Some years ago I knew a woman in a nursing home who was in the most advanced stages of dementia. Her condition had worsened dramatically with the passing years. First she had forgotten her children; then she forgot her husband; then she forgot her own identity; then she forgot how to speak; then finally she forgot even her body so that she could no longer walk or eat or drink or do anything for herself. But one afternoon each week, a Salvation Army band would come to the nursing home. And the woman who had not spoken a word in years would sit in her wheelchair with a blank expression on her face while her mouth sang along to the old hymns. She had forgotten every Bible verse and every sermon she ever heard. She had forgotten whether she was a Calvinist or an Arminian, a conservative or a progressive. Yet when the band began to play, there were strings somewhere in the depths of her spirit that began to reverberate.
It is sobering to reflect that we will forget our loved ones, our children, even our own names, before we forget the songs that we have sung. Singing touches the nerve center of our lives. Our response to God comes from a place deeper even than ritual or belief. Indeed, as children many of us learned to sing about God—and therefore to love God—long before we ever began to think about God.
During his long pastoral ministry in Swansea, Kim Fabricius adopted the habit of writing hymns and encouraging his congregation to “sing a new song to the Lord” (Psalm 96:1). The hymns collected in this volume range across the heights and depths of the Christian story and Christian experience. There are hymns about doctrine, hymns about justice, hymns of anger and grief, hymns of careful reflection and hymns of simple childlike trust.
But the most striking thing about this songbook are the surprising flashes of humor on virtually every page. Hymn-writing is not traditionally a funny business. Most Christian hymns convey (or seek to convey) a note of spiritual solemnity: and the singing of hymns is often pretty hard work too. But the hymns of Kim Fabricius are marked by a sanctified frivolity and by a colloquialism reminiscent of Martin Luther’s shamelessly popular approach to hymnody. I know of no other modern hymnbook in which one will find songs of praise set to the tunes of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” and “Yankee Doodle Went to Town.”
If praise touches the depths of the human spirit, these hymns remind us that praise does not require a specialized religious idiom. The language of praise is the language of ordinary life, for God meets us not in a special religious compartment of our lives but in the midst of ordinary day-to-day living. Every human experience can become an opportunity to pay attention to God and so to give God glory. If you ask me, that’s something worth singing about—and as Kim reminds us in one of these hymns, “God is in the singing.”
Benjamin Myers
Sydney
Eternal Father, almighty Father
Tune: You Are My Sunshine
Eternal Father, almighty Father,
you made the heavens and formed the earth;
you shaped all creatures
with winsome features,
and in time brought Jesus to birth.
Eternal Jesus, incarnate Jesus,
the one who sits at the Father’s knee,
through human mother
became our brother,
lived and died for me, even me.
Eternal Spirit, life-giving Spirit,
love of the Father, love of the Son,
you live inside us
and safely guide us
through the Church to worlds yet to come.
O Liberator, Son, and Creator,
your very being in which we share
is bright and spacious,
and always gracious,
fill our hearts, Lord, with praises and prayer.
God is one, God is three
Tune: Theodoric – 666 66 with refrain
God is one, God is three,
not an “it”, “he”, or “she”,
but a song, doh, ray, mi:
God is in the singing,
to the rhythm swinging:
Take a chance, chance, chance,
join the dance, dance, dance,
sing the song,
swing along,
to the mystic music.
God is one, God is three,
the divine symphony,
love’s the main melody:
maestro of creation,
orchestrates salvation:
God is one, God is three,
playing in harmony
music that sets us free:
God is so surprising
when he’s improvising!
God is one, God is three,
infinite mystery,
touring in history:
What a revelation!
Give God an ovation!
For the love of God the Father
Tune: Ar Hyd y Nos
For the love of God the Father,
we lift our hearts;
birthing children whom he mothers,
we lift our hearts;
for his bold imagination
in the act of our creation,
and our wondrous variation,
we lift our hearts.
For the grace of Christ eternal,
we praise his name;
coming from his throne supernal,
we praise his name;
for the challenge of his teaching,
for his hand to rebels reaching,
and the gates of hell all-breaching,
we praise his name.
For the friendship of the Spirit,
we sing our song;
irrespective of our merit,
we sing our song;
for the living water gushing,
and the cooling breezes rushing,
full of force but never crushing,
we sing our song.
God is the deepest and blackest of holes
Tune: Slane – 10 10 10 11
God is the deepest and blackest of holes,
God is the eye-tooth that nibbles the soul,*