New Hymn Text - She Stands within the Silence
In a world crying out for your attention, thank you for choosing to give your attention to Lost in Wonder. Just a reminder: you can respond to these newsletters like any email; just hit reply! I’d love to hear from you. Also, if you enjoy reading, please consider sharing and subscribing.
Hello everyone! After a week in Atlanta for The Hymn Society Annual Conference and a week-long intensive to begin my two years of spiritual direction training, I’m committed to enjoying the last few sips of summer. Last night it was water slides (been a while!), tonight I’m heading to Steppenwolf to see Laurie Metcalf in Samuel Hunter’s Little Bear Ridge Road (maybe that will come up in future wonder-ings), and tomorrow I’m celebrating a milestone birthday of my dear friend and former colleague Rev. Jolene Bergstrom Carlson.
When Aaron Johnson, our beloved pastor of 16 years, left Resurrection Covenant Church in January of 2023 (I’ll be sharing the hymn I wrote for him too, but it took a little longer to get through the editorial process!), it was difficult to imagine who could be brought on in the interim to help us through what would no doubt be a fraught transition. Yet, in what can only be described as unmerited gift, Pastor Jolene applied for the position and accepted the call. I had known of her before then, mostly through her husband Richard, who had been a venerated professor at my seminary—legendary in the community for his way with words (“perfect love casts out fear, but perfect fear casts out love” or “Jesus knows me, this I love”), his inclusive vision of God, and his pastoral sensitivity that fed a generation of students. After passing away 10 years ago, Richard’s picture has hung among a wide variety of saints on the ResCov walls every All Saints’ Sunday.
Further, Jolene’s reputation preceded her. In her over fifty years of ministry, she was among the first group of women to be ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church in the 70s, led one of the first multiethnic churches in the denomination, and was (and continues to be!) an advocate for the full inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community. In listing these accomplishments, it would be easy to imagine a formidable woman, understandably and necessarily hardened and battle-scarred by the struggle of breaking the “stained-glass ceiling” and engaging in the work of justice that often brought her into conflict with the cultural and ecclesial powers that be. And while Jolene certainly is formidable, it is a formidability of presence, of gentleness, of love.
And as I was given the gift of working with her for a little over a year, I began to witness the way that type of formidability allowed Jolene to do the often difficult work of pastoring, advocacy, conflict mediation, etc. etc. in sustainable ways without the need to platform herself or receive an evergrowing circle of praise. In a time when pastors and activists seem to be struggling with unprecedented levels of burnout that can lead to all sorts of unhealth, her groundedness in God’s love seemed to serve as source and boundary, hope and haven.
While I’m sure there are many reasons why this is so (e.g., her commitment to the contemplative life), I believe this ethos also emerged from her particular theological commitments. Three seem especially noteworthy. First, her understanding of God and the world is fundamentally shaped by the creation narrative, specifically God’s “original blessing” that declares all things good. Second, she was informed by the feminist theological movements of the 70s and 80s that imagined how God as a woman could subvert the damaging patriarchal theological images of the Divine and the damage they have done to our world. As a natural outflow of both of these beliefs, Jolene is committed to a Gospel that is tangible good news to and for all people, an inclusive reign that embodies Christ’s vision of justice and peace.
So, when Jolene left a few months ago, I wanted to write a hymn that would combine these three hallmarks of her faith within a trinitarian pattern. In a nod to her ethnic heritage, I set it to the Swedish folk tune DEN BLOMSTERTID NU KOMMER, a summer hymn praising God for the beauty and fecundity of creation.
She stands within the silence
before a sound is heard,
an intimate communion
of Mother, Breath, and Word.
Yet love so fills her being
she makes a daring choice
to break the endless silence
and give her love a voice.
The Word of love she utters
divides the light from dark,
constructs the massive planets
and knits the tiny quark;
it forms the earth and oceans,
unfolds the endless skies,
and forges ev’ry creature
that crawls or swims or flies.
She draws her Breath to fashion
another work of art,
a bearer of her image
and sharer of her heart.
She knows the risk of making
our free and fearsome will,
but choosing love, not safety,
she breathes our being still.
The Mother of Creation
has never ceased her speech,
proclaiming love so cosmic
that none are out of reach;
and she will go on singing
till all have understood
her first and fullest blessing:
“The world I make is good.”
© 2024 GIA, Inc.
Here’s a particularly rough demo of it. See if you can notice toward the beginning the moment I realize how bad my posture is:
As always, you can purchase the music here through GIA’s Unbound.
Wonder-ings
I didn’t understand the power of Marc Rothko’s art until I had the chance to see several of his glowing rectangular pieces hung together at the Art Institute of Chicago. I don’t know how (well, they say it’s the hundreds of layers of thin paint), but they radiate something that can only haltingly be described as numinous.
Since then, I’ve wanted to visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston, but there has to be an excellent reason to go to Houston in the first place, which has not come to pass. Second best was reading a speech given by the similarly enigmatic actor Tilda Swinton at the Rothko Chapel on being awarded the Rothko Chapel Visionary Award. My favorite part:
“I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves.
Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place.”
If you love libraries, books, linguistics, fascinating people, or the Italian language, do yourself a favor and check out the documentary Umberto Eco: A Library of the World.
Just the opening scene where he walks through room after room of his private library is moving! Here’s some of my favorite quotes:
“Libraries are mankind’s common memory.”
and:
“Living in time we are like an athlete: to spring forward, we must back up first.
and:
“Information can damage knowledge, like nowadays, with mass media and internet, because it’s too much. Too many things together produce noise, and noise is not a tool for knowledge.”
and:
“Don’t let them blackmail you into only reading important books.”
May you too know that you have been made in the Divine image by a Love who calls all things—including you—good.
Peace,
Dave