And This Is Love (Ken Medema)

Here is one from the 1970's. Rick Powell was bringing the new electronic sounds of the Moog Synthesizer into the sanctuary with new songs as well as old hymns. Ken Medema was a fresh voice in Christian music, and a prolific songwriter. "And This Is Love" is one of my favorites from Ken Medema, and I love the arrangement that Rick Powell brings to it here.

   

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Stand By Me (Tennessee Ernie Ford)

Here is a spiritual sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford, originally broadcast during his weekly variety show which ran on television from 1956 to 1961. He closed almost every show with a hymn or a spiritual. "Stand By Me" was written by the Rev. Charles Albert Tinney, born in Maryland in 1851. His father was a slave and his mother was free. His mother died when he was a child and he was sent to live with his mother's family so he could remain free.

   

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Here Is Love Vast As the Ocean (Welsh)

"Here is Love Vast as the Ocean" is a Welsh Protestant hymn written around 1870. It became a prominent hymn in the Welsh Revival of 1904 which was a spiritual movement that swept across the entire country. To see the hymn text, music settings, and to read about its authors go to Hymnary.org. To find out more about the Welsh Revival here. To learn how the hymn became known as "the love song of the Welsh Revival, and for links to other renditions of the song, go here.

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"Stay With Us" (Egil Hovland)

"Stay With Us" by Egil Hovland, sung by the National Lutheran Choir, recorded live at the Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, Minnesota on Dec 9, 2010, David Cherwien, Music Director.

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The Lone Wild Bird

Perhaps the power of this relatively new hymn lies in its simplicity. “The Lone Wild Bird” offers minimal theological treatise while proclaiming the truth that lies behind all religious sentiment – that transcendent connection with the divine is within our grasp. Once someone experiences that moment of transcendence, he or she begins to use whatever theology he or she has inherited to attempt to describe it. The transcendent experience, however, is a basic gift to all of humanity, regardless of culture, orientation, or creed.

Written in 1925 by Henry McFadyen, the song has a folk/Appalachian feel about it (For a brief history of the song's origin and development, go here).

Here are two different renditions. The first is by the Honey Whiskey Trio and is sung outside near the trees where one might see that wild bird, and where one may often catch that sense of transcendence. The second is from a formal house of worship, where relationship with the divine is the central expression.

  

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