The Earth Is Filled with Your Glory/La Tierra Está Llena de Tu Gloria
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Hello friends! It’s been a while! I’ve been working away on my sabbatical book (on late capitalism/neoliberalism and worship) in Duluth, which means I haven’t had a lot of brain space for much other writing—hymnic or otherwise. I’m currently hitting the home stretch on my community chapter, which starts with this quote from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (in a new translation from Michael Katz):
“In our age, all people have split themselves into units each retreating into their own burrow, each one separating themselves from others; they hide, conceal what they possess, and end up alienating themselves from people and alienating others. They accumulate wealth in isolation and think: I’m so strong now and so secure; but the fool doesn’t realize that the more they acquire, the more they sink into suicidal impotence. Because they have become accustomed to relying on themselves alone, and cutting themselves off from the whole, they’ve taught their soul not to believe in help from others, in people, or in humankind; they merely tremble at the thought that they might lose their wealth and acquired privileges. Everywhere now human intellect is, ironically, beginning to ignore the fact that a person’s genuine security lies not in their individual, solitary efforts, but in the common solidarity of the people. This terrible individualism absolutely must end, and people will understand at once that they have separated themselves from one another unnaturally.”
The more things change…
I’m looking forward to sharing more bits and pieces from that in the days and weeks to come, but it’s been a personally meaningful and even transformational project to be working on at this moment. I feel like it has given me something in which to channel my horror and indignation at the state of our nation and world, hopefully in a constructive and helpful way; and I hope it will be helpful to others in some very small way.
Also, if you’re in Northern Minnesota, I’ll be speaking up at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hovland (near Grand Marais) in a couple weeks (6/25). Here’s the flyer, and yes, I’m going for the pie and ice cream to follow:
And yes, I do have a few Canadian friends, which means “internationally known” is technically correct.
To the song.
A few years ago, I was asked to lead a short time of worship at the beginning of our seminary’s symposium on creation care. I wanted to lead a paperless song, in part because there was no piano in the conference room.
As I was thinking about what would be a good grounding message to begin such a gathering, two related ideas came to mind that informed the text. First, I have always loved how evocative and expansive Isaiah’s vision of God’s presence is in the sixth chapter.
At the very beginning we are told that God’s “train fills the temple” (6:1), but I don’t think we stop and reflect on what a radical concept this is. The temple was the most sacred space where God’s presence was made known to the people of Israel, and yet we are told that this holiest of holy places only contains a fraction the Divine Presence—only the hem of God’s garment.
The ramifications of this are immediately made clear by the angels surrounding God, who proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.” The whole earth—not just our sacred buildings, favorite landscapes, or nation of origin. The whole earth.
Yet, sometimes when we talk about the whole earth being filled with God’s glory, it can become abstract fairly quickly. But the whole earth means each part of creation as well, with all of its particularity and specificity. So, that led to the second idea. Maybe I could write a song that would allow people to add that particularity and specificity of the created world into it. So, I used a piece of the Isaiah passage as an anchor for the first, third, and fourth lines, and then created a variable third line.
The earth is filled with your glory,
the earth is filled with your glory,
and every creature* a sacred story,
the earth is filled with your glory.
Any two-syllable animal, plant, or mineral (ideally trochaic—an accented followed by an unaccented syllable) could then replace “creature” each time the song was repeated. So, after each time through, I invited someone to call out an example of flora or fauna from their region of the country that we then sang on the next go-round. That day, we proclaimed that every magpie, redwood, kingsnake, and eagle (among others) was a sacred story of God, and this was both a way to acknowledge the places that shape and nourish us, and to invite creation’s multiform voice of praise into the often excarnate and abstracted world of academic conference discourse, especially when it often takes place in contextless, windowless, soulless hotel conference rooms (though we were lucky to have a beautiful room with giant windows for this particular event!).
Initially, I made up a melody that worked just fine for the text but wasn’t anything special. I knew I needed something better, and so I sent it to songwriter extraordinaire Aná Hernandez. Not only did she come up with a wonderful tune based on the Puerto Rican plena, but she also translated the text to Spanish to broaden the reach further!
La tierra está llena de tu gloria,
la tierra está llena de tu gloria,
cada creatura* una historia sagrada,
la tierra está llena de tu gloria.
You can hear GIA’s own Kate Williams play the version below!
This is also a great song to incorporate children in worship. During last year’s Easter Vigil, we sang this after the Genesis 1 readings and had kids call out their favorite (mostly) animals. It was an excellent way to bring in their voices, especially in a service that doesn’t often make adaptations for younger congregants.
You can purchase the music here.
Also, you can now listen to all the songs in Hope Will Not Fail here. Thanks to GIA for putting this together!
Wonder-ings
One of my goals over the past couple months has been to memorize more poetry. I find that feeding my inner well with beautiful words to be a great gift I can give to myself. I started with a couple classics—George Herbert’s “Love [III]” and Jaques’s “All the World’s a Stage” soliloquy in As You Like It—but I’ve also been coming back to some modern favorites, including a couple from Lucille Clifton. I’ve always loved her “mother-tongue: land of nod,” which seems to serve as a complement to her more famous “won’t you celebrate with me” (which ends “come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed”):
“true, this isn’t paradise
but we come at last to love it
for the sweet hay and the flowers rising,
for the corn lining up row on row,
for the mourning doves who
open the darkness with song,
for warm rains
and forgiving fields,
and for how, each day,
something that loves us
tries to save us”Man, I love that last couple—”something that loves us / tries to save us”—especially in this moment when it does feel more like things are conspiring to kill so many. And this little gem too:
God waits for the wandering world.
he expects us when we enter,
late or soon.he will not mind my coming after hours.
his patience is his promise.
May you discover this day—amidst the chaos and violence and injustice of our time—the one who loves you trying to save you.
Peace,
Dave