Modern versus ancient (ish) hymns
Feb. 1st, 2021 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yrieithyddI was listening to the Daily Service on BBC Sounds the other day and two of the pieces of music features were Immortal Invisible by Walter Chalmers Smith (5 December 1824 – 19 September 1908) and Indescribable from a 2004 album by Chris Tomlin (born May 4, 1972).*
It struck me that they would make an interesting comparison in old and modern hymnody.
Technically they are both hymns as they address God in the second person.
The idea of God being beyond us and impossible to see or describe, but using images from the natural world is common to both.
However, they differ grammatically. Immortal, invisible uses adjectives as vocatives in the first verse whereas in <>Indescribable they are the predicate of the verb to be. I find the former at less clumsy and weird. I notice sometimes in Duolingo exercises you end up having to translate things like "you are my uncle" and I find that slightly odd as surely the other person knows that already. And this is magnified for me when we are addressing God. Who are we to tell God what they are like? Using the vocative, calling on the immortal one feels different to me. We are acknowledging these things about God as we address God, but not telling them who they are. It is however, less common in normal speech.
In subsequent verses, the strings of adjectives are perhaps not vocatives, but incidental descriptions of the thou who rulest.
Then we go further and use images of clouds and mountains to focus on God's justice, goodness and love. In Indescribable the focus is on the natural phenomena as control by God. I struggle with that because I'm not sure I see God as telling every lightning bolt where it should go. (See the blog I haven't written yet on Process Theology!) Yes, God creates, but doesn't micromanage. And I prefer to focus on God as fount of Justice, mercy, goodness, love rather than micromanager of scientific processes. It seems odd to me that the more recent hymn is making more of God in this role given we can no explain lightning in ways that aren't God being angry. There are events in the scriptures which are attributed to God (destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, some of the theophanies to Moses and others) which looking with modern eyes seem to be about earthquakes and volcanoes and trying to make sense of these disasters/phenomena. I can't see them in the same way with what we know about geology and plate techtonics etc now. But I still don't want to abandon God, or see it as having to choose between God and science.
Both hymns have a humility before God - "we wither and perish ..., but naught changeth thee" and "we humbly proclaim, you are amazing God".
I notice though that both hymns are written in the first person plural (we) not the singular (I). I was ready to assume the modern one would be I, but it isn't.
Musically, I prefer a straight hymn tune than complicated choruses and bridges that get repeated in an unpredictable order. As an under 7 I liked hymns with choruses because I could pick up the chorus even if I couldn't read fast enough to keep up with the verses. But I'm not sure bridges would have helped.
I am reminded of the cartoon about the different ways older hymns address God and newer ones do.
*An American and not a relation of Bishop Graham Tomlin as I'd vaguely assumed.
It struck me that they would make an interesting comparison in old and modern hymnody.
Technically they are both hymns as they address God in the second person.
The idea of God being beyond us and impossible to see or describe, but using images from the natural world is common to both.
However, they differ grammatically. Immortal, invisible uses adjectives as vocatives in the first verse whereas in <>Indescribable they are the predicate of the verb to be. I find the former at less clumsy and weird. I notice sometimes in Duolingo exercises you end up having to translate things like "you are my uncle" and I find that slightly odd as surely the other person knows that already. And this is magnified for me when we are addressing God. Who are we to tell God what they are like? Using the vocative, calling on the immortal one feels different to me. We are acknowledging these things about God as we address God, but not telling them who they are. It is however, less common in normal speech.
In subsequent verses, the strings of adjectives are perhaps not vocatives, but incidental descriptions of the thou who rulest.
Then we go further and use images of clouds and mountains to focus on God's justice, goodness and love. In Indescribable the focus is on the natural phenomena as control by God. I struggle with that because I'm not sure I see God as telling every lightning bolt where it should go. (See the blog I haven't written yet on Process Theology!) Yes, God creates, but doesn't micromanage. And I prefer to focus on God as fount of Justice, mercy, goodness, love rather than micromanager of scientific processes. It seems odd to me that the more recent hymn is making more of God in this role given we can no explain lightning in ways that aren't God being angry. There are events in the scriptures which are attributed to God (destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, some of the theophanies to Moses and others) which looking with modern eyes seem to be about earthquakes and volcanoes and trying to make sense of these disasters/phenomena. I can't see them in the same way with what we know about geology and plate techtonics etc now. But I still don't want to abandon God, or see it as having to choose between God and science.
Both hymns have a humility before God - "we wither and perish ..., but naught changeth thee" and "we humbly proclaim, you are amazing God".
I notice though that both hymns are written in the first person plural (we) not the singular (I). I was ready to assume the modern one would be I, but it isn't.
Musically, I prefer a straight hymn tune than complicated choruses and bridges that get repeated in an unpredictable order. As an under 7 I liked hymns with choruses because I could pick up the chorus even if I couldn't read fast enough to keep up with the verses. But I'm not sure bridges would have helped.
I am reminded of the cartoon about the different ways older hymns address God and newer ones do.
*An American and not a relation of Bishop Graham Tomlin as I'd vaguely assumed.
