Many of the global songs the youth presented in worship were shared at a retreat last April with ELCA Glocal musicians. There was also a Youth Collective Summit for high school teens held earlier this month at Camp Adams. Creator has been meeting with the youth of other Ecumenical partners (Presbyterian, UCC, Methodist, etc.) in SE Portland who also participated in this summit. Exploring each song has deepened this worship's holy moments.
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| Youth &Young Adults Leading Worship |
John Bell, the song's composer wrote it as both a protest against the first Gulf War and against the seeming inability of either commercial or church music to offer texts of protest or lament,. He also observed it was a song about questioning judgement.
The Offertory, Reamo Leboga, (To God our Thanks We Give) is an extraordinary hymn of thanksgiving from Botswana and the youth led the congregation in a heartfelt arrangement. We sang only the To God our thanks we give but other verses to this hymn express sincere, complete offering and set a theme of expressing our willingness to serve God:
We give our hands to you because you reach for us.
We give our eyes to you because you looked for us.
We give our feet to you because you walk with us.
We give our breath to you because you breathed in us.
We give our hearts to you because you first loved us.
We give our gifts to you because you give to us.
The Communion music was Kyrie (Feuilles-O), Tu Fidelidad and a Soon and Very Soon that was not the standard Andrea Crouch composition that Creator sings but instead a composition by Aisea Taimani.
I was familiar with Feuilles-O from the touching Simon and Garfunkel version. Feuilles (or Fèy,) in english translates to leaves. Simon and Garfunkel sing the original Haitian Creole lyrics, which are different than the ones arranged by Andrew Donaldson that we sang in worship today:
Fèy, o! Sove lavi mwen. Nan mizè mwen ye, o!
Fèy, o! Sove lavi mwen. Nan mizè mwen ye, o!
Pitit mwen malad, mwen kouri kay gangan Similo
Pitit mwen malad, mwen kouri kay gangan. Si li bon gangan
Sove lavi mwen, nan mizè mwen ye, o!
English translation:
Oh leaves, save my life. I'm in misery. Oh!
Oh leaves, save my life. I'm in misery. Oh!
Little me is sick. I run to the house of Similo (the spiritual healer)
Little me is sick. I run to the house of the spiritual healer. If he's a good one
He'll save my life. I'm in misery. Oh!
From the time I first heard the original, the "feuilles" leaves underlined a request for help and the desire to commit to serve at the feet of every fragile, broken life in the world. Hard to express how moving this association was, overlaid over the words Kyrie eleison. The change in lyrics produces an extraordinary effect when both versions are resonating within you simultaneously.
The lyrics and music to Tu Fidelidad (translation Your Fidelity) provide a simple way to proclaim in awe God's faithfulness and for most of the singers and others who have covered the song it is obvious they sing these words from their hearts.
The verses in Soon and Very Soon, in turn, state freedom, justice, peace, love are all coming soon and very soon. In spirit, this song shares a similar impatience as expressed in If the War Goes On. As the song anthropomorphizes freedom, justice, peace, love; the affirmation is mostly to "pretend that she is here right now" with the exception of love where the singer promises to love right now.
The service ended with the congregation singing with the youth a joyful and ardent Send Me, Jesus that echoed the same willingness to serve that was also captured in the extraordinary Isaiah 6:8 verse "Here am I. Send me!"
Thank you for these comments Gary, and especially taking time & effort toward understanding the impact and meaning of the internationally-influenced songs! I would have loved to have had time in worship or the bulletin to share some of the background of these songs, but will need to figure out how/when to work with worship planning on this part!
ReplyDeleteI don't have the book or the 'tu fidelidad' song sheet here to refer to, and I may not understand it well (my Spanish is minimal), but I've always thought of the song as a variety of ways of our affirming "Great is God's faithfulness". (Tu Fidelidad = Your Faithfulness)
Our Glocal Musician friend and mentor, Aisea Taimani, originally from Tonga wrote the words and music for "Soon and Very Soon", based on the hope of persecuted peoples he witnessed during a visit he made to a war-torn country in Africa (perhaps Sudan?) and likely influenced by his own experiencing of racism. The statement is that Freedom (also Justice, Peace, & Love) are coming soon, but we won't pretend that they are here right now. (Not a time to sit back and do nothing; we can't look away from injustice.)
You are right Debi, Tu Fidelidad simply affirms many ways of saying "Great is God's faithfulness". The lyrics I captured split the word 'bandito' *blessed* into 'ben ditto' which translates as *said*.
ReplyDeleteChanged meaning and I will correct the blog entry.