Notes on the Notes – October 8, 2023

Thanksgiving Sunday 

Fifth Sunday of the Season of Creation

This week’s music: 

“We Praise You, O God” (VU #218)

The title for our hymn book, Voices United,  comes from the third stanza of this hymn.  The words were written by Julia Cory in 1902 at the request of the organist, for a Thanksgiving service at Brick Presbyterian Church in New York.  The words of the second verse remind us of the timelessness of God, and that God is with us even in the difficult times.  The melody, KREMSER, was arranged by the Viennese conductor Eduard Kremser from a tune published with the earlier text in a 17th-century collection of Dutch folk songs.

“We praise you, O God, our Redeemer, Creator;
In grateful devotion our tribute we bring.
We lay it before you; we kneel and adore you;
We bless your holy name, glad praises we sing.

We worship you, God of our mothers and fathers,
Through trial and tempest, companion and guide.
When perils o’ertake us, you will not forsake us,
But faithful to your promise, you walk by our side.

With voices united our praises we offer
And gladly our songs of thanksgiving we raise.
Our sins now confessing, we pray for your blessing,
To you, our great Redeemer, forever be praise!”

Hear the hymn played on organ at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPlPtJ0iZW8

“We are Circling”

“We are circling, circling together,
We are singing, singing a heart song.
This is family, this is unity,
This is celebration, this is sacred.

We are spiraling, spiraling together,
Onward, inward, creature to creation.
Holy mystery, Mother Earth, Child Birth,
This is Mother Nature, this is sacred.

We are circling,…

We are spinning, spinning all together,
We are singing over the rainbow.
This is harmony, this is community,
This is celebration, this is sacred.

We are circling,…”

This song comes from Buffy Sainte-Marie’s album, “Power in the Blood.”  The words are a celebration of the unity of creation.  It is one of the sample pieces from the United Church’s new hymnal project, “Then Let Us Sing!” which is coming for the centennial of The United Church of Canada.  Throughout the next 3 months we will be sampling some of the music and sharing our feedback with the team putting the resource together.

“Then Let Us Sing! will give us fresh words for the faith we celebrate and new music to make that faith sing in our hearts.
Then Let Us Sing! will celebrate the image of God in all peoples and cultures and in creation.
Then Let Us Sing! is a passionately pastoral response to the needs of the church we love.
Then Let Us Sing! is a hopeful investment in the future of the church and an expression of who we are, who we want to become in relationship with each other, and who God calls us to be.”

“Grateful for God’s loving action, we cannot keep from singing.”
—from A Song of Faith

Hear Buffy Sainte-Marie sing the song at: https://youtu.be/oO8BMg1DW1U

“We Come to Say Thank You”

“Thank You, O Lord, we come to say, “Thank You.”
For all You’ve done we say, “Thank You,
Thank You today for all the blessings You send our way.”    

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glories of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.

For the wonder of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light,
Stars of heavenly light.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.

For Thyself, best gift divine,
To our race so freely giv’n,
For the great, great love of Thine,
Peace on earth and joy in heav’n,
Endless joy in heav’n!

We thank You, Lord!”

This week’s anthem of thanksgiving is by Pepper Choplin (2015).  Using a new melody, Choplin incorporates the words from the hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth,” by Folliott S. Pierpoint (1864).

“For the Gift of Creation” (VU #538)

“For the gift of creation, the gift of your love,
            and the gift of the Spirit by which we live,
            We thank you and give you the fruit of our hands.
            May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.”

Our offering dedication is from the United Methodist Book of Worship (1991) and is especially appropriate during the season of Creation.  The composer, Steve Garnaas-Holmes is a United Methodist pastor in Montana.

“Let All Things Now Living” (VU #242)

“Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God our Creator triumphantly raise;
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
By guiding us on to the end of our days.
God’s banners are o’er us, pure light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night;
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished,
As forward we travel from light into Light.

By law God enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The depths of the ocean proclaim God divine.
We, too, should be voicing our love and rejoicing
With glad adoration a song let us raise:
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving,
To God in the highest, hosanna and praise.”

This hymn is an arrangement of an anthem published in 1939 by Katherine Kennicott Davis under the pseudonym John Cowley.  She wrote the text sometime in the 1920s for the Welsh folk melody, LLYNN ONN, or “The Ash Grove.”  

“For the Harvest of the Spirit” (VU #227 v 3)

“For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us,
Most of all that love has found us, thanks be to God.”

Our benediction response is the third verse of the hymn “For the Fruit of All Creation.”  It sends us out together in praise and thanksgiving for God’s goodness.  The words were written by Fred Pratt Green in 1970 and have been set to the traditional Welsh song “Ar Hyd Y Nos (All Through the Night), which was arranged as a hymn tune by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906.

Bonus video: