O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

 One thing I miss about church in my old home town is the Advent hymns we always sang.

My favourite was O Come, O come, Emmanuel.     It's been a couple of years since I've had the opportunity to sing this.

The song is a hymn sung for over a thousand years, originally sung in the Medieval era by nuns and monks or so I believe.

In this version here, the verses are sung in a variety of ways.

The first verse is Homophonic- meaning the melody is accompanied by block chords that mainly fit with the main melody.

The second verse is technically sung in polyphony with a few moments of monophony- the melody is sung in a sort of canon  between men and women with moments where the voices unite at the same time.

The third verse features female voices accompanied by a solo oboe in a counter melody.

The fourth verse is again a polyphonic texture with men and women in a quasi-canon and unison moments.

The final verse unites the voices, organ and oboe - voices in unison with chords and the oboe countermelody.

I love the way the final chord is a Tierce da Picadie meaning that the song was in a minor key (sounds sad) but the final chord raises the middle note of the chord a semitone (half step) higher so it becomes major, sounding happy!

Hope for the world's despair

This beautiful video was shared as part of our Remembrance Sunday service today at church and I thought it was beautiful.

Back in 2018, ten new hymns were written to mark the centenary of Armistice Day and the end of World War 1. One of these was Hope for the World's despair which was the winner of Jubilate's Hymns of Peace competition. The writer was Ally Barrett.  More information can be found here and the songs can be downloaded.

The lyrics are beautiful and very appropriate for today and for our world as it is and the singer is wonderful!

I hope you enjoy it!

Being a Peacemaker

It's funny, I have always thought of myself as being a peacemaker but I'm not sure that it is actually true. Sure, I don't want to rock the boat at times but this is more that I don't like a disturbance or upsetting people by saying things. But being an active peacemaker- hmmm, I think I fail to do that.
Take when I am cross about things, I just moan about them. Moan, moan, moan...
That's not being a peacemaker at all.

But at church today, it was one of those services like Songs of Praise where people could nominate their favourite hymn.

Someone chose Make me a channel of your peace which is supposedly a Franciscan prayer.
And they said how appropriate the words were for the current world crises that are occurring.  Doesn't matter your religion or sentiments, the words are something I would strive to achieve, in order for peace to really be true in this world.  If anyone could take objection to these, I would like to know how. They are beautiful aims.


Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your
love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in
you.

Chorus:
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life, let me bring
hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

Chorus:

Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal
life.

Chorus:

What does that mean? What can I do:

• To share peace in all situations
• To be someone who sows love in a situation of hatred rather than bitching about it or inflating the ire further.
• To be forgiving in the case of injury.
• Strengthening others in their faith.
• To be someone who takes their time to console others when life is difficult rather than moaning and expecting sympathy for their own difficulties.
• To try and understand others, their situations and difficulties rather than feeling misunderstood by others.
• To wholeheartedly love others rather than seek for others to love me.
• To be the one who brings hope rather than being that harbringer of doom and gloom.
• To be the light in someone's life not to bring sadness or dark to their situations
• To try and be a joy-bringer when people are sad.
• To always forgive
• To pardon others what they have done wrong.
• To give to others rather than taking.

Ah...that sounds the most excellent of ways to be. It sounds hard but that is an ambition it would be good to strive for rather than any job or other achievement.  That is the most excellent of ways- being a true peacemaker.

xxx

Amazing Grace

Hello there,


Yesterday was Inspiration Monday with the Two Birds. Emily Rossum was the muse.  Anyone who's read my blog (and seen her in two previous Inspiration Mondays) for a while knows I like her lots!!! She was fabulous in Phantom of the Opera. Her look was a little too smart for this teacher on holiday but I decided to go with the colours and do a 'casual' version of the look.


Aside from my trusty sequin jeans (owned since 2nd year of uni= that's 13 years ago!!), I added this pink heart-cardie (thrifted/charity shop), cat flats, embroidered by me and shrimp earrings assembled by me, as it's Easter Week, I decided to wear my Easter tee-shirt - well it's a t-shirt I wear through the year but I always make a point of wearing it on Easter week, usually Good Friday.

When I saw it at the Christian Resources exhibition, I knew I had to have it- it says it all in 2 words. Amazing Grace and of course the song immediately plays in my head:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound 
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost and now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall profess, within the vail,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the Sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

Chorus:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

I was glad to wear that t-shirt yesterday...

Hope you are well.
x

I am also linking to Renae at Simple Sequin's Think Pink fashion item Friday with my pink belt and cardie as I am not likely to be able to get any photos done on Friday.  Please consider joining in with wearing pink or having a pink post  Friday to support Renae as she has her chemo on Friday!

A pause for Lent 2: Love so amazing

I used to read a lovely blog by a girl called Chris Macfie when I first starting blogging.  She had such a beautiful heart.  She suffered from Crohns or something similar but she was such an inspiration and she was only a teenager. I wish she still blogged. I'd love to know what she's doing now.  Her blog had a motto (like my terrible alliterative description above) and it said:

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

I used to find it so beautiful.  I was a new Christian at that point.  It seemed so right, so important, so true- a real motto to live your life by. Every time I read her blog, I looked at those words.

And then at Easter a year or so later after reading her blog first, we were singing 'When I survey the wondrous cross' and there I saw where those words had come from- in the last verse.

 
When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.


Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God!

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood.


See from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?


His dying crimson, like a robe,

Spreads o’er His body on the tree;

Then I am dead to all the globe,

And all the globe is dead to me.


Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

And for me, this song is what is all about.  This song makes me pause, reflect, wonder, stand in awe.  It is for nothing unless it is for him. 

I wrote my own version of this one Easter with this last verse as a chorus such is the importance of that last verse to me.  I've never managed to finish the piano accompaniment and get it written down so we can sing it at church.  Perhaps this year, I will manage to sit down and finish it. Perhaps that should be my final pause for Lent- offering that?