 For The Beauty Of The Earth

My birthday is today. So is my husband’s We are Leos in love. What I want for my birthday is that we all notice Beauty. It stuns and it saves. We see it in all living things, even when it’s obscured or dimmed by pain. Creative people know this. God is creative and creating all the time—with our help—making and illuminating Beauty. There is nowhere God is not. 

I see it as it looked one afternoon
In August,-by a fresh soft breeze o'erblown.
The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon,
A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.
The shining waters with pale currents strewn,
The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove,
The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.
The luminous grasses, and the merry sun
In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,
Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp
Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,
Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep
Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.
All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.
    “Long Island Sound” by Emma Lazarus  born in New York City (1849).

I never noticed the beauty of Long Island Sound. It was too familiar a sight to me as I grew up on its banks and splashed in its waters. I think I would die of grief if it were not there to behold—ever again.

Emma Lazarus, a Jewish poet who was concerned for the plight of her people, the plight of the poor, and the plight of refugees and immigrants, knew about the spiritual power of Beauty. She is most remembered for her famous lines published in a poem, commissioned for The Statue of Liberty, gracing New York Harbor since 1886: “The New Colossus”: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

So did English hymnodist and poet Folliot Sandford Pierpont (1835-1917) who wrote the words to this hymn in 1864 when he was only 29.

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.

Our current 1982 Hymnal changed the refrain to read: “Christ our God to thee we praise . . .” I guess they wanted to showcase Christ. But the above refrain is the one I grew up singing in the children’s choir at the Presbyterian Church in New York City, and “Lord of all” best expresses God as Creator of all for all. I believe we must seek beyond— way beyond—our religious preferences for the Beauty of the Earth.

When American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts left this Earth and headed for the moon on their spaceships, they looked back. Here is what they saw.

And this is what they all returned to tell us: this Earth is worth saving, and it has no nationality.

Only from a distance—time or space, physical or emotional— can we get perspective enough to realize what is worth expending every ounce of life, individual and collective, to save—with the help of the cosmic Artist who created it and gave it to us.  BEAUTY.

2018.03.04 Prophetic Hymn, Laurence Housman

Father eternal, ruler of creation,
Spirit of life, which moved ere form was made;
Through the thick darkness covering every nation,
Light to man’s blindness, O be thou our aid:
Thy kingdom come, O Lord Thy will be done.

Races and people, lo! we stand divided,
And sharing not our grief, no joy can share;
By wars and tumults love is mocked derided,
His conquering cross no kingdom wills to bear;
Thy kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

Envious of heart, blind-eyed, with tongues confounded,
Nation by nation still goes unforgiven;
In wrath and fear, by jealousies surrounded,
Building proud towers which shall no reach to heaven:
Thy kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

Lust of possessions worketh desolations;
There is no meekness in the sons of earth.
Led by no star the rulers of the nations
Still fail to bring us to the blissful birth.
Thy kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

How shall we love thee, holy, hidden Being,
If we love not the world which Thou hast made?
O give us brother love for better seeing
Thy word made flesh, and in a manger laid:
Thy kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

Mostly hymn texts, at least those chosen for congregational use, are consoling, offering hope and joy and moral wisdom, telling incidents from the life of Jesus the Christ, or biblical themes. This hymn text is a fierce forceful prayer. It does not predict but boldly diagnoses a treacherous state of affairs in all earth’s peoples and nations—a spiritual disease brought on by greed, war, wrath, fear, envy, starlessness, lovelessness.

The hymn refrain pleads with the holy hidden Being of many names to inspire us all to love more and hate less, to listen more and talk less, to share grief so joy can also be shared, to trust more, look more and blindfold ourselves less. This is the model of mutual respect and clear-eyed compassion offered by Jesus the Christ and all great spiritual leaders. The refrain prays for this kingdom, this state of affairs. What does it say to you?

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when we worried about threats posed by the Gulf War, I was a priest in a Connecticut parish. I made them sing this hymn every single week for weeks and weeks. People kept saying they got it. People warned me there were military people in the congregation. People told me it was enough. People complained that their children would be upset. People told me they were angry. I knew by their reactions that this hymn stirred people from passivity to passion.

I listened to all of their complaints fears and angers and kept on with the hymn while the war hung over our heads. Why? Because our nation had intervened in a war that would cost many lives and accomplish little. Finally, President George H. W. Bush withdrew our forces from the Gulf War, saying: “This is not a war we can win.” Since then, we have entered and re-entered many unwinnable wars, claiming to be fostering democratic ideals when we were simply trying to “fix” others. It is a strategy that fails over and over, personally and among nations. Anyone in a marriage or intimate relationship knows this.

Laurence Housman (1865-1959), younger brother of poet A.E. Housman, was an Englishman of many talents. He wrote and illustrated books, fiction and non-fiction, and wrote poetry, plays, and also some hymn texts. Politically, he was a pacifist and a socialist. Some of his plays depicted biblical characters on stage—such a scandal. He was also one of the founders of The Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. Housman’s Christian faith and his politics influenced this hymn text.

I invite you in this Lenten season of reflection to pray with this hymn text, to take it seriously, to let its spirituality emerge alongside its religion. Trust the presence of God within you as you pray. Read this over more than once, almost as many times as I made those poor people sing it. Notice your own reactions. Jot down your own thoughts and feelings. Write a letter to God with your confessions, needs, fears, and all your feelings. Try not to allow your own politics to ambush you. You are seeking  deep inner spiritual truth in yourself. Let this process be a cleansing. What does it mean to you?