Category Archives: Music and art

Song of the Week II

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I posted Greg Scheer’s “A Mark of Grace” earlier because I admire what he accomplished in that song, but it’s far from the only new song I learned at the Worship Symposium last week; there were several, of which my favorite is this one, which is still stuck fast in my head from last Thursday morning:

Creation Sings

Creation sings the Father’s song;
He calls the sun to wake the dawn
And run the course of day
Till evening falls in crimson rays.
His fingerprints in flakes of snow,
His breath upon this spinning globe,
He charts the eagle’s flight;
Commands the newborn baby’s cry.

Chorus:
Hallelujah! Let all creation stand and sing,
“Hallelujah!” Fill the earth with songs of worship;
Tell the wonders of creation’s King.

Creation gazed upon His face;
The ageless One in time’s embrace
Unveiled the Father’s plan
Of reconciling God and man.
A second Adam walked the earth,
Whose blameless life would break the curse,
Whose death would set us free
To live with Him eternally.

Chorus

Creation longs for His return,
When Christ shall reign upon the earth;
The bitter wars that rage
Are birth pains of a coming age.
When He renews the land and sky,
All heav’n will sing and earth reply
With one resplendent theme: The glories of our God and King!

Chorus

Words and music: Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, and Stuart Townend
© 2008 Thankyou Music
Recorded on the album Awaken the Dawn, by Keith and Kristyn Getty

Song of the Week

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The theme of this year’s Worship Symposium was “Great Stories”—sort of a loose theme, but they were highlighting a number of narrative passages from the Old Testament. The opening service Thursday morning was Neil Plantinga preaching on Genesis 4:1-16, the story of Cain; he titled it “A Mark of Grace.” Greg Scheer, who was part of the worship planning and leadership, wrote a song of that title specifically for the service (since, as he notes, the church is a bit short on congregational songs on that passage). He really did a remarkable job with it, I think; it has its flaws, but it’s a song well worth singing.  (Click the title for an mp3 of the song.)

A Mark of Grace

From the waters of creation to the waters of the flood
Flows a stream of human failure and an ocean of God’s love.
From the first sin in the garden to the first son’s jealous rage,
The whole human family follows a legacy of sin and shame.

A covering for Adam, a mark for banished Cain,
A rainbow in the heavens—in God’s love there’s always been

Chorus:
A mark of grace, a sign of love—
The love of God in flesh.
In your strong hands, the curse of sin
Is turned to blessing without end.
You’ve sealed us with a mark of grace.

From the tree of good and evil to the tree of Calvary,
We’ve been slaves to sin and suffering; we’ve been longing to be free.
But no offering could free us—and no sacrifice of blood—
Until God in tender mercy offered up his only Son.

Jesus Christ, the second Adam, raised on the second tree:
A sacrifice of mercy for all humanity.

Chorus

From the first light of the garden to the endless city’s rays,
God in mercy has been calling, and we’ll answer him in praise.
We will praise our risen Savior, who ascended to God’s side.
We await his coming glory, when we’ll live in his pure light.

We’ll sing of our Redeemer—the holy, spotless Lamb—
Who holds our lives forever within his wounded hands.

Other people’s work

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I’ve been meaning to repost this poem my wife posted a while ago, one which she found on the group writing blog Novel Matters; it’s by one of the contributors there, Latayne C. Scott. I lack the talent to be a professional musician—and, to be honest, the practice habits—but I love music, and one of the best things about living in Winona Lake is getting to hear some of the best musicians in the world play to the glory of God. Souls in their fingers, indeed.

Opus Envy

I watch his fingers
Teasing the piano
As he caresses the ivory teeth
It purrrrrrrs
Harder now—he strikes
A glancing blow off the black fang

An answering roar

ah Rachmaninoff
just because my soul is not in
my fingertips does not
mean I do not have
one

Give me a home among the gum trees

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One of my enduring memories of Regent is one Fall Retreat (my first year there, I think), seeing the school’s entire Australian contingent, led by our utterly irrepressible Australian Pentecostal NT professor Dr. Rikki Watts, perform the song “Home Among the Gum Trees”—as a sort of chorus line, no less. I’ve had that rattling around in my brain today for some reason, and decided to post it. It says a lot about Australia and its people that this performance was from the memorial service for Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, who I’m sure would have mightily approved.

This is cool in more ways than I can count

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HT: my wife

I think these folks are right to say, “the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do”; but honestly, that only begins to bring out all the lessons from this one. Imagine the teaching opportunity of staircases like that, what they would do for people’s understanding and appreciation of music . . . we could use many, many more of these.Though Hap is right—our kids being who they are, if we had a staircase like that on our regular route, we’d never get anywhere on time.

A bit o’ the genius o’ the Celts

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to brighten your Sunday evening. My wife set me off looking for a video of a particular piece by the Irish pianist, composer and scholar of world music Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin; I didn’t find that particular one, but I did find a few other videos of him performing, including the one below. That set me off wandering from video to video (since everyone knows YouTube videos are like Lays potato chips—no one can eat just one), and I added a couple others to the post just for fun.

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and Mel Mercier (not sure of the tune)

Silly Wizard: Donald McGillavry

Kate Rusby: Sir Eglamore

Mary Travers, RIP

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It’s been a bad month for musicians, I guess (at least those in the folk-pop-rock range); I missed this, but Mary Travers died last Wednesday at the age of 72 after a five-year battle with leukemia. She was of course best known for her time with Peter, Paul and Mary, which was one of the premier groups of the American folk-music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, and which is credited with helping to boost Bob Dylan’s career. I grew up on their music, and I still love it; all things in this world come to an end, but it’s still sad to see it happen.

HT: Jerry Wilson

In honor of Kerry Livgren

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Thanks to a commenter on the previous post for tipping me off: Livgren suffered a major stroke three weeks ago. It was bad enough that he had surgery that morning to remove a clot from the language centers of his brain; the surgery went well, and the reports on his recovery (posted on Kansas’ official band website; click on “Kerry L. update”) are positive. Please be praying.Since I’ve been on a Kerry Livgren kick anyway, I thought I’d post a few more videos—this time from the AD phase of his career.

Progress

The Fury

All Creation Sings

Lead Me to Reason

Notes and neurons

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I was thinking about this this morning and realized I’d never gotten around to posting it; this is wonderful. It is indeed, as Bobby McFerrin says, the power of the pentatonic scale—and of music in general, I think; it’s also a remarkable illustration of the beauty of the order of God’s creation, and of the ways in which we’re made for, and made to respond to, that order, even in our fallen state.