Sunday, October 8, 2017

219. Creative Endeavors Hymn

The tune I had in mind while writing this was KEDRON, from William Walker's Southern Harmony, 1835 (below), which I spotted in The Lutheran Book of Worship (Augsburg Fortress, 1978), paired with the hymn "Lord, save your world; in bitter need." The first word of my hymn was originally "Creating," but after completing the hymn, I did a search for the phrase and found out that this hymn by Jeffery Rowthorn already had the title "Creating God." It is also, most perversely, set to the same tune. What were the chances? So, to avoid spurious charges of plagiarism, I changed the first word to "Creative." I'm still worried no one is going to believe I didn't plagiarize Rowthorn's hymn; though, except for a similarity in the first two words and coincidentally(!!) having the same tune, they aren't particularly similar.
Creative God, whose wise design
Pervades the heavens, sea, and land:
Help those who trace Your labor's line
A Father's love to understand.

Eternal Word, without whose voice
Would naught that is have come to be:
Help those who plan and dream rejoice,
Their labor's longed-for end to see.

Dear Holy Ghost, whose daily gift
We seldom value as we should:
Our toilsome burdens kindly lift;
Our earnest efforts crown with good.

To God who has been, ever is,
And yet shall be world without end,
May our works, patterned after His,
Like holy offerings ascend.

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