Quick historical trivia

Here's a query for all you trivia fans out there:

What was the first book published in the American colonies?

You've probably guessed it's related to church music. In 1640, the Puritans published their tome "The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre." It was text only, with a musical leader expected to "line out" the Psalm tone so the congregation could sing it back. Our basic technique of singing responsively hasn't changed much since that time. However, we tend to focus on smaller excerpts from the Psalm. According to some accounts, the Puritans would spend as much as 30 minutes singing Psalms.

It's an amazing tribute to our American forebearers that they felt the need to publish a hymnal so early in their settlement (and found a certain little college by the name of Harvard to train their ministers as well). They had faith that God was guiding their venture; they prayed for his blessings; and they praised Him for their success. A good example for us to follow - and a good Trivial Pursuit or Jeapordy tidbit, perhaps.

Language in church

I've been thinking a lot about language recently. That's mostly because I've been reading a book by one of my favorite linguists John McWhorter, titled Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care. His premise, in a nutshell, is that the cultural change of the 1960s caused us to abandon our love for formal English, both written and spoken. We've replaced it with a constant search for the lowest common denominator (newspapers writing with middle school vocabularies), "authenticity" (a freedom to use casual speech and even expletives liberally in music and speech), and the common notion that great orators and the days of elocution are firmly behind us, no longer necessary. Sunday's prayers and hymns are a perfect illustration of this formal/informal divide between the generations, the difference between loving language and communicating in the vernacular.

Because of the 80th anniversary, we used hymns and prayers that have been around for many years, drawn from older hymnals of the church. This led to quite a sprinkling of "thee" and "though" and "most heartily beseeching." The prayers ended with an address to Christ, "who liveth and reigneth with thee." I'm sure there were people who asked themselves who would ever talk like that.

That opinion is perfectly natural for the zeitgeist of today, but no one would have considered such language inappropriate in 1929. That isn't because people spoke that way at all times. Certainly F. Scott Fitzgerald did not woo Zelda by saying, "I heartily beseech thee to accompany me to the speakeasy." The language was out of fashion even then; just see films of the era for proof. However, when people went to church they dressed in their Sunday best and expected to hear eloquent language and oration. People knew that there was a way of speaking in church (and other formal situations) that differed from casual conversation. One modern holdover is a wedding invitations or announcements, where the formal aspects of language still occur more regularly than in, for example, a birthday e-vite.

As for the hymns, some of the hymnals best and most cherished hymns still use a formal, more eloquent language. For example, who would want to tamper with ELW 685 "Take My Life, That I May Be"?
Take my life that I may be
consecrated Lord to Thee;
take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.

It's basically a trochaic quatrain: four rhyming lines of lilting syllables. Read it aloud, and it might sound like this:
TAKE my LIFE that I may BE
CONseCRAted LORD to THEE

That's formal poetry. That's a lyricist crafting formal language in a beautiful hymn, language that strives for excellence and yearns for inspiration from heaven. That's language and music worth singing!

PS Thanks to Mary Frances for her beautiful singing on Sunday, and also thank you to everyone for your birthday wishes.