Singing is Good - Part 3

If you recall from earlier articles in The Messenger, that profound statement arrived in my hands via a thin cardboard bookmark made by one of our young Sunday School scholars years ago. While the bookmark no longer lives in the hymnal I used in Chancel Choir, the sentiment continues.

Itinerant preacher and co-founder of the Methodist movement Charles Wesley (1707-1788) also found singing to be good. Historians tell us that Wesley penned somewhere between 6,500 and 11,000 hymns in his lifetime. Like me, you probably couldn’t resist doing the math. Yes, he lived a long life, 80 years, so assuming he did not begin his musical ministry until perhaps age 15, he wrote 100 to 175 hymns a year.

The Doubting Thomas in me decided the prolific, recently converted Wesley had written only the lyrics of this overwhelming number of hymns. I can picture him atop his horse, galloping along and composing verses in his head as he made his way to the next village, where he hoped to find an audience who would hear his message. If you page through our Methodist hymnal, you will find 51 of his hymns, all of which were, indeed, set to someone else's music.

You will also find that the Charles Wesley hymns in our book note the scripture passage he used as inspiration. Notable in his writing is the richness of scriptural interpretation and literary allusion, as well as his variety of metric and stanza forms that easily translate to melody.

“Oh For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” is on the first page of the hymns in our book. Other favorites include “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” “Love Divine All Love’s Excelling,” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

We are fortunate to have The United Methodist Hymnal in our pews. It fascinated me to realize how much I did not know about what was in this familiar book, even after years of opening it to sing along with the congregation.

St. Francis of Assisi wrote, “ Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”  I take the liberty of adding… “and music!”

As I finish this short, 3-part written sojourn into “Singing is Good,” I leave you with a wonderful story Nance Jacobs shared with me and is sure to make you smile:

“My father told me that as a young boy, he had a great voice and loved to sing.  As he matured, he said his voice changed and no longer sounded very good, but he kept singing; when I was growing up, he would sing out in church, off-key, but sang away! He was an usher and walked up and down the aisles, singing along with all the hymns. My dad’s name is Sheldon Rainey. He would love you to know this story.”

- Karen Matheson