Wednesday 15 January 2020

A Hymn for All, and for All Occasions!


A few weeks ago I attended the funeral of a member of our church who, with her husband, had moved to our town from Cardiff a few years ago; the funeral was thus a meeting of cultures as well as a celebration of her life.  The final piece of music was a recording of Cerys Matthews singing Calon Lân.  Inevitably, it seemed, some in the congregation joined in with the chorus and I have since tried to discover why it’s such an emotive song.

So deeply is it embedded within the Welsh culture that it could easily be believed that it’s far older than is actually the case.  The words were written in 1891, allegedly on a cigarette packet, by a poet known for excessive drinking, who would sit in the King’s Head pub in his home town of Treboeth and exchange verses for ale (‘poems for pints’).

Daniel James was born on 23 January 1848, one of five children; he became known as the ‘bad boy’ of Mynyddbach Chapel in Swansea.  He worked at Morriston Dyffryn steelworks, and later at a tinplate works.  When that closed, he moved to the Cynon Valley.  Here he was employed at a succession of three coal mines until, through ill health, he left the mines at the age of 68 and returned to live with his daughter in Morriston and died on 16 March 1920.  In later life he used the bardic name ‘Gwyrosydd’ (Man of the Moors), which appears on his tombstone in the Mynyddbach Chapel graveyard.

The tune was written on James’s invitation by a younger man, John Hughes.  He was born in 1872 at Pen y Bryn, Pembrokeshire and had already written ‘Cwm Rhondda’ for William Williams’ great hymn ‘Guide me O thou great Redeemer’.  The Irish-American writer Sean Curnyn claims that the combination of James’s syllables and Hughes’s notes results in something very profound and able to affect the emotions with absolutely no idea of what the words mean.  Little wonder, then, that it is sung in churches and chapels, at eisteddfodau, rugby and football matches and in stadiums and pubs across the country wherever Welshmen – and women – gather.

So much for the tune.  What about the words?  What is it about the words of one of the most diversely sung songs in the world - although rarely, if ever, sung in English - that strikes directly to the hearts of Welshmen everywhere?  It's not the land itself; that has its own song, 'Land of My Fathers'.  And it's not the brave feats of Welsh heroes of the past like Owain Glyndŵr.  Here’s a link to Katherine Jenkins’ recording, useful because it shows an English translation as the Welsh words are being sung.  What, then, do those words have to say to us today?

In December my regular Bible readings featured Peter’s second letter and I found a number of thoughts there that echoed the singular and fundamental message of Calon Lân (A Pure Heart).  The letter was written when Peter realised that he was close to death (1:13-15), and it has thus been described as his ‘last will & testament’.  Peter exhorted the church to accept the teaching of the Prophets (among which he probably included the early Christian writers such as St Paul (3:15-16)) and to reject attempts by false teachers to undermine the belief that Jesus would return.

Modern Christians tend to understand and interpret the Bible in ways that are determined by  their own traditions and persuasions but we can find common ground in understanding that, through it, God speaks to each of us in the context of our own experience and location.  Whatever that context might be, it will include a variety of ‘false teachings’ that we must discern and resist.

The essential need, Peter says, is for spiritual maturity, recognising that, through our knowledge of Him, God has given us everything we need for a godly life (1:3).  Peter gives us a list of key qualities that we should add to a basic faith: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverence, godliness, mutual affection and love.  John Wesley referred to 'means of grace', and expounded (simplified?) the list as ‘engagement with the Bible, prayer, fellowship, spending time in silence and doing acts of mercy and kindness'.

As he teaches about the danger to Christians of false teachings, Peter expresses his concern for the purity of the church.  Pure is the word most translators have chosen for the Welsh (g)lân.  It’s a word for which it’s difficult to find an exact English equivalent; other words offered by Google’s translator inlcude ‘clean, complete, utter, holy, spotless, dear and fair’.

The message purveyed by these false teachers comes in modern ways to modern Christians, but is essentially the same as ever.  It is a message of permissiveness, the offer of present pleasure, material possessions and the complete denial of the existence of sin.  Peter describes the futility of this permissive freedom as a spring that is found to be dry (2:17).  In his first two lines, Daniel James writes, ’Nid wy’n gofyn bywyd moethus, Awr y byd na’i berlau mân’ (‘I don’t ask for a luxurious life, the world’s gold or its fine pearls’) and in the second verse he acknowledges that, ‘Pe dymunwn olud bydol, Chwim adenydd iddo sydd’ (‘If I wished for worldly treasures, on swift wings they fly away.’)

It has been suggested that Calon Lân is neither a hymn nor a spiritual song; why then should it have such a strong emotional appeal?  The third verse is a complete and constant prayer for the spiritual maturity that Peter encourages in his letter, ‘Hwyr a bore fy nymuniad Gwyd i’r nef ar adain cân Ar i Dduw, er mwyn fy Ngheidwad, Roddi i mi galon lân.’ (‘Evening and morning, my wish, rising to heaven on the wing of song, is for God, for the sake of my Saviour, to give me a pure heart.’) for, as the chorus repeats, 'Dim ond calon lân all ganu, Canu'r dydd a chanu'r nos.' ('None but a pure heart can sing, sing in the day, sing in the night.')

What songs bring you that ‘back-of-the-neck’ tingle of emotion?

Sources:
            Curnyn, Sean: The Cinch Review, 23.5.2013
            Felinfach.com
            Higgs, Gareth: comments on 2 Peter (Scripture Union: Word Live, December 2019)
            Sotejeff-Wilson, Kate: Found in Translation, 6.7.2016
            Walesonline.co.uk, 11.4.2019

Wednesday 1 January 2020

Singing a New Song

I have the privilege of singing in a small choral group in my church.  From time to time we're confronted by a fresh piece of music that looks - to be frank - quite baffling.  There are notes everywhere; parts splitting, changes of key, it's as if a spider has crawled all over the page.  How do we turn this confused 'mess' into beautiful music?

Fortunately, we have a skilled and patient leader, under whose guidance we're slowly led to see our own part separately from the whole.  Gradually, we become more familiar with it and then learn to blend our notes with the others until, just at the crucial point, it all comes together and a wonderful offering of praise is presented, to the welcome admiration of those listening, as well as to the glory of our Living Lord.  It's a far cry from the puzzled apprehension with which we first greeted the sheet music.

Life itself is like that sometimes.  Indeed, it has been thus since the beginning of time.  Look at the ancient Israelites whom Moses led out of Egypt to the Promised Land.  When they crossed the Red Sea, they hadn't a clue where they were going; they simply knew that living under the Egyptian yoke couldn't carry on.  Once they were out in the desert, it was a different story; they began to experience difficulties, and grumbled often to Moses, comparing the food they now had to the comparative luxuries they had had in Egypt.

When they finally arrived and sent spies to explore the land, they still couldn't accept the story that Joshua and Caleb brought back of a land flowing with milk and honey (Numbers 13:27).  All they saw was the potential difficulty of overcoming the present occupants, who were rumoured to be giants.  They threatened to choose an alternative leader and make their way back to Egypt (Numbers 14:4).

Even in Jesus' day, attitudes had changed but little.  One day, he asked his disciples who they thought he was.  Peter - always the bold and outspoken one - said, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16).  Jesus then began to explain to them what this would mean, how he would suffer, be killed, and be raised to life on the third day.  Peter took Him aside and told Him He'd got it all wrong, that this couldn't happen to Him, only to  receive the severest of all rebukes, to be told that he was the Devil incarnate (Matt. 16:23).

Peter couldn't see the bigger picture.  He hadn't grasped what the Messiah had actually come to earth to do: to save all of mankind from its sinfulness.  He saw the Messiah only as one who would deliver the Jews from the grip of their Roman oppressors.

What about us: what's the bigger picture around our lives?  Where do we fit into it?  These are questions to which we rarely see the answers completely.  The results of last month's General Election brought shocks to many.  Some will undoubtedly question, 'how did this happen, what went wrong, how can we do better?'  Some will be fearful for their future in one of a dozen different ways.

However, if we are constant in prayer and persistent in seeking God's will for us, it's possible to view differently what may seem to those people to be a bad situation.  There may be a glimmer of light in the darkness.  The blessing is when we recognise that glimpse for what it is, and have the courage and imagination to seek God's strength to take it further.  We can only sing that new song when we follow the right notes.