Yesterday, how pleased and blessed was I......
In one corrdor at University I met three friends coming the other way, one after another, all hurrying, all going to the same meeting,all tight for time, and all stopped to say hello.
The day before left my glasses on someone else's table and went to retrieve them, and had a surprise catch up with someone I didn't expect to see whose company is always a benediction on the day.
In class we were thinking about monastic spirituality, and about the dispoitions of simplicity, stability, listening and hospitality - and we wondered what Baptist church meetings might be like if these were the four dispositions that governed words, thought and behaviour?
On the way home near Auchterarder, a lapwing doing "summersaults" in early spring. Few birds can do aerial acrobatics with such consummate ease and the sunlight catching the black, white and green shimmer of the plumage...praise in motion.
At the Mearns around Laurencekirk, a sunset in my rearview mirror that was so distractingly beautiful I stopped at the lay-by and watched. The brilliant orange filtering through early evening haze, the hill line awash with warm Turneresque tones, and the blades of the windfarm no longer geometric gray but a golden mobile contradicting the fading of daylight.
All of which lifted the heart and reminded me of this hymn I haven't sung for a hundred years - but would like to!
1. How pleased and blessed was I,
To hear the people cry,
“Come let us seek our God today!”
Yes with a cheerful zeal,
We'll haste to Zion's hill,
And there our vows and honors pay.
2. Zion, thrice happy place,
Adorned with wondrous grace,
And walls of strength embrace thee round!
In thee our tribes appear,
To pray, and praise, and hear
The sacred gospel's joyful sound.
3. There David's greater Son
Has fixed his royal throne;
He sits for grace and judgement there:
He bids the saint be glad,
He makes the sinner sad,
And humble souls rejoice with fear.
4. May peace attend thy gate,
And joy within thee wait,
To bless the soul of ev'ry guest:
The man that seeks thy peace,
And wishes thine increase,
A thousand blessings on him rest!
5. My tongue repeats her vows,
“Peace to this sacred house!
For here my friends and kindred dwell:”
And since my glorious God
Makes thee his blest abode,
My soul shall ever love thee well.
I guess the verses are too packed with University Challenge busting allusions to the Bible, and there are too many metaphors that are familiar only to those who once sang hymns like these, and the tune doesn't need all the accoutrements of the now essential praise team, for it to be popular, or even accessible. But that first line, "How pleased and blest was I", the first three lines of verse 4, and the lovely couplet, "Peace to this sacred house! For here my friends and kindred dwell." These are the sentiments of those soaked in Psalm 122, whose prayers are a passionate plagiarism of the psalm-prayers of Israel, and for whom attentiveness to the world around is itself alertness for the glimpses and whispers of the Creator Redeemer.
One of the unexpected joys of lay preaching is that when I go to little village chapels, with tiny [mostly elderly] congregations, they LOVE singing these precious old hymns, and so Watts, Wesley and Bonar get plenty of 'airtime'.
Lenten blessings !!
Posted by: angalmond | March 13, 2014 at 08:26 AM
A beautiful post and a wonderful hymn... sung at least once a year where I am... so the Universitry Challenge reference is a little bit troubling!!
Posted by: Catriona | March 13, 2014 at 11:21 AM