Poetry
Logos
by Mary Oliver
Why worry about the loaves and fishes? If you say the right words, the wine expands. If you say them with love and the felt ferocity of that love and the felt necessity of that love, the fish explode into many. Imagine him, speaking, and don’t worry about what is reality, or what is plain, or what is mysterious. If you were there, it was all those things. If you can imagine it, it is all those things. Eat, drink, be happy. Accept the miracle. Accept, too, each spoken word spoken with love.
Music
Amazing Grace
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I am found Was blind, but now I see. ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear And grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed! Through many dangers, toils and snares, We have already come. ’Tis grace has brought us safe thus far And grace will lead us home. When we’ve been there ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun. We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’ve first begun. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I am found Was blind, but now I see.
History
“Amazing Grace” was written in 1772 by John Newton, a man who underwent an incredible spiritual journey from sinner to respected priest.
John was only seven years old when his staunchly religious Puritan mother died. When he was eleven, his father, a sea captain, took him aboard his ship, which resulted in John spending most of his formative years with unruly, drunken sailors. He later described his younger self with these words, “How industrious is Satan served. I was formerly one of his active undertemptors and had my influence been equal to my wishes, I would have carried all the human race with me. A common drunkard or profligate is a petty sinner to what I was.”
He was later conscripted into the British navy, and when he tried to desert, he was caught and whipped eight dozen times. While he was serving on another ship, he got along so poorly with the crew that they left him on the coast of West Africa, where he was enslaved. He was later rescued at the request of his father.
While on his way home, however, his ship was caught in a terrible storm, and John, fearing for his life, prayed to God to save them. After his prayer, some of the ship’s cargo shifted in exactly the right way to plug a hole in the hull, allowing them to safely reach the shore. This experience started him on his journey toward Christianity, though his conversion didn’t happen all at once.
“I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterward,” he later wrote.
He continued as a sailor for some time until suffering a stroke in 1754. Ten years later, he became an Anglican priest and began writing his own hymns to accompany his services. He wrote 280 hymns, including “Amazing Grace,” which he penned for the New Year’s Day service of 1773. It is unclear if the accompanying music was written at the same time or if the lyrics were simply chanted.
The song was first printed in Olney Hymns in 1779, and though it didn’t find an audience in England for some time, its popularity grew dramatically in the United States. It was a favorite of Methodist and Baptist preachers during the nineteenth century’s Second Great Awakening in the United States. While the tune we sing today—called New Britain—was first used by William Walker in 1835, the lyrics have been set to more than twenty different tunes over the years.
In 1788, John published a now well-known pamphlet that shed light on the horrible conditions aboard the ships that were used to enslave those who were violently stolen from Africa: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” The English government outlawed slavery in Great Britain in 1807, the year of John’s death.
Today, “Amazing Grace” has become emblematic of African American faith and was also popularized during the civil rights movement because of its liberatory symbolism. It is one of the most popular hymns in the English-speaking world. It has been featured on more than 11,000 albums, including some from legendary artists Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Mahalia Jackson, and Johnny Cash.
by Michael D. Young, from Sacred Days, Sacred Songs
Activity Idea
Go on a nature walk and collect symbols of Jesus—his life and his teachings.
Scripture
“…but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.” —Mark 12:44; see also Luke 21:4
On Tuesday of Holy Week, we remember Jesus’ final teachings in the temple. What themes and lessons stand out to you as you ponder teachings like “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” the commandment to love God and neighbor, the example of the widow giving everything she has (in Greek, “her whole life”), and the final parables of Jesus?