1064 is "Earth is full of wit and wisdom" by Adam M.L. Tice (b. 1979), set to the 1825 American tune HOLY MANNA (used three times in LSB, twice in ELW, all to different hymns by contemporary writers). It's apparently an Earth Day hymn, or something like, spending much of its three stanszas randomly listing different kinds of creatures, with humans (in st. 2) arbitrarily parked between spiders and redwoods. It somewhat has the ring of a children's play-song, making creation sound cute and cuddly, with penguins and platypuses in one line, monkeys and mice in another, microbes and whales in close juxtaposition, and only at the very end acknowledges one special thing about mankind: "With a breath God gives us birth," making us stewards, "called to serve the earth." And full stop. Not even a prayer or anything after that. Just, you're on notice, people: you're meant to serve the earth. (Would someone please check what Scripture says about this? I'll wait.) 3 tacks.
1065 is "Can you feel the seasons turning" by Mary Louise Bringle (b. 1953), set to the Welsh tune LLANSANNAN, with which I'm not familiar. This hymn is very concerned about climate change, melding Biblical language like "creation groaning" with ripped-from the headlines imagery of "icecaps melting, oceans rising" and, concluding stanza 1, a challenge to "count the bitter cost." Stanza 2 bids us hear the creatures crying, "the Spirit sighing as her children grieve and fail," as "nature's poor ... pay the price of human greed." This stanza's concluding challenge is to "stop and heed" – which, in practical terms, means we should do what, exactly? Stanza 3 takes the evidence of climate change and casts it as biblical "signs of warning" that "bid us open frightened eyes," urging on us God's call "to serve as stewards" and challenging us, in the final line, to "turn and change our lives." Sort of like a call to repentance, but intead of being directed against a specific sin that Scripture rebukes, it vaguely rebukes human greed as though that explains what we're supposed to do. What it seems to suggest about world politics and economics leaves a lot open for debate, which I have no intention to get into – and nowhere does any of it have anything whatsoever to do with Christ. Frightened eyes, indeed! Taking into account the omitted accompaniment, as well as the impression that this is a hymn more of the religion of environmental justice-cum-communist apocalyptic, 5 tacks.
1066 is "When at last the rain falls," two stazas and a refrain in the original Spanish and with the original music by Pablo Fernández Badillo (†2006) as well as the English translation by Madeleine Forell Marshall (b. 1946). The "I" in this hymn joins in the pretty flowers' and singing birds' (and tree frogs') praises of the Creator. I find no harm in it except the fact that, again, it's a novel tune for which ACS reserves the accompaniment for the extra-expensive, accompaniment edition; and, once again, the book acts like it's a Spanish-language hymnal when it quite clearly is not. I'm not saying that omitting the unnecessary Spanish lyrics would have saved enough page space to make room for the harmony, but I'm not sure it wouldn't have, either. 2 tacks.
1067 is "For the wholeness of the earth" by Bret Hesla (b. 157), set to his own tune. The first of its three stanzas begins "We lift this prayer" followed by the words of the title, all repeated three times and concluding, "Can you feel it rising in you?" Stanza 2 runs a similar game starting with "We turn our lives to..." and ending with "Can you feel it spinning in you?" Stanza 3 goes, "Give thanks to God for (etc.)," times three, ending with "Can you feel it rising in you?" In the context (i.e. section of the book) the feeling it seems to be probing for has to do with environmental justice, though pushed back a section to "Justice, Peace" it might have come across as a mantra for world peace. In and of itself, its message isn't very clear, except that Christ isn't in it and doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, and it might not be Christian at all, and the impression I've picked up that the makers of this book wouldn't care if it wasn't might be uncharitable on my part, but at this point I rather think the impression said makers have allowed to take root is on them. Also, the accompaniment is omitted. 5 tacks.
1068 is "The earth adorned in verdant robe", from the Swedish by Carl David af Wirsén (†1912), to the Swedish tune SOMMARPSALM by Waldemar Åhlén, and I'm tempted to award a tack just because of how hard it was for me to find the html code for that funny letter. The editors wisely omitted the original Swedish, even though it's the ethnic mother-tongue of many historical members of what is now the ELCA, because they noticed (dig, dig) that this isn't a Swedish-language hymnbook. Instead, they used the translation credited to Carolyn (b. 1936) and Kenneth (†2015) Jennings. Again, it's a hymn that joins in the flowers, birds, trees, etc. in their praise of the Creator. In its third stanza, it adds a prayer that God would "grant us grace to keep (His) word and live in love redeeming," recognizing that all life is transitory while God's word remains forever. For being the first thing that smacks of Lutheranism I've seen so far in this section, 0 tacks.
1069 is "God bestows on every sense" by Tice, set to Anthony Giamanco's (b. 1958) tune ALL CREATION NEW. It acknowledges the beauty that our senses collect as signs of "what the earth will be just beyond what we can see": in taste, a "crumb of the banquet yet to come" (st. 2); the vanishing imagery of dreams (st. 3); tiny plants sprouting on fire-scorched ground hinting of "forests yet unseen" (st. 4); and all concluding that "God makes all creation new," with emphasis on reversing the damage that humans do. I guess that's a more positive and, frankly, more believing viewpoint on 1065's vision of "frightened eyes," though it joins that hymn in its a priori tenet that all destruction and decay in the world is due to mankind. Which, in a way, it is; but let's not bring Genesis 3 into this. 1 tack for omitting the accompaniment.
1071 is "In sacred manner" (may we walk) by Susan Palo Cherwien (b. 1953), set to Robert Buckley Farlee's (b. 1950) tune SEATTLE, accompaniment omitted. In this hymn, the phrases "sacred manner" and "holy ground" turn the theme of environmental responsibility into a sort of sacrament, although God is barely mentioned (st. 2: "The heavens show us God"). Despite this single mention, the way Cherwien puts her thoughts together suggests that He may not be the deity these lines address. For example, in stanza 1, she calls on us to "love the living round that brought us birth," i.e. the "loving earth." The word "loving" is also attributed to the stars and the "suspirant ... green" (that word may be new to most people who sing this hymn); prompting the question, are these (the earth, the stars, the green) those to whom stanza 3 bids us "give honor and give gratitude"? The hymn isn't over yet. There's stuff about the noisy things of nature in st. 4 (waves, fire, wind, etc.). St. 5 bids us sit, "as at sages' feet," before the wise and loving ones: for "the animals will teach." Stanza 6 repeats stanza 1, putting more emphasis on Mother Earth. If stanza 2 hadn't given fleeting lip-service to God, one might take away the strong impression that this is a hymn of a pagan, animistic religion rather than of our God and Christ. It's such a close run thing that I'm giving it all 5 tacks.
1072 is "Abba, Abba, hear us" by Andrew Donaldson (b. 1951), set to the Korean traditional tune ARIRANG, which I believe I once sang, with its original Korean lyrics, in a college choir. Packing all these English lyrics into it makes it sound too busy, as it were overloaded, I think. The lyrics seem to be a paraphrase of Romans 8:19 ff., depicting the groaning of creation, as if in labor pains, awaiting the revealing of the sons of God. I think it's a nice little piece, but I don't think it suits its tune; and also, the accompaniment is omitted. So, 1-1/2 tacks.
It has become a theme of sorts, as I go through this book section by section: I start out thinking, "I might make it to the end of the book this time," only to reach a point well before the end of the section where my spirit begins to cry within me, "O Lord, how long?" So, there were a couple decent hymns in this section, and a few on which, if I had a sheaf of anathemas, I would put some down. Fortunately, such is not my office. I can only report my impressions, and my impression from this group of hymns has the phrase "hoo, boy" in it. I have, however, dealt several tacks: 26 of them in 10 hymns, bringing our running total to 353 tacks in 172 hymns. That's a tackiness ratio of 205 percent. Let that sink in, till next time.
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