"How wonderful. . ."

 

1. My God, how wonderful Thou art,
2. Thy majesty how bright,
   How beautiful Thy mercy seat,
   In depths of burning light

The verse was scribbled down in a different era, when the language of piety was monumentally more lurid, belief itself more fanciful, almost cartoonish. The Christian life as sketched in this poem is epic, far beyond anything I ever saw as a kid, or ever saw, period. But those words are forever in my memory.

When we sang that old hymn yesterday, I couldn't help but wonder how long it had been since the work of Rev. Frederick Faber was sung aloud in our sanctuary. In the late 17th century, Faber was born a Calvinist of Huguenot background; but the appeal of Catholicism drew him in to become a Catholic priest, where he was, oddly enough, obsessed with Mother Mary. He was a poet and known as one, a friend of William Wordsworth. 

Faber's church jumping notwithstanding, he and his works as a hymn writer were favorites throughout my childhood. So hen, like yesterday, we sing those old hymns, my soul drops down the walls of our church and slips me back in a pew on the right-hand side of the sanctuary of Oostburg CRC, three pews from the front, where the Schaaps sat week after week. 

1. O how I fear Thee, Living God,
   With deepest, tend’rest fears,
   And worship Thee with trembling hope,
   And penitential tears.

   Suddenly, I'm gone. There we sit, my folks and I, our "tend'rest fears" relieved by "trembling hope." It's wonderful.

    Once, long ago, a teacher in the Christian School I attended created an assignment--lit, or history, or "Bible"--by telling us that a favorite hymn we all knew mentioned "penitential tears." Our assignment was to find the hymn and define the line. 

2. I have no idea what I might have written, but I will never forget the joy with which I started the assignment because I cheated, I asked Mom and Dad, who might well have gone to the piano and duet-ed the hymn right then and there, not because it would advance their son academically, but because they were like that: at the drop of a hat they'd scoot over to the piano. Mom would play and dad would place his hands on her shoulders. After a scramble of pages, out came "My God how wonderful thou art"- and those  "penitential tears." 

3. 1. Yet I may love Thee too, O Lord,
      Almighty as Thou art;
      For Thou hast stooped to ask of me
      The love of my poor heart.

4. That old hymn, yesterday, surrounded me with my childhood, even though the organist rapped out the music much quickly than it appears in the old purple Psalter I pulled out from the library behind me. The whole page is half-notes, save two chipper quarters on the third line, the alto line sweeping down quickly from a D to a B in a tiny slide that seems almost naughty in a text that otherwise drones religiously onward.

   No matter. I loved it. In a week, I'll be 77 years old--maybe I'm just prone to wistfulness; nostalgia is not a state of mind and heart I have to cultivate. Then again, maybe I'm a good bit more dreamy than I was earlier in life. 

5. "My God, How Wonderful Thou Art" has been with me ever since I was a child in home and school and church--the whole thing: all those upper-case letters on words we wouldn't think of capitalizing, all of it in that stodgy roll of the music, the hard to see image of God, not Jesus, stooping down for "my poor heart."

6. Anyway, to me at least, it was a thrill to see my parents again, to hear them sing, Mom on the soprano line, Dad lifting the tenor. Back then, my memory took a thousand pictures because I saw it and heard it, time and time again.

7. 1. No earthly father loves like Thee,

   No mother half so mild

   Bears and forbears as Thou hast done

   With me, Thy sinful child.

8. For the record, we heard a wonderful, pointed sermon on the importance of the life of Christ as a model of behavior. I walked up to the table with my walker out in front to taste the body and blood. We sang other songs too.

9. But I "had church" barely ten minutes into the service when the organist started in to an ancient hymn that, years ago, was probably sung heartfully often, a hymn that  threw me back some sixty years. 

10. When it was over, I was happy, once again, to have visited.