Music Info 4-26

Music this morning features our Artist in Residence, Dr. Christie Beard (flute), as well as Julia Olynyk (vocals) and Alex Ritter (piano), plus Countryside Jazz (Matt Wallace on sax, Rick Avard on piano, Steve Gomez on bass, and Carlos Figueroa on drums).

This is My Creator’s World

It’s not often that a hymn written over 100 years ago is more relevant to our world today than it was at its conception. This is My Father’s World was inspired by hymnist Maltbie Babcock’s morning walks which he described as “going to see my Father’s world.” Though it has fallen out of favor to some extent due to its gendered references to God, it was ahead of its time in many other ways. 

The majority of American hymnody contains themes of escapism – the notion that we should look forward to leaving this mess on earth to go home to heaven – which encourages “passive acceptance of the unacceptable present.” Fortunately, these sorts of hymns only make up a small portion of our hymnal, but if you take a look at a Southern Baptist hymnal, you will find page after page of them.  

This is My Father’s World strikes a substantially different tone, emphasizing that the earth is our home and will always be, and that we will not leave earth for heaven, but heaven and earth will be one. This creation theology – that God is unwilling to give up on creation – is particularly relevant to our time. 

The text also mentions “the music of the spheres,” an ancient Greek philosophy that movements of the planets and the stars are a perfect form of music, inaudible to human ears (scientists did eventually confirm that there was some truth to this – for example, a distinct sound associated with the Big Bang). This dovetails with another theory of the physics of sound – that every soundwave reverberates forever – another conception of creation’s harmony.  

This is my Creator’s world, and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Creator’s world: I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas his hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Creator’s world: the birds their carols raise;
the morning light, the flowers bright, declare their Maker’s praise.
Our God has made this world and shines in all that’s fair;
in the rustling grass I hear God pass, who speaks to me everywhere.

Our God has made this world: oh, let us ne’er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
God trusts us with this world, to keep it clean and fair.
All earth and trees, the skies and seas, God’s creatures everywhere. 

Feed My Lambs by Chuck Mahronic – Countryside Jazz

Flute Music: 

  • Storm by Herman Beeftink