"THIS IS MY SONG, O GOD OF ALL THE NATIONS"

Monday January 6 was the Twelfth Day of Christmas.  Epiphany which, according to legend, is the day the three Wise Men visited the baby Jesus.  Astrologers otherwise known by the carol "We Three Kings of Orient are / Bearing gifts we traverse afar." 

All week I've been singing, humming and listening to "This is My Song", the hymn we sang last Sunday. I've been listening each afternoon as night falls so early and it is black outside my windows.  The fire burns against the dark.  It's sung to the tune of Finlandia by Sibelius.  You can call up the melody under "This is My Song," Finlandia hymn.  Take a minute to listen. The words alone are powerful but with the music there is majesty.  It seems a perfect vessel for mindful attention.

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

text by Lloyd Stone (1912-1993) stanzas 1 & 2 and Georgia Harkness (1891-1974) stanza 3
sung to the tune Finlandia by Jean Sibelius 

Is this not moving?  "But other hearts in other lands are beating / with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine."  Imagine, these words written by a 22-year-old in 1934, someone born here who loves our country, but recognizes that others everywhere feel the same as he.  A thought sometimes so easy to forget.  The same with stanza 2--"but other lands have sunlight too, and clover, / and skies are everywhere as blue as mine."  Easy to forget that the earth belongs to us all and that God is "God of all the nations," that ordinary people are everywhere alike. 

Our preacher this past Sunday when we celebrated Epiphany wasn't much over twenty-two herself.  She talked about the visit of the Three Kings to the Infant Jesus and how King Herod ordered the death of all boys under the age of two so that his reign would not be threatened by the infant called the King of the Jews.  Mary, Joseph and their baby escaped by fleeing to Egypt like so many fleeing violence today. 

I had debated attending church.  I don't need a Sunday off as much as when I worked full-time, but during these cold and drizzly January mornings the home-fires are tempting.  But I'm glad I went if for no other reason than the hymn.
You may have a favorite version at your fingertips.  It's hymn No. 437 in the United Methodist Hymnal and No. 887 in the Lutheran Hymnal, ELW (Evangelical Lutheran Worship).  Or you can find it on YouTube at HD Classical Music, "This is my Song," Finlandia Hymn - Sibelius or MemChurchHarvard or Panoplyimaging and elsewhere.  

Sometimes it's all we need in a week where the news cycle is as bad as this one:  to be both calmed and invigorated by something that stirs our hearts. I am thankful this week for this music.       Nina Naomi