MM: Oh How Lovely...

I think I'll take turns writing about hymns and secular music each week.  It's a hymn this week.  I chose Joseph Smith's First Prayer because it's a favorite of mine.

It's the story of the First Vision put to song. I love playing it and have even used it as a lullaby for my children over the years.

Joseph Smith’s First Prayer, no. 26

1. Oh, how lovely was the morning!
Radiant beamed the sun above.
Bees were humming, sweet birds singing,
Music ringing thru the grove,
When within the shady woodland
Joseph sought the God of love,
When within the shady woodland
Joseph sought the God of love.

2. Humbly kneeling, sweet appealing—
’Twas the boy’s first uttered prayer—
When the pow’rs of sin assailing
Filled his soul with deep despair;
But undaunted, still he trusted
In his Heav’nly Father’s care;
But undaunted, still he trusted
In his Heav’nly Father’s care.

3. Suddenly a light descended,
Brighter far than noonday sun,
And a shining, glorious pillar
O’er him fell, around him shone,
While appeared two heav’nly beings,
God the Father and the Son,
While appeared two heav’nly beings,
God the Father and the Son.

4. “Joseph, this is my Beloved;
Hear him!” Oh, how sweet the word!
Joseph’s humble prayer was answered,
And he listened to the Lord.
Oh, what rapture filled his bosom,
For he saw the living God;
Oh, what rapture filled his bosom,
For he saw the living God.

Text: George Manwaring, 1854–1889
Music: Sylvanus Billings Pond, 1792–1871; adapted by A. C. Smyth, 1840–1909

Joseph Smith—History 1:14–20, 25
James 1:5

MM: Even Now

Went to drop off the Caboose at his lacrosse practice a little while ago and this song played on my iPod.    I would have to say that out of all the secular songs I've liked over the years, this one is in the top ten, if not the top five.

One of my all-time favorite piano playing experiences happened when I was in ninth grade. My friend W  and I were accompanying a 8th-9th grade mixed choir together--well, taking turns playing. We supported and helped each other out at the piano turning pages and stuff. I had been assigned one song at the beginning of the year but chickened out about playing it at the Christmas concert and the choir teacher's wife ended up playing it then... I decided that wasn't going to happen again. I was going to play that song at the spring concert if it killed me...

It was the first time in my life that I'd ever played the piano in front of such a huge crowd--and it was the first time on a grand piano, too. To make it worse, at the end, there was a part for me to play (solo?) without the choir singing. It was challenging and.... dramatic. Everyone would notice if I made a mistake. I practiced and practiced and practiced. I practiced it so much I had it memorized. I even had my dad give me a father's blessing the evening of the performance--which was held in the Rexburg Tabernacle of all places and was completely filled. Saying I was nervous was definitely an understatement, especially when I recognized faces in the crowd who I would guess were wishing for me to fall on my face....

The time came for me to accompany the choir. I took a deep breath, remembered the blessing my dad gave me, said a prayer, and started in on the intro....

Ahhh.... Perfection. Goosebumps! I DID IT!!!!

I was looking through my 9th grade yearbook and found Mr. Bidwell's comment: Thank you so much for your support and good work. You'll never forget Even Now. *chuckle* He's right. I've never forgotten that song. In fact, it's remained one of my favorites to this day and I still have it memorized nearly 30 *gulp* years later.

Of course Barry Manilow sings it so much better--but I'm still rather proud of my "solo" there at the end--at least how I played it. *wink*

Even now
When there's someone else who cares
When there's someone home who's waiting just for me
Even now I think about you as I'm climbing up the stairs
And I wonder what to do so *he won't see
That even now
When I know it wasn't right
And I found a better life than what we had
Even now I wake up crying in the middle of the night
And I can't believe it still could hurt so bad

Chorus:

Even now when I have come so far
I wonder where you are
I wonder why it's still so hard without you
Even now when I come shining through
I swear I think of you
And how I wish you knew
Even now

Even now
When I never hear your name
And the world has changed so much since you've been gone
Even now I still remember and the feelings still the same
And the pain inside of me goes on and on
Even now

Even now when I have come so far
I wonder where you are
I wonder why it's still so hard without you
Even now when I come shining through
I swear I think of you
And *how I wish you knew
Some how
Even now

*lyrics changed from original

MM: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Two of my favorites this week: Come Thou Fount  and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  I actually know a few people who are or who have been members of "MoTab".   I love the game I play of trying to pick them out when I see them on television.

 I love listening to them sing--both recorded and live, in the Tabernacle on Temple Square.  They just give me goosebumps with many of their songs/hymns.

Come, Thou Fount really gives me goosebumps.  I love this adaptation by Mack Wilberg.  The instrumental parts are probably what give me the most goosebumps in this particular hymn.

Enjoy!





1. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

3. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

4. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

MM: I Know That My Redeemer Lives

I spent most of the day at the hospital being the "responsible adult/driver" and am feeling somewhat exhausted so I'm sharing this post originally posted on Sister Snoopy back in 2006.  It still is one of my favorites.  I remember singing it to my dad that week I spent with him before he died.  I still tear up when it is sung in church because I'm taken to that time and place in my memory.

Anyway...


You know, it really bothers me when I hear people say that members of my church do not worship Jesus Christ. His Name is in the official name of the Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). In the Book of Mormon it states:

1. 2 Ne. 25: 26
   
   

   26 And we ^atalk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we ^bprophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our ^cchildren may know to what source they may look for a ^dremission of their sins.

I worship Jesus Christ. He is everywhere in our church. You only have to look to see Him.

Okay, off my soapbox for today.

The hymn I chose this week is again one of my favorites. It's called I Know That My Redeemer Lives and it was written by Samuel Medley in 1775. I love to play the version in the LDS hymn book composed by Lewis D. Edwards, although I suspect there are other arrangements out there.

I know that my Redeemer lives;
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, He lives, who once was dead;
He lives, my ever living Head.
He lives to bless me with His love,
He lives to plead for me above.

He lives my hungry soul to feed,
He lives to help in time of need.
He lives triumphant from the grave,
He lives eternally to save,
He lives all glorious in the sky,
He lives exalted there on high.

He lives to grant me rich supply,
He lives to guide me with His eye,
He lives to comfort me when faint,
He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.
He lives to silence all my fears,
He lives to wipe away my tears
He lives to calm my troubled heart,
He lives all blessings to impart.

He lives, my kind, wise, heavenly Friend,
He lives and loves me to the end;
He lives, and while He lives, I’ll sing;
He lives, my Prophet, Priest, and King.
He lives and grants me daily breath;
He lives, and I shall conquer death:
He lives my mansion to prepare;

He lives to bring me safely there.
He lives, all glory to His Name!
He lives, my Jesus, still the same.
Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives,
I know that my Redeemer lives!

(From this link.)

MM: A Prophet's Testimony of the Living Christ

I've sung or played this particular hymn innumerable times over the years as I've attended Church. It was written by Gordon B. Hinckley close to 30 years ago now. I find it amazing that it's been nearly six years since he passed away.  I miss him.  I love President Monson, but I miss President Hinckley.  Hearing his voice makes me cry.

 If you don't listen to it via the above link and you're not familiar with it, I hope that you at least take the time to read through the lyrics and ponder/feel the love President Hinckley had for the Savior, Jesus Christ.

My Redeemer Lives, no. 135

1. I know that my Redeemer lives,
Triumphant Savior, Son of God,
Victorious over pain and death,
My King, my Leader, and my Lord.

2. He lives, my one sure rock of faith,
The one bright hope of men on earth,
The beacon to a better way,
The light beyond the veil of death.

3. Oh, give me thy sweet Spirit still,
The peace that comes alone from thee,
The faith to walk the lonely road
That leads to thine eternity.

Text: Gordon B. Hinckley, b. 1910. © 1985 IRI

Music: G. Homer Durham, 1911–1985. © 1985 IRI

MM: Seeking Peace

I originally wrote about this, one of my favorite hymns, back in November 2006.  At the time I thought I was winning the battle with depression but with my father passing away the following summer and my grandpa on my birthday the following year, not to mention other...  issues, I've found myself once again battling debilitating depression.  This hymn still soothes my soul and rather than seeking elsewhere for help to fill my empty heart, I've really tried to turn towards the Savior and allow Him to carry this burden of depression that I have.  It's a daily struggle and I still lose battles but I will eventually win the war.

The original post:

Where Can I Turn for Peace is one of my most favorite hymns. It became even more so after I read an article about five years ago about the history of the hymn. I pulled the article from the online archives of the LDS Church News. The article is dated Saturday, December 29, 2001, pg z05:

Search for inner peace is universal



By Emma Lou Thayne
Church News contributor

That spring of 1970 had not been a happy time. The oldest of our five daughters was at 19 struggling with what we'd never heard of — manic depression/bi-polar disease, bulimia and anorexia.

The beautiful girl who had grown up enjoying school, friends, boyfriends, swimming and waterskiing, had become obsessed with dieting, and when the boy she sent on a mission didn't write, she fell into a depression unlike anything we could comprehend. Then, away at college, she became manic and had to come home to be hospitalized. When could she return to herself? To her promising life? In and out of hospitals, through baffling efforts at continuing school, as she fought for her very life, through misery and desperation, she and I never lost touch. I have said that a mother is about as happy as her least happy child. Even with other parts of our lives going well, for our family the three years of her healing were the bleakest time I had ever known.

In the midst of this time came June conference, when our Laurel committee of the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association general board planned a program for thousands of MIA teachers from across the country. Joleen Meredith had written music to my lyrics for other songs, but on the Saturday morning before the conference we needed a finale. Why not a hymn? I promised to call back and went to my desk in the storage room in the basement among the clothes lines, sleeping bags and Christmas decorations.

Sitting at my makeshift desk I asked on paper what I had implored — how many times? — "Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace? When with a wounded heart, anger or malice, I draw myself apart, searching my soul?" Three verses of a poem found their way to the page, voicing my anguish and providing the answer I carried in my heart. "He answers privately, reaches my reaching, in my Gethsemane, Savior and friend."

I called Joleen. She had a history of genetic depression in her family, so she understood every word I'd written. She sat at her piano, and as I read a line, she composed a line. By noon we had our hymn that would disappear after that program only to resurface in the new 1985 hymn book. (Hymns 1985, No. 129.)

We had sought professional help for Becky and found it in a superb doctor and a newly found medical miracle, a simple salt, lithium, that corrected her chemical imbalance. She would need it for the rest of her life except when she was pregnant with her three sons. But it was love from her future husband and the peace expressed in the hymn that provided the ultimate healing for Becky.

The search for inner peace is universal. Who of us does not face grieving, loss, anger, illness, hopelessness? The aching knows no boundaries, age, station or language. Once my doctor brother, Homer Warner, on a medical mission with his wife, Kay, called me from an island off of Africa to say, "Hello, Lou. I'm homesick for you. We just heard your hymn sung by a wonderful black chorus in Portuguese!"

I still cannot hear the hymn without gratitude and hope behind my tears. A few weeks ago, when I was speaking at a Relief Society gathering in the Lion House [in Salt Lake City], I felt as if I were hearing it for the first time as 25 little violinists played Joleen's music right in the midst of their Christmas carols. And most profound of all, at the memorial in the Salt Lake Tabernacle following Sept. 11, as war clouds gathered, the hymn encompassed for me both the private and the universal as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir pled for the peace that passes understanding, the peace which He, only One, can offer. That He answers I can testify even more fervently today than 31 years ago when the hymn so inconspicuously began its life.

Emma Lou Thayne, a poet and writer, is a former member of the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association general board and of the Deseret News board of directors.

Well, I guess you can see why this hymn is one of my favorites...

Where Can I Turn for Peace?, no. 129

1. Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?

2. Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

3. He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.

Text: Emma Lou Thayne, b. 1924. © 1973 IRI

Music: Joleen G. Meredith, b. 1935. © 1973 IRI

John 14:27; John 16:33

Hebrews 4:14–16

MM: Jesus, Once of Humble Birth

While originally shared on 3 December 2007, I've updated it to reflect life today, nearly six years later.  My current comments are italicized.

I've dealt with rejection much of my life--both imagined and actual, real rebuffs. I really struggle with these feelings of rejection and how I think of my own worth as a result of various people in my life appearing to reject or out-and-out rejecting me. I'm not going to point out any single person or situation other than one glaringly obvious one--my first marriage.


I will say about that first marriage and ultimate rejection, though... At the time(s)--there were way more than just a single time--of the last ultimate rejection, I was suicidal. I didn't think I was worth anything once he was "finished" with ruining me and felt even more so that no one would want me, a broken, damaged, screwed up woman ever again. Of course that was in the middle of the divorce--especially when I discovered certain... actions? on his part both (at the time) current as well as past that had I known about would have changed my life completely....


Anyway... Silly me didn't want the divorce while I was going through it but the day it was legally made final (1 March 1996), I was driving up to Rexburg for the weekend and had the most incredible experience. Although I suspected that would be the day, I didn't know until I returned home to Logan and called the courts that following Monday to find out I was finally divorced. The weight of the previous nine (even though we were only married just under eight) years physically lifted from my shoulders. It was all gone. All the fear of both him and rejection by him as well as the burdens of his abuse and infidelity... Gone. I was free. Free from having to worry about him leaving me, from infidelity, from his abuse, neglect, control... Free. So I was broken, damaged, ruined. At least I recognized he couldn't hurt me ever again unless I let him. He's tried many times in the nearly two decades since then but I try really hard to not let him.  Sometimes, though, I'm already vulnerable from other issues and...  Now I just walk away.  In tears.  But I walk away.  No more engaging.


Ultimately that rejection was one of the best things that have ever happened to me. I just didn't know it while he was rejecting me. I sometimes wish I had accepted his rejection sooner!


The other rejections I struggle with aren't so cut-and-dried as my first marriage.


I try to think positive thoughts (at least these days when I get whammied by the feelings) but it's hard. And yes, I've had a couple of people reject me recently (okay, one definitely; no, two if you count another one--oh, throw in a third as well *gulp*) that really, really hurt.


No wonder why I'm moody these days.  As I read what I wrote nearly six years ago, I realize that I'm just going to have to accept the idea that I have moods.


I decided to reshare this particular Musical Monday as a result of singing this hymn while I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting.  What I felt then, still holds true today.

From the original:  One night a couple weeks ago, I was laying in bed thinking about a recent rejection by a certain rather important person in my life (actually not the most recent--I'm still smarting from that one) when some partial lyrics of a hymn popped into my head:

Once rejected by his own,
Now their King he shall be known.

Which then reminded me of a certain scripture that while I'm not particularly fond of, nevertheless it's an important one for me to remember when I'm upset because someone has rejected me yet again:

7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? (D & C 122:7-8, bolding is mine.)

Now that I have visited Liberty Jail where Joseph Smith received this revelation this scripture means so much more to me.

Anyway, that got me thinking... I can't control others' actions, but I can control mine. I can learn from these bouts of rejection and apply them in my own relationships so other people in my life don't have to suffer through the same pains I've had to, ya know? Don't get me wrong. It still hurts--oh how it hurts--but the Savior Himself was rejected and put to death as a result and I'm certainly not greater than He is. He suffered it all so we don't have to. I know this. One of these days I'll actually believe it as well and won't let myself get hurt because of someone else's selfish (?) choices.

It's funny in a sad way.  Six years out and I'm still dealing with rejection--often from the very same people I was struggling with when I first wrote this.  I think I'm handling it better--or the walls are so thick nothing can get through.  Nah.  I'm going with the positive idea that I'm handling it better.  I'm still reminded and comforted by this hymn.

So here are the lyrics to this hymn. It's actually one of my favorites. I think that's why it popped into my brain that night and continues to replay when I'm feeling rejected.

Hymns, Jesus, Once of Humble Birth, no. 196

1. Jesus, once of humble birth,
Now in glory comes to earth.
Once he suffered grief and pain;
Now he comes on earth to reign.
Now he comes on earth to reign.

2. Once a meek and lowly Lamb,
Now the Lord, the great I Am.
Once upon the cross he bowed;
Now his chariot is the cloud.
Now his chariot is the cloud.

3. Once he groaned in blood and tears;
Now in glory he appears.
Once rejected by his own,
Now their King he shall be known.
Now their King he shall be known.

4. Once forsaken, left alone,
Now exalted to a throne.
Once all things he meekly bore,
But he now will bear no more.
But he now will bear no more.

Text: Parley P. Pratt, 1807–1857

Music: Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1791–1864, adapted