so grateful

It is such a good feeling to be supported by friends, family and people I don't even know. I am excited about these hymn cards. Not just as a new personal venture, but because these words are powerful. These songs have moved my own heart time and time again.

Did you catch the comments from yesterday's post?

My brother-in-law Jedd wrote, "I vividly remember listening to my Grandma Beulah clearly singing every word to "As The Green Blade Rises" even though she couldn't tell you if she'd eaten that day and couldn't read because of her cataracts. I'd never heard the hymn before, I've never sung it since and I didn't sing it that Sunday either. I just listened to her and wept."

I read this and was grateful that Jedd gets it. I looked up the hymn. I recognized it once I heard it. You might too. The words are awesome. The melody is haunting. You can click here to listen to the tune and read the words. Love is come again.

And then my friend Renee (we attended seminary together) wrote, "A note re: what you wrote about the inspiration coming from working in the nursing home... after working in this environment for five years now I often wonder what our generation's "collective memory" will be when we are in senior care. The "greatest generation" has events (WWII, Depression, etc) and songs (hundreds) and mainstays from church (hymns and liturgy) that bind them together and are easily recalled despite even, in some cases, severe memory loss. What does our generation have? What binds us together?"

I don't have an answer to this one. I think about it often as well and would love to hear what anyone else thinks too. Even worship music now seems to cycle every three months or so. You don't sing any one song for very long in a church anymore. I think this is why I want to know these hymns and why I want my kids to know them too.

I remember lots of summer nights at Mount Carmel Family Camp, sitting in the chapel after worship, while my aunts and uncles sang hymns out of an old Lutheran songbook. They always sang a song called, "Living for Jesus." I never heard that song anywhere else but it was my grandparents favorite song. So they made a choir with their kids and the song was taught to the next generation too.

And I suppose that is the simplest motive behind the hymn cards. To get these words in front of our faces again. To get these songs stuck in our heads. So that we remember them and the next generation learns to love them too.