Let's Be Honest: Not All Mornings Are Good

During January 2003 a new door opened for me and my music. Now a church musician using the web site www.churchmusicnow.com can review a piece of music on his or her computer, purchase the music on line, download it, and print it on the church office printer. Much of my music that has not been published so far will be residing on this brilliant new web site.

Perhaps the piece I am most proud at this moment is a piece called "New Every Morning," written for choir, piano, and soprano soloist. It is based on the Psalm that reads in part, "The faithfulness of God never ceases; God's mercies never come to end; they are new every morning" (Medema's somewhat loose transliteration).

After quoting this text, I reflect on different kinds of mornings. I talk about the magnificent mornings when we lay in bed and listen to the birds sing and all the world seems well. Spring is in the air, spring is in our step, life is happy, we feel productive, purposeful, and alive.

Then I talk about the kind of mornings that we don't like to talk about in church. I talk about what it is like to live in constant depression, when we don't want to wake up, when we want to stay in bed all day and hide from the cruel, hateful world. I talk about mornings of grieving when we can't seem to find our way out of the tears. It is on those mornings that God's mercy seems incredibly far away. It is on those mornings that we sometimes are even unable to pray. It is on those mornings that God seems like a presence that cares not at all about our agony, our anger, our grief, and our tears.

Then I talk about the kind of morning when we wake up and realize that the grief and anguish so recently felt has somehow taken a back seat to the desire to get up, eat food, take a walk, see the world, and feel the sun on one's face. Throughout these reflections on mornings you hear the Psalm text sung several times. In one case it is sung with bitter irony, and in another it is sung with fragile expectation. In another case it is sung with full delight.

Most of the music I hear in the churches I attend wants to be happy, triumphant, joyful, and glorious. About as close as we ever get to longing and yearning is a piece like "As the dear panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, Oh God." Nobody in church is doing music about grieving, about anguish, about hopelessness, and I am convinced that these things must be named. We must talk about these things and sing about these things because people in churches feel these things. They live with these realities.

For all these reasons I am excited that "New Every Morning" might perhaps find its way to the choir repertoire of some churches. If you would like to see music like this in the church program, mention this piece to the powers that be. "The Steadfast love of God never ceases. God's mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is God's faithfulness to me. Therefore I will trust in God."