In this post, I will be looking at hymns. Hymns
are important to a lot of Christians, and even for some liberal
Quakers, though they do not feature as a regular part of our worship.
Devotional music is important to many people of all sorts of
different faiths, bringing some beauty and profundity to the act that
the words alone somehow fails to convey. I think a lot of Christian
hymns are musically uninspired, personally, and the lyrics in many
seem awkward, even taking Christian belief as a given. Some, however,
I can see that beauty in, even if I can't sing them wholeheartedly
myself due to the words not having that significance for me.
There are some hymns, however, that speak to me
beyond the surface of their words, and in this post, I'll be looking
at one of them. Despite it's absolutely Christ-based words, it speaks
to me with more than just its music; my failure to identify with the
literal meaning of its words doesn't stop it from somehow resonating.
I'm going to try and explore why.
To start with, the music itself doesn't hurt. It
is sprightly and joyous, and stirring, features of the melody and
typical arrangements that are independent of the words themselves.
I'm a person who can feel intense emotional reactions to music, and
while this piece doesn't provoke the strongest reaction, it does stir
me. It's also eminently suitable for the context in which I was
introduced to it – participatory music in primary school, where so
many of us will have first come across it.
That emotional response to the music is not the
whole story, however. It is helpful, perhaps even necessary for my
overall response, but it is not my any means sufficient. I feel
stirred by the music of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, but the
piece overall does not speak to me. There are numerous traditional
Christmas carols and hymns that are lovely pieces of music, but few
whose words resonate with my spiritually.
These words, though… they're something. Sydney
Carter's Lord of the Dance has become so pervasive that many
assume it is a traditional hymn, yet the words and music date from
just 1963 (the music is based on an older Shaker melody, but is
different enough to be considered new for copyright purposes). It is
still in copyright, and as such I shan't be reproducing the lyrics
here – but the copyright holder has the lyrics
reproduced on their website, along with some information about the
song. Such information includes the fact that it is the fifth most
requested copyright song for use in school assemblies in the UK,
while another piece by Carter is in seventh (When I Needed a
Neighbour) and yet another in
first (One More Step).
It is worth
noting, given my own faith, that Carter had a more than passing
connection to the Religious Society of Friends. While sources differ
somewhat in the precise nature of the relationship, whether they
identify Carter as a Quaker or simply a repeat participant in Quaker
worship and deeply in sympathy with Quaker values and spirituality,
it is clear that his relationship with the society went beyond a
shared pacifism and involvement in the Friends Ambulance Unit.
Indeed, his book Rock of Doubt
started life as a project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable
Trust. While funding from the JRCT is by no means restricted to
Quakers, to be working on a spiritual text funded by them suggests a
connection between the spirituality therein and Quaker teachings and
traditions. From the excerpts available online, the book appears to
be a challenge to traditional mainstream Christianity, but to come
from a place of deep faith combined with deep uncertainty, a pattern
far from unusual among liberal Friends.
The song,
however, tells of the life of Christ, select scenes from the
traditional, mainstream story. The pre-existence of Christ before his
incarnation, the fact (if not the details) of the incarnation, and
selected scenes of the life of the adult figure of Jesus, including
the passion and reincarnation. While I would never say that I see no
value in the stories of the life of Jesus, they have no general or
special importance to me. Some episodes are beautifully meaningful,
others fail to resonate with my experience of the Spirit, and there's
the odd part that is deeply troubling or just baffling to me. The way
these scenes are told in this song, though, speaks of something
deeper.
So we have
pre-incarnation, and the incarnation. We have the finding of the
apostles. We have miracles and condemnation. We have the crucifixion,
and the resurrection. All very meaningful events, variously
theologically significant (the existence of Christ pre-incarnation
being considered of great theological significance) and significant
as spiritual teachings, as in the nature of the reaction of different
people to the actions of Jesus. These are interesting to me, and I
appreciate their spiritual value, but no more than I do the writings
and teachings of many other faiths. What is it about their
presentation that manages to speak to me beyond the basic biblical
origin of the stories?
There is a joy to
this song, an uplifting beyond that which comes from the music
itself. A sense of rightness, not to the literal story it tells, but
to something deeper – deep enough that I cannot be quite sure what
it is. There is a deeper meaning to the story, as presented by
Carter, that is not so apparent in the story as presented in the New
Testament.
Introspection is
not an exact science. I can't be sure what it is that has this effect
on me, but I can make my best attempt. While I do not believe in the
resurrection of Christ, there is a deep truth to the description of
“the life that will never, never die”, and that will “live in
you if you live in me”. To me, then, it seems clear that these
phrases do not refer to a literal Christ figure, whatever his nature
might be, but to something else. The Christ of Lord of the
Dance is not simply a
presentation of the story held by many to be essentially literally
true, but a realisation of a more metaphorical Christ, one that is
familiar to me, and possibly many other Quakers, as an aspect of the
Light we feel within ourselves and among our Meetings. It is a
presentation of characteristics of that essential Spirit in Christian
terms, but emphasising it in ways that make sense to me in my
understanding of the Divine.
What are those
characteristics, though? Well, the most obvious is the joyous nature
of the music and the idea of the dance. It is an impulse to action,
as we know the Spirit to give us today, but an impulse to joyous
action, to an act of celebration. Then, it is eternal – it existed
before its recognition, an essential element of creation; for me, I'm
not sure that the Spirit isn't a product of life, but even that would
make it eternal compared to humanity. It also goes on past the death
of any individual, the Inner Light not being merely a facet of each
of our individual beings, but a communal, shared phenomenon whose
persistence does not depend on any individual, so that it will never
die. It is available to us all, if we seek for it and welcome it,
living in us if we live in it; for while the Light is present in us,
it takes our willingness to make it truly alive in us. Taken thus a
as a metaphor, the Christ of the song bears a strong relationship to
my experience of the Spirit, even if I do not identify the Spirit as
Christ. This is not a contradiction; I take no issue with my
Christian Friends identifying the Spirit as the Light of Christ, or
the Holy Spirit, or the Christian God, and hold that we are seeking
the same Spirit, but understanding it in different terms.
It is not only in
the characteristics of the Christ of Lord of the Dance
that I see the Spirit that I seek, however. It is in the reactions he
faces. When presenting himself and his impulse to those in power, and
those who consider themselves learned, he is rejected. When
presenting himself to simpler, down-to-earth folk, he is welcome and
joined in his dance. His impulses and actions are not constrained by
the social expectations of inactivity on the Sabbath, and they bring
healing; while I do not believe in the power of the Spirit to
physically heal, I know its power to heal relationships and
spiritual, emotional suffering. They are faced with condemnation from
the powerful who rejected the call of the dance, beaten down and
suppressed. The powerful do their best to destroy the dance utterly,
and think they have succeeded, but they have not – because they can
never take this dance out of the heart of those who have welcomed it,
and they cannot stop the call being heard anew.
This is the
spirit as I understand it, and indeed follows somewhat Carter's
intentions as recorded in his own words (see the link above, which
includes his commentary as well as the words of the hymn). To him,
Christ is “the incarnation of the piper who is calling us”, and
he views his words as having a universalist meaning, saying “by
Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other
planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one
I know of first and best.” It is a testament to the quality of his
work that this universalism shines not only through his commentary
making it explicit, but through the actual work itself.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Did you enjoy this post, or find it interesting, informative or stimulating? Do you want to keep seeing more of these posts? Please consider contributing to my Patreon. More information is available in the post announcing my use of Patreon.
