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I Sing the Mighty Pow’r of God

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For the Beauty of the Earth

For the Beauty of the Earth

Folliott S. Pierpoint (1835-1917)

Commonly sung to: Dix

by: Conrad Kocher, 1838

Here is a YouTube recording:  http://youtu.be/JdLh3u-Qt50

1 For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the Love which from our birth
Over and around us lies:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our Sacrifice of Praise.

2 For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our Sacrifice of Praise.

3 For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and brain’s delight,
For the mystic harmony
Sinking sense to sound and sight:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our Sacrifice of Praise.

4 For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above;
For all gentle thoughts and mild:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our Sacrifice of Praise.

5 For each perfect Gift of Thine
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and Divine,
Flowers of earth, and buds of Heaven:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

6 This our Sacrifice of Praise.
For Thy Bride that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
This Pure Sacrifice of Love:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our Sacrifice of Praise.

7 For Thy Martyrs’ crown of light,
For Thy Prophets’ eagle eye,
For Thy bold Confessors’ might,
For the lips of Infancy:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our Sacrifice of Praise.

8 For Thy Virgins’ robes of snow,
For Thy Maiden Mother mild,
For Thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesu, Victim undefiled,
Offer we at Thine own Shrine
Thyself, sweet Sacrament Divine.

 

 

 

 Elliot Pierpoint was an ardent Tractarian, also known as the High Church movement within the Anglican Church of England. This movement has deep historical roots dating back to the Tudor’s in England. As one of the most distant countries geographically which was ostensibly Roman Catholic, there was a history of a difficult relationship between local political and religious leadership and the Papal powers in Rome. While the Reformation certainly took hold in England, especially the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions, the break from Rome was much more nuanced than found throughout the rest of Europe. There remained, through much of the Church of England, a strong “High Church” practice and ethos which eventually manifested itself in the Tractarian movement. This movement started as an attempt to establish the Anglican Church as an apostolic church on par with the Orthodox and Roman branches. Ultimately, manly of its practitioners joined and assumed leadership roles in the Roman Church.

For the Beauty of the Earth is used by many different denominations, each one selecting various verses to fit within their traditions. This hymn was originally meant as a Eucharistic hymn, many hymn books change the refrain from “sacrificial praise” to “grateful praise” which would make the text appropriate for use in other parts of the worship service.

Pierpoint used nature as a starting point of a lot of his poetic writing. The first three stanzas reflect our sensuous (relating to our senses) appreciation of the creation; from the earth and sky, day and night, and mystic harmony of all creation. The rest of the stanzas address mankind’s experience of the relational. Starting with our immediate relationships of brother, sister, parent, child to those of friends alive and dead, all of these are included within the sacrifice which is our life. The next two stanzas deal with the divine sacrifice of love, which is seen in creation and the sacrifice of grace. The final two stanzas move from the human response of this divine sacrifice to a summary of the Gospel story of Virgin birth to the Divine Sacrament (crucifixion and resurrection).




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Crown Him with Many Crowns

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The Prelude

Exodus 3:1 – 6

3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

As we come together to this holy place, to this Holy Communion we need to be ever mindful of the gravity of what we are about to do. The Bible is full of very detail instruction on how God wanted to be worshiped. These instructions included everything from what to wear to the type and number of furnishings to be present within the temple. Jesus, even took to violence on one or two occasions to clear the temple of activities which were not part of God’s instructions for worship.

While we are two thousand years removed from Jewish temple worship and Christian worship has certainly gone through many forms and transformations during these two millennium in its form and content, the call for a humble and contrite heart has not.

From Micah 6:5-8

6 With what shall I come before the Lord     and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,     with calves a year old? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,     with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,     the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.     And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy     and to walk humbly[a] with your God.

 

The Prelude is an opportunity to prepare one’s heart for our worship together. It provides a few moments to contemplate the Scripture readings and liturgy for the day. You are invited to sit in quiet contemplation and prayer to prepare your hearts for joyful worship. Please respect your neighbor during this time. The prelude usually starts about 10 minutes before the service and will now be proceeded with a scripture reading and commentary relevant to either the music being played or today’s lectionary.

 


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Some of the Effects of Deep Cycling on our Pianos

What happens to your piano after the deep cycling of temperature and humidity we have been experiencing? This winter (as if I have to remind you) was exceptional in the unremitting cold which lasted 30 – 45 days longer than normal. Time will tell if this summer will match the winter in its extremity. But with one leg of the deep cycle completed, I think it is important to take a moment and consider what this winter did to our pianos.

The wood and felt in our pianos has lost much of its moisture; here is how some of the wood and felt components have reacted to these dryer conditions.

Keys

While wood may shrink as it dries, counter intuitively, the many holes found in the keys may also shrink causing key bushings and key pins to bind. Also the keys may deform and begin to rub on their neighbors. As the wood dries, the bond between your key tops and key sticks may break. It is not unusual for key tops to begin to lift, making clicking noises when played, or even just come right off. As your keys change dimensions, your piano’s action regulation can become very erratic; your keys may no longer be level and your hammer line (properly known as the blow) can become quite uneven.

Felt and Glue in Hammers & Center pin bushings

As your hammers dry out, you may find the tone quality becoming more “tinny” and thin sounding. The hammers will lose some of their resiliency. A less resilient hammer will bounce off the strings instead of “pushing” off, thereby leaving the upper partials more active, giving a tinny sound. It is also not unusual for the glue joint between the hammer and the shank to fail as the wood in both the hammer and the shank shrinks.

The felt in your center pin bushings will wear much faster as it dries. The result can be the center pins becoming too loose and even beginning to walk out so you can see them on the sides of the hammer shanks. If the pins walk far enough they can completely disengage with one side of the hammer shank, and then your hammers will really wobble around, enough to actually hit neighboring strings.

Soundboard

The most obvious effect from the drying of your piano occurs in the soundboard. As it dries out, its crown will begin to collapse. With less upward pressure on the strings, the piano will not only go “out of tune” but the pitch will begin to drop precipitously. The first to go is the low tenor, in the area just above the bass/tenor break. If you play an octave such as A1 and A2 (the second and third A’s from the bottom) on a larger piano (or any other octave which crosses the break) and it sounds out of tune, the odds are very strong that it is the upper note which has moved, not the lower.

By the time the pitch drop extends a little past A4, (the A about middle-C) the entire treble will begin to go out of tune, sometimes in a very chaotic manner.

As the soundboard continues to dry, cracks, which were invisible in the summer, will begin to open up. The glue joints between the ribs and panel may also fail. In the most extreme cases the soundboard may actually come unglued from the rim.

Pinblock

The most damaging change occurs in the pinblock which is located under the harp. All summer the pinblock was been full of moisture and swollen; crushing the wood fibers against the steel tuning pins. Now, after the deep drying cycle, the pinblock has given up much of its moisture content and the tuning pins and the screws can become quite loose. If an actual crack develops in the pinblock, the piano will become un-tunable and will need a new pinblock.

This is just a short summary of what our pianos experienced after the extreme cycles we have recently gone through. Feel free to give me a call or drop me a note to discuss any unusual things going on with your piano.



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