SONG THAT BLESSES EARTH
Hymn Texts, Carols, and Poems
By Thomas H. Troeger
Oxford University Press. 109 pages. £15.50
ISBN 978 0 193 405 493
One hymn illustrates how brilliant and how baffling is this North American scholar-poet from Yale: ‘Above the moon earth rises, a sunlit, mossy stone.’
Like most of his verse, it is biblically rooted, meticulously crafted and imaginatively developed. It could only have been written in our generation and many of our songs seem, by comparison, both clumsy and self-absorbed. It has begun to appear in UK hymn-books, but you have probably never sung it.
The clue is the word ‘hymn-books’; once we abandon books we are at the mercy of a pastor or music-group who may know a far narrower range of hymns and songs than a book would make visible and available to all.
Smallness
One surprise: in the author’s view, that early 1990s hymn is already out of date! This millennium no longer marvels at ‘earthrise’ captured on camera from the moon, but is more conscious than ever of our smallness in an unimaginably vast universe. So the equivalent hymn in this latest book is ‘How miniscule this planet / amidst the stars and night’; ironically, Troeger has arrived close to where Isaac Watts started.
Some further bafflement: as with the texts in this latest collection, that hymn speaks clearly of God and the Holy Spirit; Christ is not named, but in the book he is absolutely central. The word ‘Lord’ is still indispensable; most items are addressed to him. But never the name ‘Jesus’, and Dr Troeger cannot bring himself to call God his Father. Except when applied to Christ, no masculine pronouns are allowed.
As with Watts and Wesley, we may not need to tidy every doctrine before we sing. Here are some fine church-anniversary hymns, poignant and thoughtful carols, and tender poems for the author’s wife. If we never get to sing or read these either, preferring a Christmas of Victorian sentimentality or medieval nonsense, our grandchildren may wonder at our dullness. We might challenge parts of Troeger’s agenda, but should probably first wrestle with his questions. They certainly help us to appreciate why and how these mini-masterpieces were written.
