Hymn exercise So I realized recently that, while …
admin August 29th, 2006
Hymn exercise
So I realized recently that, while I know and love several hymns, it’s much more of a passive than an active knowledge. I think it hit home when I recently started singing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God and had to revert to “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah-blah-blah blahh…” for half the lines.
I could excuse myself if I were one of the many people who honestly don’t remember lyrics or dialogue well, but I’m not. I could probably sing at least 75% of Les Misèrables from memory. I could probably still recite at least 50% of Beetlejuice along with the actors. And I could tell you 9/10 or more of the lyrics to every Simon & Garfunkel song ever recorded, not to mention the fact that I still remember the lyrics to We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister.
This is, then, an issue of what I have devoted time and energy to learning. Seems to me that songs that praise God are at least as deserving of my time and energy as Wind Beneath My Wings and You Can Call Me Al.
So my goal now is to learn - truly learn, text and music - one hymn per week. Seems like a reasonable and manageable feat. This is my experiment from now until Easter; I’ll review the effort and its success at that time, and decide whether to modify, continue, or cut.
This week’s hymn: Holy, holy, holy! (I love this one!)
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee!
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty,
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who is, and was, and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory shall not see;
Only Thou art holy. There is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love and purity!
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth, and sky, and sea!
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
That’s from memory. I shall now go back and check myself against the text I found on the Internet yesterday…
Aaannnd…looks like I still don’t have the punctuation quite right, but I’ve got the text almost nailed. So a little more drilling is in order before I really can say I know it, but I’m getting there. This is the text, directly copied and pasted, from the source I was using (http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Holy_Holy_Holy/):
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Then, when I have this down…the music! 
(And next week: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!)
