I would like to begin a new blog series that will run on Thursdays to introduce the more than 300 compositions I have penned since 1961 (when I was seven). Where to begin? Perhaps with the hymns and other congregational songs that explicitly glorify the Lord. Today let’s discuss a Christmas/Epiphany hymn written in 2000, right as the new millennium eased in. My beautiful wife, Daphne, wrote the exquisite and painful words, which, quite honestly, set themselves to music. Here’s her description:
We were having a tumultuous time in our church shortly before the year 2000. For years, our church had sponsored a soup kitchen in our downtrodden neighborhood, where Walter and I provided weekly music. But then, new neighbors came in, fixing up the old homes, gentrifiying the neighborhood. At first, our church welcomed the change. But then, some of the neighbors started objecting to our soup kitchen, telling us that it attracted “the wrong type of people,” even though many of the people who came actually lived in the neighborhood. Some of these new neighbors complained to the city council and, shockingly, the city council told us our soup kitchen would have to close. Furthermore, they set a limit on how many people would be allowed to attend our church, because we also had “the wrong type” attending our church at times. In a sanctuary that would seat several hundred people, we were told that we could only allow 70 people to attend church, at any time.
When I first heard about the attendance limit place on our church, I was sitting in our living room, praying. It was a cloudy, rainy day, and even though it was Christmastime, the world felt bleak and hopeless. As I prayed, I noticed that the sun had broken through the clouds, and a beam of sunlight was resting right on the Baby Jesus in our manger scene. At that moment, I knew that God was in charge, in spite of what was going on. The words to this song came to me at that moment, and I quickly wrote them down. Walter saw my poem and soon set it to music.
When they heard about the attendance limit, churches, synagogues, and mosques all over the city came to our defense, and eventually, the attendance limit was lifted. In fact, within a few years, our Soup Kitchen won city awards because of the good things they were doing for people in our city.
The timing seems propitious for this hymn. Once again, we dialogue in healthier ways as a nation about assisting people different from us and marginalized by society. Once again, we experience Jesus Christ as we reach out in love to people who, like us, are made in His image. And once again, in a particularly bleak time, we see an epiphany of our Lord right in our midst.
The delicate setting is inspired by the early 20th-century British hymns with its major tonality inflected by Mixolydian modal moments (the seventh step is occasionally flatted) and the use of suspensions, seventh chords and added-tone chords. Enjoy a video of this hymn at https://vimeo.com/489580766. Thank you for reading and listening. By the way, if you would like a heads-up about new posts, please let us know at waltersaul@sbcglobal.net.