So pleased to finally find a recording that doesn’t drag.
This hymn came into our choir’s rotation in Ordinary Time, being a favourite of one of the priests. The first time I heard the tune was in relation to Parry’s wonderful chorale prelude, and I was in a stark moment disappointed to hear during rehearsal one of the choristers refer to it as “that funeral song”. If anything beautiful has ever been spoiled by overuse and misuse, perhaps this would be it.
This recording, while beautiful, omits my favourite part (I suppose so that I can’t listen to it ad nauseum and therefore wear it thin): change and decay in all around I see / O Thou Who changest not, abide with me. Perhaps words will fail me–oh, the experience of singing it in four-part harmony will help you understand–but here, I’ll try: there’s something in the closing of the vowels in “changest not” that, together with the harmonic progression, creates the most resolute and serious and dignified impression. And there the mystery shall remain.
Credits first: A friend tipped me off to today’s reading from 1 Kings earlier this week, and also mentioned the hymn that follows. Thanks!
et ait ei: egredere, et sta in monte coram Domino: et ecce Dominus transit. et spiritus grandis et fortis subvertens montes, et conterens petras, ante Dominum: non in spiritu Dominus. et post spiritum commotio: non in commotione Dominus. et post commotionem ignis: non in igne Dominus. et post ignem sibilus aurae tenuis. quod cum audisset Elias, operuit vultum suum pallio, et egressus stetit in ostio speluncae. et ecce vox ad eum dicens: quid hic agis, Elia? et ille respondit: zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum, quia derelinquerunt pactum tuum filii Israel: altaria tua destruxerunt, prophetas tuos occiderunt gladio, derelictus sum ego solus, et quaerunt animam meam ut auferant eam.
And it was said to him to go out and stand on the mount, in the presence of the Lord; the Lord God would pass by. There came a wind, great and strong, shaking the mountains and shattering the rocks before the Lord–the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came a tremor; the Lord was not in the tremor. And after the tremor, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the whisper of a little breeze. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his very face in a pall, went out and stood at the door of the cave. A voice spoke to him: what are you doing, Elijah? He answered: Jealous, jealous have I been for the Lord God of hosts, for the sons of Israel have abandoned Thy covenant: they have destroyed Thy altars, felled Thy prophets by the sword–I alone am left, and they seek my soul that they might snatch it away too.
*Indebted, most proximately, to Knox.
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!
The funny thing about Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is that it was written by a Quaker, in response to the general tide of Ritualism–hence, “forgive our foolish ways” and “in purer hearts Thy service find”. Now, it has become a fond and firm favourite of the choir–frankly, one of their best pieces–and we are very much not anti-ritual. Parry’s to blame, I say. That’s far too beautiful a setting for an anti-Ritualist text, if you mean for it to mean was it was written to mean!
That said, there come times in one’s life when one realises that you do need to slow down, whether hounded by stresses (as Elijah was in the desert, as alluded to by verse 4 of the hymn) or simply distracted by everything else that’s more immediately appealing. In a way, it’s like the contemporary 20-year-old song I consider this hymn’s spiritual successor: Heart of Worship. (No? Just me?) Sometimes you do get sidetracked, run into a haze by your own designs.
I thought it was notable that we come to Elijah here when, in fact, he is terribly sad. I didn’t translate the bit of Kings that directly preceded this one, but what struck me in re-reading it was how sorrowful he was. You can see it, of course, in derelictus sum ego solus, where he says about three times that he’s all alone; in the loss of appetite; in his evident lethargy. The angel must get him to eat and drink, or I suppose he would have just preferred to waste away. I’ve read a treatment of this passage as justifying a depressed person’s need to attend to the basic needs of feeding and watering (and usually the first to fall by the wayside) before worrying about the rest of the problem.
And one wonders, why does the Lord ask, quid agis? “Non scis tu?” a less saintly man might have asked, but it would be kind of true, wouldn’t it? It’s not as if God doesn’t know. Still, I, at least, read a humble reconciliation in the prophet’s words–to the situation and to God, as he is reminded (or reminds himself) that it is for an entirely worthy (tragic, but worthy) cause that he is in this apparently intractable, apparently hopeless situation. And that the Lord cares. In a way, it is like that simple question about prayer: why ask, if He knows? Communion, perhaps, is the answer.
Musical notes: “Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire” must rank among the best and loveliest lines of all hymns, and is surely one of the most heart-wrenchingly full of expressive potential.
the lexical form 