Favorite Hymns

The past few days I have had Jerusalem stuck in my head, thanks to a reference in John Irving's Until I Find You. (My ensuing constant playing of the Welsh military choir is no doubt endearing me to my neighbors.)

That got me started thinking about my favorite hymns from Old North. When I was a little girl, the hymns were always my favorite part of the service, although I did enjoy the sermons as I got older. I loved the old, rich language: "Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down"; I loved the way the lines rhymed. Rhymes give such a sense of structure, of audible punctuation.

The springtime sun streaming through those big white-painted windows seemed to illustrate the feeling of "Morning Has Broken." It helps to grow up in a New England town, where spring feels like the world's most long-awaited miracle every year.

I miss hymns now. I attend a Catholic church now, when I go. Is it well-known that Catholic churches have the worst music in the world? In any case, mine does. The youth mass is particularly horrific. What with the guitar-strumming and the hand-holding one has a certain feeling that one has stumbled into a markedly earnest cult. Or "Godspell."

Anyway, I don't miss the polite politics of the UCC structure. But I sure do miss the hymns.