Not only did I get to hear my lovely wife sing "He shall feed His flock" and "Come unto Me" from Handel's Messiah, but the Choir sang my favorite setting of Psalm 23 - Brother James Air; AND Diane played "Sheep May Safely Graze" by Bach. As if the music were not enough, our Lord coopted little Mollie Hayes for His kingdom via Holy Baptism at the early service, I got to preach my all time favorite sermon on the Shepherd and the Wolf, and our Lord, our Shepherd, ever faithful, fed us with the body and blood that went into death and came out victorious and alive forevermore as the promise of our resurrection and the gift of forgiveness and life. Good Shepherd Sunday has GOT to be one of my all time favorite Sundays of the entire year![Oh, and if you're wondering why you didn't celebrate Good Shepherd this Sunday, that likely means your parish uses the Three Year Lectionary, and Good Shepherd will be your joy NEXT week.]
2 comments:
Pr. Weedon,
I'm a little surprised that you like the Brother James' Air setting of Psalm 23. James Leith Macbeth Baine was a mystic involved in the Theosophy movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century along with H.P. Blavotsky and Alistair Crowely. In other words, a real weirdo.
When our choir sang this, the arrangement concluded with these words:
Goodness and mercy all my days will surely follow me
And in my Father's heart alway my dwelling place shall be
And in my heart forever more, Thy dwelling place shall be.
I protested to the choir director. The correct words from the Psalms Written in Metre Edinburgh 1650 go like this:
Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me:
And in God's house for evermore my dwelling-place shall be.
And in God's house for evermore my dwelling-place shall be.
Maybe your congregation used the correct version, I don't know. Brother James' Air was something that got my goat a while back, and I feel compelled to comment.
After saying all this, I do agree that it is a pleasant tune.
Eric,
They did sing those less than fortuitous words at the end; I MUCH prefer the original (which is the way I learned the piece myself). I'll have to ask them to "repair" that for the next time the piece is offered.
Pax!
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