It’s been about a year now since I was invited to play in my church’s worship team, and it’s become one of the highlights of every week. I spent a lot of time those first few months just making sure I was playing the right chords at the right time.
Not long ago I started paying more attention to the words, now that I have the music down, and I’ve been stunned and startled more than once at the beauty of the words and the impact of the thought.
Look, for example, at what a guy with the unlikely name of Folliott S. Pierpoint wrote in 1864:
For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies —
For the wonder of each hour, of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flow’r, sun and moon, and stars of light —
For the joy of human love — brother, sister, parent, child — friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild —
For Thy church that evermore lifteth holy hands above, off’ring up on every shore Her pure sacrifice of love —
Lord of all, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
All my life I’ve studied and been moved by any number of songs full of poetry, with lines like “All lies and jests, still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,” or “In my most secure moments I still can’t believe I’m spending those moments with you, that the ground I am walking, the air that I breathe are shared at those moments with you,” or “I could drink a case of you and I’d still be on my feet.”
And yet from child Sunday school to present day, I mouthed Pierpoint’s poetry blankly while trying to carry the tune with everyone else, and I couldn’t have told you the accompanying words. By paying attention at long last, I’ve opened myself up to a whole new world of music and depth of worship.
Now: What kind of a name is Folliott?!
