The way is low

I think this song was written for a Uniting Church Youth Convention. In 1980.
But it’s widely used especially in the Lutheran Church in Australia. Not surprising that it finds a ready home with us Lutherans. Traditionally at least & maybe still, we see & feel the Christian path as a lowly journey, not a grand & victorious highway.
‘Low, the way is low with the man the angels praise.
He who spoke the sky was a baby dressed in hay’.
When I was asked to put tune names to songs for the Australian Lutheran hymnbook supplement, this song got ‘Long Flat’. It’s the name of the small dairying community just across the river from Murray Bridge where I grew up. It was a good place for a childhood, ordinary, & the prevailing smell of cow manure was in the air.
We are companions of the one whose name is Love,
we share his life as we grow.
We carry Jesus' death with each and every breath,
our hope is high, the way is low.
I find the idea of ‘we carry Jesus’ death’ a very strong one. 2 Corinthians (ch 4-5?). For me it connects with being ‘in Christ’.
2. See the glory road, he was tempted by it too.
But he set his course with Jerusalem in view.
The temptations after Jesus was baptised are certainly part of this song (‘If you are the Son of God ….’) & Luke 9 has Jesus heading to Jerusalem
3. When our time is gone, we will see the great new day.
Till that day appears, all we know is Jesus' way.
Some of us can get too down on ourselves, but we all need reminding all the time of the ‘narrow way’, the way that is walked by those who are ‘poor in spirit’.

Long the hunters have prepared

‘Long the hunters have prepared their steel,
the priests and elders gather for the kill’
On the new CD collection, this song’s included. It’s one of those that sits half-way between a community song & a performance piece. Both because of the tune & the lyrics. The melody is over an octave, the words are more left-of-field than most of mine. But the chorus is a community confession time:
‘And we’re no different than they were then
always try to save our own skin.
Lord, have mercy on us – like you had mercy on them’
The verses tell the story, reflect on it. The chorus is a prayer.
Verse 1 & 2 set the scene: ‘still they must delay’ picks up the long lead time of those who want Jesus disposed of, because, as v.2 says: ‘Jesus wasn’t right, didn’t want to fight – offered love, they didn’t want that!’Verse 3 thinks about the trial with ‘crooked witnesses’ & the fact that ‘Jesus, you had no defenders’ (going into prayer again). Verse 4 is about Peter’s denial – ‘suddenly the cock was crowing’.
After another chorus, Verse 5 summarises: ‘He is sentenced … his crime “compassion” … here’s the lamb & here’s the slaughter’.
Written back in 1987, I still like to sing it. It still feels relevant, & the story has echoes in many current events,

How the world was won - new CD now available

‘Let’s remind each other how the world was won,
not with mighty army nor with soldier’s gun,
his unlikely palace – Mother Mary’s womb.
Operation Jesus, from a borrowed room.’

As these words from the title song suggest, this is not a ‘religious’ CD, if religion is about nice things, holy words & pious scenes.
That’s not how God changes the world’s history.
It happens when Jesus takes the ‘low way’ to Jerusalem, when the ‘sightless Pharisees condemned as heresies the wide-eyed working of the Lord.’
When ‘the hunters … gather for the kill’, the ‘palms lay where they fell’, Jesus was taken prisoner by the religious authorities & ‘condemned to carry a cross’.
‘Death cannot hold you, death is not that clever,
God lives forever!’
This new CD is not for entertainment = amusement, distraction, excitement.
The intention of these songs is to tell in various ways how God chooses to fix things. Hopefully, some of that intention is realised.

‘Lose your life & save it,
give it up and get it back.’

How the world was won: CD collection

While Lent started on Wednesday, I’m still doing the final bits on a CD for the season. 12 songs. Not new ones but brought together from several earlier recordings. I hope it might be a useful resource & provide a focus for devotion & thinking.
All but one of the songs are my pieces, though three of the tunes are old ones I wrote new words for. The opening track of the CD is John Beavis’s ;New Road’, which we included in ‘All Together OK’. It’s a terrific retelling of Jesus’ story, with wonderful lines like ‘They dined on miracles & breathed in hope’.

More later. I have to go and do a fresh recording of ‘When our life began again’ with Kath Renner. Should be simple, but good.

A new year

Yes, it’s already ten days old but there’s still 355 to go!
‘Que sera sera’ — a bit fatalistic perhaps, but realistic too.
(A pop song in the ‘50s & ‘60s: ‘whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see ….’)
It’s a good antidote to the idea that we can control our future, keep it safe. Of course we can influence what happens in many ways, but the whole picture’s out of our hands. Very few of us can even decide the moment of our death, for example.

I still like singing ‘Jesus please watch over us’ which I wrote 30 years ago. It’s a simple song of trust. It doesn’t presume that things will go well or badly. ‘As we step from the edge of morning, feet can’t tell where to take us’.
‘Trouble comes … we forget …fill our minds so that we remember’. Many people of faith seem to think that they’ll have less trouble if they’re Christian. I’m not sure where that idea comes from – Jesus seems to tell his disciples they’ll have more difficulty, not less. While me & Dorothy have had a good life I don’t put that down to being faithful Christians. I think we were ‘born at the right time’, in the right place.

1. As we step from the edge of morning,
feet can't tell where to take us.
Here's a light that will shine forever,
here's the light that will guide us.
Jesus, please watch over us;
Jesus, please take care of us.

2. Trouble comes and we search for safety,
we forget that you hold us.
Fill our minds so that we remember,
say once more that you love us. (Jesus, please ...)

3. Danger meets us at every moment,
death is never in hiding.
You are stronger than any danger,
you are stronger than dying. (Jesus, please ...)

4. In your life is the Father's welcome,
in your death there is freedom.
Be our life and our death forever,
be our new resurrection. (Jesus, please ...)

I’ll keep singing this prayer in 2010.
Hope it might be a possible one for you too.

Christmas in Australia (Version 5.9)

Always like the start of Garrison Keillor monologues on ‘Prairie Home Companion’: ‘It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone’.
If it had been filled with less busyness on Currawong Crescent this past week, I would have done a blog or two more. Always happens just before Christmas – simple things become complicated, programmes don’t work, last minute details need a lot more attention …
Tomorrow night at St Stephen’s we’re going to play & sing a blessing I wrote 4 years ago: ‘May we hear the angels sing’. Originally just one verse, it’s got an extra one following requests / suggestions. I usually find it easy to resist such tips, but obviously something rang a bell. The second verse focuses on nature’s response to the birth of Jesus. Well, maybe just including some good pictures that act as background for the main event.
A bit like some of the Wheeler / James carols from 50 years ago or more. We’re doing their Carol of the Birds:
‘Out on the plains the brolgas are dancing … Orana! Orana!’
I think the additional verse is shaping up well, filling out the song:

May we hear the angels sing as they did that night;
see the star up in the sky shine with heaven's light
– 'Glory be to God on high, peace to all the earth' –
gaze with Mary's loving eyes at the Saviour's birth.
Early morning voices call, every magpie sings.
Jacaranda blossom falls — carpet for a king.
Agapantha glory shines under every sky.
Creatures great & humble too sing their lullaby: (repeat v.1)
Robin Mann © 2005

Christmas in Australia (Version 3.9)

‘All the lights are going out, & the moon is on the rise,
down at the hotel they’re closing up for the night.
But here in this place the music's just begun,
softly he plays his tune.
And many a deaf man listens with delight,
'cause the baby's in the manger tonight.’

Reality — Garrison Keillor concludes one of his great monologues talking about it, quoting one of the early American philosophers. Once again, when it comes to the Christian way, reality should be our passion. That’s where the rubber hits the road, where phrases like ‘love is patient & kind’ need to be put into practice.
The great events in God’s history are all real: creation, captivity, release, Christmas, Good Friday, Easter. I believe we need to keep these stories firmly fixed in reality, tell them happening in our town, & not in the clouds or a foreign place.

2 All the streets are cold and still, and the people in their beds;
down in the city the shops are closed for the night.
But here in this place the room is filled with life -
Mary has borne her son.
And the dead are waking up to see this sight,
'cause the baby's in the manger tonight.