Remembering and Hoping

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;

may peace abound where strife has raged so long;

that each may seek to love and build together,

a world united, righting every wrong;

a world united in its love for freedom,

proclaiming peace together in one song.

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Ten years ago, I posted some hymn lyrics on my web site in reaction to the horrible events of 9-11. Ten years on, it still seems we can use the sentiments of "This is My Song" (sometimes called "A Song of Peace.")

The lyrics were written in 1934 by Lloyd Stone, an American poet and the last stanza by Georgia Harkness, a Methodist theologian born in New York in 1891 (she also wrote additional verses that sometimes appear in hymnals). It is sung to "Finlandia" by Finnish composer Jean Sebelius in 1899 as a secret protest against censorship.

There is a perfectly lovely version on You Tube by the St. Paul's Concert Chorale in Maryland at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvz9PvczUMI. God bless us, everyone.