Giving Thanks for Things I Wish Weren’t Needed

Nov 23

Last Thursday, November 20th, I shared a couple of new hymns on my personal Facebook page. This isn’t unusual, I love sharing new hymns, in the hopes that others might see them and may have a use for them in formal worship, or elsewhere in their lives. Celebrating the new gives me life. What was unusual that day was the realization that I had shared two hymns that I was “sad that they needed to exist, but also thankful that they do.” These are hymns that are written in response to some of the terrible things in this world, answering with solidarity, hope, and love. So for this week of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share those hymns again, along with a few others. We may or may not ever have a need or chance to sing them on a Sunday morning, but it is important they are in the world, and you never know when they might need to be sung.

November 20th is, “Trans Day of Remembrance," a day set aside to remember lives lost to anti-transgender violence. The “R” of “TDoR” has been reimagined to include words like Rage, Revere, and Radiate, as well. This past summer at the Hymn Society conference, and again this fall at the Writing the Church’s Song retreat, I had the opportunity to meet Eli Cooper-Nelson, who is writing hymns for the church, and also the transgender community. Sometimes those groups overlap, other times they don’t, but all communities need music. To my knowledge, his hymn Mark These Days with Quiet Moments is the first TDoR hymn to be formally published. Eli hopes to have a new tune composed by member of the transgender community, but for now it exists with the mournfully contemplative tune PICARDY (Transform Us as You Transfigured, Chalice Hymnal 182). Since there was no recording yet of this hymn, Kim and I made a cell phone recording (accompanied by the air handler in the choir room).

I can’t decide which stanza to highlight for you, so I’ll pick two contrastingly meaningful couplets:

Mark these days with trans connection

candles lit in memory.

Share the story of our thriving,

mourn the futures not to be.

When these nights and days are endless,

fan the liberation spark.

Let your flame grow with the movement:

justice-bound, we bend the arc.

The other hymn I shared last Thursday is the powerful text God Bless Our “No”, by Hannah Brown, with the equally fiery tune, SHE WOLF, by Kate Williams. I don’t think there’s any commentary I can add that would enhance this more than what Hannah, and Kate have already written, along with the #metoo imagery in the music video you can see on Kate’s blog. So I choose instead to amplify their voices. Please click those links to read their words, and hear their music. Content warning on Kate’s blog: #metoo, responses to sex trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, David Haas. No embedded video is available to share here, but please watch and listen to the music video on Kate’s blog:

https://blesswhatisbreaking.substack.com/p/no

God bless our “no” when we expose the loathsome lies we learn;

God bless our change as wisdom grows, and thoughts and actions turn.

God bless our independent choice for health and self and soul;

God bless our strong, collected voice for sacred self-control.

…

Canadian musician Andrew Donaldson wrote this next hymn in solidarity with the #NoKings protests here in the United States. He echoes Psalm 137 when he asks How Can We Sing? Though we may not be exiles, it certainly sometimes feels like the country we are, is not the country it should be-indeed as neighbors are exiled (we just call it deported instead). I’m also a sucker for any hymn that uses old folk melodies, in this case a 16th century French tune called “Comment vouloir qu'une personne chante,” or “How could you want for a person to sing (When he does not have his heart free?)”

I’ll highlight the questions Andrew poses, please read or listen to hear the answers.

How can we sing, our souls aghast and shaken?

How can we sing? What good will come with praises?

How can we sing, for who will hear our voices?

How can we sing, yet how can we stand silent?

In a similar vein, hymnwriter Carolyn Winfrey Gillette wrote a hymn about protest, considering the social and historical studies showing that it takes just 3.5% of a population participating in non-violent protest, to create political change. She compares that to the dash of salt that makes such a difference in baking a loaf of bread. My back of the envelope math says thats about 12 million Americans, in a country of 342 million. The most recent large protests on October estimate 7 million engaged in peaceful protest, so we still have a ways to go to reach, and sustain, that involvement. But the movement grows as Carolyn’s hymn, O, God, As Troubles Here Increase, asks:

O God, when troubles come, we pray:

“Please, won’t you send those few?”

And then we hear the word you say:

“My church, I’m sending you.”

Theresa and I got together a while back and recorded this hymn:

I give thanks for text writers and tune writers giving us new ways to think, and sing, about the work God asks us to do in the world.

As an addendum, or an encore as it were, please forgive me for resharing the introit I sang this past Sunday, Mark Miller’s Surrounded by Love. Mark, who is the walking human definition of “joy larger than life,” went through surgery to remove a brain tumor. He was warned by the surgeons that this surgery could result in losing his hearing, a terrifying possibility for anyone, especially a musician. Thankfully the surgery went well, Mark is still with us and sharing beautiful music, including this piece written during those scary days. When you find yourself facing an uncertainty in your life, may you know you are still surrounded with love.

When you come to the desert alone

And your strength is almost gone

And the fear overshadows the dawn

You are still surrounded by love

When your world seems to fall apart

All that’s left is a broken heart

And you’re not even sure where to start

You are still surrounded by love

We will still surround you with love.

Still, still, we will still surround you with love.

Love is all around you, we will still surround you with love.

(starts at 12:20)

Happy Thanksgiving my friends.

Grace Baptist Church

Giving Thanks for Things I Wish Weren’t Needed

A New Hymn!

Hymn Festival, 10/26/25