A few weeks before my mother-in-law passed, we were at her care home decorating a small tabletop tree with her. 17 years before she had had a massive stoke that left her with aphasia and unable to speak intelligible sentences. As we decorated, we listened to Christmas music, and during the First Noel, she started singing and sang it clearly the whole way through. It was a magical moment.
Oh Nadia! I am so, so, so glad you wrote about singing hymns and Sacred Harp singing! Off and on for years I've looked around my community for something like this. I don't want to go to church, just go to sing. [Nothing where they give an "alter call," thank you very much.] Singing hymns just brings tears to my old-old eyes and I experience it as a prayer. I have to ignore the terrible words sometimes and I can do that but it's the music that makes my prayers soar. Thank you so much for sharing some possibilities to sing w/ other people.
Me too, Dana. Quite a while ago [several years] I found something on Youtube that I sang with. However, I never could find it again, as I'm old and electronic-challenged. So maybe now I can find it again.
Washington/about 45 min. south of the Canadian boarder. The only one I found, which is too far from me, is Seattle. If you hear of one I'd sure be interested. I thank you.
Oh my dear Nadia, you got me in all the feels with this. There is one hymn from my childhood that won’t let me go. It has sustained me in a way that nothing else has. What I remember fondly from my church days was the singing. The voices together creating so much more.
We are called we are chosen we are Christ for one another.
We are promised to tomorrow while we are for him today.
We are sign, we are wonder, we are sower, we are seed.
We are harvest, we are hunger, we are question, we are creed.
It is the song that has called to me all these years and still stands true.
I am harvest and I am still hungry.
The opposites meet somewhere in the middle and I keep parsing my path everyday. Singing though… set something free. Amen.
I started singing sacred harp in the late 1980s in Minneapolis. What I love is how it stares at death directly in the face, expresses fear and hope in equal measure, and makes my sternum rattle.
The words were written when people died at home, without good medical treatment. One of my fellow singers described some songs as howls of grief. It is anything but happy clappy praise music. Some of the most beautiful hymns express the virtue of patience in suffering— not something we learn how to do today.
And yet. So much joy and hope and fierce belief. “Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God.”
10 hours ago, I did not know I would suddenly be in deep mourning of the sudden, unexpected loss of a dear cousin. Complicated by the distance of b eing in Calic and my family on European continent.
This posting is helping me to survive unbearable night. ❤️ THANK YOU
Yes! I, too, found great solace and inspiration in listening to Sacred Harp recordings during the pandemic. I’m traveling to Camp Fasola in Alabama in two weeks to immerse myself in this music. I cannot wait to be in a room singing these hymns with other folks. I’m also looking forward to being in community with many people who (I suspect) have quite different political views and/or religious beliefs than mine. I fervently hope we will all agree to abide in fellowship, and privilege our love for singing over the social/cultural issues which might otherwise divide us. (I imagine I’m going to have to offer a lot of grace to others -- and to myself -- during that week, and I hope others will do the same for me.)
Sacred Harp singing was a wonderful community discovery for me many years ago as a singer, historian, church musician, and person from the South living in North. Love so many aspects of it - especially the bring a dish sings that would take a break for a potluck shared meal. Check out "I am a Great Complainer that Bears the Name of Christ." It is a gem and should be widely shared. Enjoy! But, don't blow your voice out over a weekend of singing.
Nadia, if we had all day I could start to tell you what it means to me. The World! This month is my 13th year anniversary singing Sacred Harp, and the 3 month anniversary of my Sacred Harp wedding to my treble sanging husband! Your post captured (well) many of the things I love. Here’s another: children are afforded the same opportunities as adults. An authentic experience for kids to share rare authority. Precious! I sure hope someone has told you about the EPIC Henagar-Union convention July 1-2, and Camp Fasola right after. This is THE place to be, come sing with us!!
OoOoooh! I hope you’ll ponder on it! I’ve sung all over the world and this particular weekend at Liberty, is the most powerful sound there is! You are in the hotbed of 5,6, 7th generation singers (think wall of Wooten men on treble,) Plus all those coming from around the world for Camp Fasola, which is amazing! It was my first singing convention, just days after my first singing, and I went straight to camp as part of a production team shooting a video story about it, not as a camper, but everything in my life shifted on a dime that week! Sacred Harp has been the rudder of my life ever since! We’ve got 160 signed up, kids and adults, plenty of classes and fun activities at all levels, and a TREMENDOUS nightly sing, all in the lovely Southern summertime! Do come, hon!
In 2007 my husband started looking for a sail boat to go across the ocean. After lots of fits and starts too many to share here, we set sail out of the Columbia River in Oregon on Sept 11 2013. This voyage continued from Alaska to Mexico, then across the Pacific ending in Australia, until spring of 2019. Our cruising was interrupted only by annual flights home to celebrate Christmas with family. Cruising via sailboat across the oceans is shared by approx 2000 others world wide. Quite the experience. Interesting sub culture
Wow, Nadia! Thanks for this post. I certainly have a great love for the hymns of my childhood and youth. I remember singing from the Tabernacle Hymnal for most of my childhood and teen years. I've moved on theologically, but those hymns are the ones I know by heart and often entertain myself by bursting into song. Because of your post, I have discovered a sacred heart group that meets monthly here on Long Island - just a few miles from my parsonage. Can't wait to join them so that I can't belt out some "golden oldies"!
My older sister, Katrina, (now deceased) and I tried shapenote singing several years ago. Gotta say it did not come naturally to either of us, but we had THE BEST TIME trying it!
I'm so psyched to sing SH with you again & to meet CO singers! Not only is SH goth af, it's also metal af. It's the heavy metal of acapella. It's also punk af because >anticapitalist >anti-gatekeepers >be loud if you can't be good... and more
I love, love, love that you love Sacred Harp singing. I grew up in Alabama, but missed out on this tradition until only a few years ago and was immediately hooked. I haven’t been able to attend a singing since before COVID, and I long to get back there. Hope to sing with you sometime soon!
Jul 7, 2023·edited Jul 16, 2023Liked by Nadia Bolz-Weber
What I haven’t seen pointed out here is that a great number of the Sacred Harp songs use only 5 notes in the musical scale rather than the 8 we commonly hear in nearly all popular music in our western culture. These songs have an almost mystical, arresting power in their 4-note simplicity, and I don’t think I’m alone in my estimation here. When the singers harmonize with these songs, they blow the roof off the rooms they assemble in! But, really, the songs just have a “something” that is just hard to describe. Power. Intimacy. Fellowship. Exuberance. Solemnity. ...and they have a drive like a rock song in a way. You just have to hear them.
(Correction: my earlier comment mention 4 notes in the scale, but it’s 5)
I love that I can determine what grows best by the type of "weeds" that appear when I stop cutting the growth in my yard. Layers of soil lasagna decompose into a magnificent whole! (My mom told me it just looked like a mess; but I call it American Meadow landscaping, and it hosts so much more LIFE than the manicured lawns). Right now the growth is lush, pollinators abound, and benign neglect has allowed species to seed and reproduce...
Maybe a more fair description of my love for permaculturing would emerge by asking what I DON'T love about it! Permaculture is focused growing at the speed of life, which I love! And regenerative gardening is gratifying precisely because beautiful beds of buttercups this year will be submerged under other yard waste and become a bountiful supply of nutrients for a more desired crop('scuse me, are you going to be using those plants you pulled, cut/mowed?😃)
I especially like this article because Gadsden is not a big city and it’s at the base of the large sandy plateau that is Sand Mountain so they included so much detail. I grew up on the side of Sand Mountain that is near Gadsden and Ider and Fyffe are on the other side of the mountain.
I co-lead a multi-faith song circle that several participants have told me has become their important weekly spiritual event. A Hindu-oriented guy opens us with breath toning. His cat wanders in and out. A shaman-oriented grandmother leads tunes on nylon-string guitar. Two kids with diff-abilities attend regularly and gravitate toward the center. Our best drummers are Congolese and Haitian. I, a Jesus-oriented born-othersex harmonium player, plan a few songs/meditations and soak in it. Our phones are off, our hearts connect, and it ends up sounding like nothing we'd want to record and everything we want to remember. But it took 3 years of showing up to 'wonder if it will be only me this week' to gain its momentum... there's a reason why Jesus's way spread from a diverse group of less than 20.
A few weeks before my mother-in-law passed, we were at her care home decorating a small tabletop tree with her. 17 years before she had had a massive stoke that left her with aphasia and unable to speak intelligible sentences. As we decorated, we listened to Christmas music, and during the First Noel, she started singing and sang it clearly the whole way through. It was a magical moment.
I love singing Christmas hymns all year long
Oh Nadia! I am so, so, so glad you wrote about singing hymns and Sacred Harp singing! Off and on for years I've looked around my community for something like this. I don't want to go to church, just go to sing. [Nothing where they give an "alter call," thank you very much.] Singing hymns just brings tears to my old-old eyes and I experience it as a prayer. I have to ignore the terrible words sometimes and I can do that but it's the music that makes my prayers soar. Thank you so much for sharing some possibilities to sing w/ other people.
I hope you get to try it!
Me too, Dana. Quite a while ago [several years] I found something on Youtube that I sang with. However, I never could find it again, as I'm old and electronic-challenged. So maybe now I can find it again.
What's your state/region? There might be a Sacred Harp community there
Washington/about 45 min. south of the Canadian boarder. The only one I found, which is too far from me, is Seattle. If you hear of one I'd sure be interested. I thank you.
Oh my dear Nadia, you got me in all the feels with this. There is one hymn from my childhood that won’t let me go. It has sustained me in a way that nothing else has. What I remember fondly from my church days was the singing. The voices together creating so much more.
We are called we are chosen we are Christ for one another.
We are promised to tomorrow while we are for him today.
We are sign, we are wonder, we are sower, we are seed.
We are harvest, we are hunger, we are question, we are creed.
It is the song that has called to me all these years and still stands true.
I am harvest and I am still hungry.
The opposites meet somewhere in the middle and I keep parsing my path everyday. Singing though… set something free. Amen.
I started singing sacred harp in the late 1980s in Minneapolis. What I love is how it stares at death directly in the face, expresses fear and hope in equal measure, and makes my sternum rattle.
The words were written when people died at home, without good medical treatment. One of my fellow singers described some songs as howls of grief. It is anything but happy clappy praise music. Some of the most beautiful hymns express the virtue of patience in suffering— not something we learn how to do today.
And yet. So much joy and hope and fierce belief. “Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God.”
10 hours ago, I did not know I would suddenly be in deep mourning of the sudden, unexpected loss of a dear cousin. Complicated by the distance of b eing in Calic and my family on European continent.
This posting is helping me to survive unbearable night. ❤️ THANK YOU
💔
Yes! I, too, found great solace and inspiration in listening to Sacred Harp recordings during the pandemic. I’m traveling to Camp Fasola in Alabama in two weeks to immerse myself in this music. I cannot wait to be in a room singing these hymns with other folks. I’m also looking forward to being in community with many people who (I suspect) have quite different political views and/or religious beliefs than mine. I fervently hope we will all agree to abide in fellowship, and privilege our love for singing over the social/cultural issues which might otherwise divide us. (I imagine I’m going to have to offer a lot of grace to others -- and to myself -- during that week, and I hope others will do the same for me.)
Sacred Harp singing was a wonderful community discovery for me many years ago as a singer, historian, church musician, and person from the South living in North. Love so many aspects of it - especially the bring a dish sings that would take a break for a potluck shared meal. Check out "I am a Great Complainer that Bears the Name of Christ." It is a gem and should be widely shared. Enjoy! But, don't blow your voice out over a weekend of singing.
“Dinner on the grounds”! Another great part!
Nadia, if we had all day I could start to tell you what it means to me. The World! This month is my 13th year anniversary singing Sacred Harp, and the 3 month anniversary of my Sacred Harp wedding to my treble sanging husband! Your post captured (well) many of the things I love. Here’s another: children are afforded the same opportunities as adults. An authentic experience for kids to share rare authority. Precious! I sure hope someone has told you about the EPIC Henagar-Union convention July 1-2, and Camp Fasola right after. This is THE place to be, come sing with us!!
Tempted!!!
OoOoooh! I hope you’ll ponder on it! I’ve sung all over the world and this particular weekend at Liberty, is the most powerful sound there is! You are in the hotbed of 5,6, 7th generation singers (think wall of Wooten men on treble,) Plus all those coming from around the world for Camp Fasola, which is amazing! It was my first singing convention, just days after my first singing, and I went straight to camp as part of a production team shooting a video story about it, not as a camper, but everything in my life shifted on a dime that week! Sacred Harp has been the rudder of my life ever since! We’ve got 160 signed up, kids and adults, plenty of classes and fun activities at all levels, and a TREMENDOUS nightly sing, all in the lovely Southern summertime! Do come, hon!
I love 'em all, Pastrix,, but I love this column SPECIAL.
In 2007 my husband started looking for a sail boat to go across the ocean. After lots of fits and starts too many to share here, we set sail out of the Columbia River in Oregon on Sept 11 2013. This voyage continued from Alaska to Mexico, then across the Pacific ending in Australia, until spring of 2019. Our cruising was interrupted only by annual flights home to celebrate Christmas with family. Cruising via sailboat across the oceans is shared by approx 2000 others world wide. Quite the experience. Interesting sub culture
Amazing!!
Wow, Nadia! Thanks for this post. I certainly have a great love for the hymns of my childhood and youth. I remember singing from the Tabernacle Hymnal for most of my childhood and teen years. I've moved on theologically, but those hymns are the ones I know by heart and often entertain myself by bursting into song. Because of your post, I have discovered a sacred heart group that meets monthly here on Long Island - just a few miles from my parsonage. Can't wait to join them so that I can't belt out some "golden oldies"!
Let me know what you think!
I will! Blessings.
My older sister, Katrina, (now deceased) and I tried shapenote singing several years ago. Gotta say it did not come naturally to either of us, but we had THE BEST TIME trying it!
I'm so psyched to sing SH with you again & to meet CO singers! Not only is SH goth af, it's also metal af. It's the heavy metal of acapella. It's also punk af because >anticapitalist >anti-gatekeepers >be loud if you can't be good... and more
YES!!
I love, love, love that you love Sacred Harp singing. I grew up in Alabama, but missed out on this tradition until only a few years ago and was immediately hooked. I haven’t been able to attend a singing since before COVID, and I long to get back there. Hope to sing with you sometime soon!
Come to our Colorado all day this Saturday and you could literally sing with me for 5 hours!!
What I haven’t seen pointed out here is that a great number of the Sacred Harp songs use only 5 notes in the musical scale rather than the 8 we commonly hear in nearly all popular music in our western culture. These songs have an almost mystical, arresting power in their 4-note simplicity, and I don’t think I’m alone in my estimation here. When the singers harmonize with these songs, they blow the roof off the rooms they assemble in! But, really, the songs just have a “something” that is just hard to describe. Power. Intimacy. Fellowship. Exuberance. Solemnity. ...and they have a drive like a rock song in a way. You just have to hear them.
(Correction: my earlier comment mention 4 notes in the scale, but it’s 5)
I don't know where to post the "are you part of a subculture--tell me what you love about it." So, I put it here!
The sub- is permaculture gardening. Everything "trends" at some point, and there's a mental pic of how permaculture looks and acts and works.
But every garden is a mini ecosystem that differs from even your neighbor's garden.
I love that I can determine what grows best by the type of "weeds" that appear when I stop cutting the growth in my yard. Layers of soil lasagna decompose into a magnificent whole! (My mom told me it just looked like a mess; but I call it American Meadow landscaping, and it hosts so much more LIFE than the manicured lawns). Right now the growth is lush, pollinators abound, and benign neglect has allowed species to seed and reproduce...
Maybe a more fair description of my love for permaculturing would emerge by asking what I DON'T love about it! Permaculture is focused growing at the speed of life, which I love! And regenerative gardening is gratifying precisely because beautiful beds of buttercups this year will be submerged under other yard waste and become a bountiful supply of nutrients for a more desired crop('scuse me, are you going to be using those plants you pulled, cut/mowed?😃)
https://www.gadsdentimes.com/story/news/2004/02/20/dekalb-group-to-sing-sacred-harp-at-oscars/32322147007/
When Sacred Harp went to the Academy Awards. Y’all can’t even imagine what a big deal this was in Alabama!
I especially like this article because Gadsden is not a big city and it’s at the base of the large sandy plateau that is Sand Mountain so they included so much detail. I grew up on the side of Sand Mountain that is near Gadsden and Ider and Fyffe are on the other side of the mountain.
I co-lead a multi-faith song circle that several participants have told me has become their important weekly spiritual event. A Hindu-oriented guy opens us with breath toning. His cat wanders in and out. A shaman-oriented grandmother leads tunes on nylon-string guitar. Two kids with diff-abilities attend regularly and gravitate toward the center. Our best drummers are Congolese and Haitian. I, a Jesus-oriented born-othersex harmonium player, plan a few songs/meditations and soak in it. Our phones are off, our hearts connect, and it ends up sounding like nothing we'd want to record and everything we want to remember. But it took 3 years of showing up to 'wonder if it will be only me this week' to gain its momentum... there's a reason why Jesus's way spread from a diverse group of less than 20.
Oh, this sounds wonderful. Would that we were next door neighbors.