Music As An Expression of Our Spirituality

Bruce Walton (April 15, 2007)

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Welcome and Announcements

Good morning, my name is Bruce Walton and I have been a member of this spiritual community for the past 12 years. I am delighted you have chosen to join us here today and we welcome all who may be visiting for the first time.

This Unitarian congregation of Guelph is a spiritual community that is deeply rooted in Unitarian Universalist principles providing a spiritual basis for ethical living.

Our Unitarian spiritual community recognizes that we are an integral part of a diverse world. We celebrate our diversity by welcoming all ages, races, sexual orientations and genders. We all seek a sense of community, a connection to one another and meaning for our lives in a complex world. We welcome you to this service today and hope you find some meaning in the words, music and images you experience.

We are a lay-led congregation and as such our services vary from week to week. Today we will share with you of our thoughts on music as an expression of our spirituality. Another day, someone else will share their thoughts on a different topic. If you are here for the first time we encourage you to visit us a few times in order to get a better idea of how diverse our community really is.

Opening Words

"In a world of peace and love, music would be the universal language." Henry David Thoreau (The Service)

Today we come together with the intention of spiritual growth and renewal, joined together by the vibrations of music. Please join me in the first song of the service...

Song... "You Are My Sunshine" (Song-sheet)

Chalice Lighting...
Please join me in lighting the Chalice, the words are printed in your order of service, followed by song #118...

Song... "This Little Light of Mine" #118

In lieu of a story for the young children today, we would like to engage them in a few tunes. The first is...

Song for all Ages... "The Garden Song" (Song-sheet)

For the second song the children have developed some hand actions that they?d like to everyone...

Song... "With my own Two Hands" (Song-sheet)

As the band plays the traditional Irish tune "Innisheer" please join your hands together in an arch as the children retire to their classes.

Children's Recessional... "Innisheer" (Instrumental)

As is customary in this spiritual community we ask you to come forward to either light a candle or place a stone in the water to mark your join or concern.

Candles of Joy and Concern...
I will light this final candle for all those joys and concerns, while silent, they remain very close our hearts and minds.

Offering... At this time, we ask you to consider taking action to sustain this spiritual community in the work it undertakes by contributing some of your valuable resources. While the band plays the instrumental piece "Planxty Irwin", think of these lyrics, written by the women of the Greenham Common Peace Occupation in England, 1983...

"Building bridges between our divisions,
I reach out to you, will you reach out to me?
With all of our voices and all of our visions,
Friends, we could make such sweet harmony."

Song... "Planxty Irwin" (Instrumental)

Meditation: Charles Davidson will play on his Japanese Flute -- the shakuhachi.

Presentation

Our hope, this morning, was to talk less and play more. Music means many things to many people. Can you remember that first album you purchased and what you felt or thought about when you played in on your LP turntable? Can you remember which tune you just love to sing around the campfire? Which one is your favourite in the Unitarian songbook? Which songs bring you to tears, which ones enliven and invigorate?

We want to share with you several tunes. We will preframe each tune with a little historical note that we hope will add that little extra bit of depth to the songs you love to sing and hear.

As you know, we typically invite a discussion session after the service. Today will be no different. Only, today, we will invite you to share your song stories and, if we have them in our repetoire, we will play them!

To start with, we have chosen a favourite with many a Unitarian congregation, Carolyn McDade?s "Come Sing a Song With Me". At this point I will ask Beryl Hunter to say a few words about this song and it?s writer...

BERYL: When asked about this song, Carolyn has said...

"Years ago I wrote this song and dropped it by the way because it so easily became sentimentally sweet. One year it was included in a singing circle at MCI, Framingham, Massachusetts' only prison for women. As we sang, women found the meaning of the song. They unlocked some door that had caged the song and set it free. Since that time, every time I sing this song I hear their voices. I dedicate this song to their liberating action."

Please join us for Song #346 "Come Sing a Song With Me"

BRUCE: Next we?d like to play a Canadian classic. In fact, a 2005 CBC Radio poll determined this tune to be "the most essential piece of Canadian music". 'Four Strong Winds' penned by Ian Tyson was inspired by the seasonal movement of workers around the country, from one harvest to the next, and the effect of such transiency on a love affair. It was written in 1961, and originally recorded by Ian and Sylvia. It has subsequently been recorded by artists such as Neil Young, Emmy Lou Harris, Hank Snow, The Traveller?s, Flatt and Scruggs and John Denver.

Our version will start with an instrumental play-through first. WE invite you to please join in with the chorus before the first verse.

Song... "Four Strong Winds" (Song-sheet)

RICK: In 1959, 19-year old Cornell University student Leonard Lipton penned a poem that he then shared with a long-time friend, Pete Yarrow. Yarrow added more lyrics and a musical tune. In 1961 Yarrow joined Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to form Peter Paul and Mary. They first began performing this sing in their live performances in 1962.

Believed by some people to refer to smoking marijuana, due to references to paper, dragon ("draggin'") and puff (of smoke?) the song became a hippie anthem. The authors of the song have repeatedly and vehemently denied any intentional drug reference. On stage, they have often ridiculed that idea by comparing it to songs such as "The Star-Spangled Banner" that could also be construed as a drug song if the listener were of a mind to do so. Lost in this controversy is the point of the song -- that whatever the dragon may have stood for symbolically, the child of the song abandoned it once he became an adult. I think, for many, this song always brings them to tears for it?s yearning of imagination and the innocence of childhood.

Song... "Puff the Magic Dragon" (Song-sheet)

BRUCE: Henry Davis Thoreau, in 1851, wrote: "Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. If they had, it would not leave them narrow-minded and bigoted"

In 1772 the Englishman John Newton wrote the words to Amazing Grace. The familiar, traditional melody most often used for this hymn was not original (nor was Newton a composer). As with other hymns of this period, the words were sung to a number of tunes before it became linked to the current tune that appeared in American hymnbooks of the 1830s.

The melody is believed to be Scottish or Irish in origin.

Newton's lyrics have become a favorite for Christians, largely because the hymn vividly and briefly sums up the doctrine of divine grace. The lyrics are based on I Chronicles 17:16, where King David marvels at God's choosing him and his house. Newton apparently wrote this for use in a sermon he preached on this passage on New Year's Day 1773, for which he left his sermon notes. (He entitled the piece "Faith's review and expectation.")

It has also become known as a favorite with supporters of freedom and human rights, both Christian and non-Christian, in part because many assume it to be his testimony about his slave trading past. The hymn was quite popular on both sides in the American Civil War.

It is interesting to note that, while on the "trail of tears," the Cherokee were not always able to give their dead a full burial. Instead, the singing of "Amazing Grace" had to suffice. Since then, "Amazing Grace" is often considered the Cherokee National Anthem. For this reason, many contemporary Native American musicians have recorded the song.

Please join us in singing song #206...
Song ... "Amazing Grace"

Peter Seeger wrote a great number of activist songs in his time. Many have gone on to be standard fare around any campfire or social gathering. These words come from one such song, written in 1962, entitled, "One Man?s Hands"...

"Just my hands can?t build a bridge of peace,
just my heart can?t turn this world to love;
just my eyes can?t see the way.
But, if two and two and fifty make a million,
We?ll see that day come 'round.

Please join me in extinguishing the chalice, the words are written in your order of service...

Closing Words and Music
As Paul so appropriately pointed out at one of our rehearsals, maybe our closing words to this service should be in musical form, so please join us in singing # 100 in your hymn books,

Song... "I've got Peace like a River" #100

Players immediately go into "Planxty Irwin" as people file out.