Be Thou My Vision, High King of Heaven and the San Francisco Bay

I could have called this posting "When Worlds Collide" or

"Meanderings of my mind."

Several days ago Voices of Orthodox Women published Debbie Berkley's great article, Changing The Language Of Our Hymns. It is about the way revisionists have changed the words of hymns in the Presbyterian hymnal. This is the cause of the loss of important theological meaning in our official hymn book. One of the songs Berkley focused on was "Be Thou My Vision." She pointed out that in their maneuvering to avoid masculine terms they omitted these lines from the hymn.

"Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
and
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Son!"

Berkley's article was linked to by Presbyweb and thus criticized by someone the following day.

And, of course, yet the next day several people, rightly so, defended the article. I was particularly taken with one letter which also looked at "Be Thou My Vision." Of it Nancy DuPree wrote:

"The wonderful cultural references in this hymn are priceless. The reference to "High King of Heaven," for example, is based on the Celtic feudal system. The person who wrote this hymn and the people who preserved it knew what A "high king" was. The governmental system of the Celts made it possible for them to practice and pass down Christianity. If they hadn't the whole history of the church might be different. And the play on "son/sun" is important to the history of the church as well; The Celtic cross that is widely used in Presbyterian circles is a graphic representation of the "son" emblazoned over the "sun" – that is, a symbol of the victory of Christ over the worship of the sun, which was common in Celtic areas in ancient times."

This all stuck in my mind and meshed with memories. For one thing I have a wonderful book about early English Christianity entitled, High King of Heaven," by Bennedicta Ward, a sister of the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God. She combines the Christian history of both the Irish and the English. (The Welsh as she shows are another story altogether.) This is about spirituality but it is not a sloppy kind of theology that some produce when writing about Celtic spirituality.

The other memory is of a friend who once roomed in our home. Miles Saunders, is one of those people who possesses a wonderful understanding of the early Church Fathers. He would often quote them as well as whole songs which possessed biblical content. Several years ago, 2001, I believe, he helped write and produce for Public Television, "Forgotten Journey: The Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Saga." And here we return to "Be Thou My Vision."

The documentary tells the story of the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada. And unlike the Donner Party they made it with out loss of life, in fact a baby was born on the way, so they finished with more people then they began with.

There is a place in the film where the guide discovers a safe passage for them to follow. It is the passage that allows the pioneers to travel undeterred toward their destination. Here the music, without fanfare, but placed there by Saunders becomes "Be Thou My Vision."

I had, over the last couple of years, lost track of what Saunders was doing, except we were there when he married a wonderful lady in a tiny Old Catholic Church, beside the sea, and they have a beautiful little boy. But in searching for him on the Internet I found his latest project. And I think all will be interested in this next PBS series, Saving the Bay: The Story of the San Francisco Bay. You can see a trailer here. And you can read about the members of the production team here.

So now you can follow the meandering of my mind while I am busy at Presbytery.

Picture by Viola Larson