What helps us on bad days – that is if you have them, as I do sometimes? As I get older, I find poetry, including some of the great hymns, a help for heart and my feelings. Often both the hymn writer and the history of the hymn are interesting.
A hymn whose words invariably give me a different perspective, at least if I say it slowly to myself, is “Dear Lord and Father of mankind”. It was written by John Greenleaf Whittier, a Quaker American poet and journalist in the C19th. He was one of the leading journalists arguing for the abolition of slavery and had a nationwide reputation before and during the American Civil War arguing for freedom. He lived through turbulent and tough times. He also wrote poetry, his most famous poem being “The song of Hiawatha”.
The words of this hymn are the last stanzas of a long poem called “The Brewing of Soma”. Soma was an intoxicating plant-based juice – a drug of its day. Like many modern drugs, it caused huge problems to individuals and society. The great majority of the poem deals with the results of becoming soma-dependent. The poem has seventeen verses, but the hymn is only the last six and they give a contrast with a different way of living. This context explains the opening lines of the hymn “Dear Lord and Father of mankind forgive our foolish ways”.
And so, to the hymn itself, (well four of its six verses), which for me both eases the heart and gives me a perspective on our troubled world as well:
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.
A prayer for the world, its beauty and our lives. Saying, thinking about and reflecting on these verses does not magically make me feel better, but I often find an edging towards that peace and calm when I think on them.
I am an old-fashioned Anglican priest and believe that a priest is there for all who live in a community, whether or not they visit the church or indeed have a faith. We are all human and trying to make the best of life and to help each other. So, I am always willing to visit anyone, if they want someone just to listen. That may be because life is difficult or painful or sometimes it just defeats us. It may be because something wonderful has happened and there is a celebration. Whatever, a parish priest is there for everyone. And I end with, what is I think a beautiful vison of living, in a line I have referred to before from St Paul in his Letter to the Romans: weep with those who weep and be joyful with those who are joyful.
Peter