poetry

2024: The Songs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
My Kala six string ukulele, Guild twelve string guitar, Martin six string guitar, and Kala four string ukulele (photo from October 2023).

I wrote eight songs in 2024, one more than the previous year but still less than the dozen songs I wrote each of the pandemic years 2021 and 2022. I sang six of them in live streams, one for the 2024 Easter recording, and one was… well. I was asked to write a song about performing with the Big Island Singers, and so I sang it at the party following the closing concert in November. Someone took some video, but it didn’t include the entire song. At the request of one of the “Dougs” (the director and accompanist both are named Doug), I recorded it to be included here.

Shine, Star, Obscuring Light

First performed January 10, 2024.

This is an Epiphany song, arising from the curious way that a star heralded the birth of Jesus when public proclamation of a Messiah’s birth was deeply dangerous. Herods, both ancient and modern, are vicious. People have found that putting lights on an object can, in fact, hide it from view.

First Denial

First performed on February, 28, 2024.

This song is based on “Simon Peters’s First Denial,” a poem I wrote as part of my “lectionprayer” series (prayers I write based on one of the texts for the coming Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary). As you’ll hear in the introduction above, a friend commented on the poem asking if it was set to music. A week later, it was.

In the Silence

First performed on March 27, 2024.

Written for Holy Week, the song goes to the hard place of waiting for something bad to happen. We all know its strain, and of course so did Jesus as he prayed in the garden, knowing that the soldiers approached.

Tell Me to Turn Around

First performed for What I’m Thinking the week after Easter, April 2, 2024.

Inspired by the meeting of Mary Magdalene with the risen Jesus in John 20, the song begins just before Mary turns around to see him.

Twelve Years and a Moment

First performed on June 30, 2024.

I wrote this based on the healings of the woman with a hemorrhage and the raising of Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5:21-43. I think it also shows some melodic and harmonic ideas that have dominated my songwriting much of the year. Translation: I think it sounds familiar.

I’ve Got a Jar of Flour

Performance from October 23, 2024.

I like to write a song for Vacation Bible School. It doesn’t always happen, and sometimes when it does, they’re pretty lighthearted. That isn’t true of this one, based on the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17.

We are the Big Island Singers

I sang both the spring and fall seasons of the Big Island Singers, a great group led by Doug Albertson and accompanied by Doug Howell. Another member of the asked me to write a song about the experience, and this is the result. I’m afraid it’s full of inside jokes, but choral singers, directors, and accompanists may recognize some of the challenges and the joys of this kind of music.

I made this recording in December, 2024.

Christmas Filled with Christ

First performed on December 20, 2024.

Over the last few years I’ve taken on some songwriting goals, usually around major holidays of the Church year. 2024 included one for Epiphany (as noted above; I also sang “Shine, Star, Obscuring Light” during this December 20 concert), one for Holy Week, one for Easter, and yes, one for Christmas. I’d seen enough inspirational messages about keeping Christ in Christmas by doing the things Christ asked us to do that I decided to include it in a song.

Camels and Needles

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 8 Comments

“But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'” – Mark 10:24b-25

A camel, which is a beast with sense,
will cast a jaundiced eye upon a needle’s eye
if told that they’re to pass on through.
At most, a knobby hoof may paw the ground.

Yet I engage in exercise of needle-passing
almost every day, and have for one score years,
and ten, and six, endeavoring to tell
a story so it lifts a heart or redirects a mind.

A task for fools, I say, as those I teach
nod sagely in agreement with my words,
then go to do the opposite of what I’d said,
and what they’d then approved,

Because, you know, though there’s a better way,
the one we know is still the one we’ll do.
We thank you for the wisdom of your words
and hope the world one day works as you say.

If only it were only “they,” the ones to whom
I speak! For it is also “Me,” the one I seek
to govern by your guidance, Christ, the “I”
who also cannot seem to follow you.

I would despair, save that some seeds I never thought
would bloom have grown, have blossomed, borne
sweet fruit as marginalized people claim
their place and power where they once had none.

So take my challenge, camel. I will make
my painful way through this so-tiny eye,
and once we’re through, what visions might we see,
what glory celebrate, in God’s sweet possibility.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 10:17-31, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 23 (28).

The image is a Roman needle of a type found in first to fourth century contexts. All rights reserved, Philippa Walton, 2014-11-29 19:38:23 – https://finds.org.uk/database/ajax/download/id/494882Catalog: https://finds.org.uk/database/images/image/id/494882/recordtype/artefacts archive copy at the Wayback Machine Artefact: https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/652383, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77020469.

This poem/prayer was written on the thirty-sixth anniversary of my ordination. I rather regret not having taken (that I can find) a photo of a camel.

Kicking the Cobblestones

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
A mosaic of a boy feeding a donkey, ca. 5th century CE.

“[Jesus] said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”‘” – Mark 11:2

I was just minding my business, which is:
Kicking at cobblestones. It’s what I do.
Others may carry the great and exalted
or strain to haul carts, but not me. Oh, no.

I kick at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

Along come these dudes. I’d never seen them
or smelled them or known them, so what did they do?
They untied the rope that ran from my halter
along to the post. I didn’t panic. Or move.

I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

Give me a chance, though, idiot dudes,
and I’ll kick your cobbles. You know that I will.
They fussed at the rope and they petted my nose.
I sniffed them for sugar, but they weren’t that smart.

I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

A couple of neighbors – I’d seen them before –
spoke to the dudes. I paid no attention.
I had my afternoon plans good and set.
Neither neighbors nor dudes would bollix those up.

I kick at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

There’s a tug at my halter. Both neighbors and dudes
are nodding, and telling me, “Come along now.
The Lord needs your services. Step down the road.”
I’d have reared or planted my feet, but I went along.

I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

Next thing I know there’s cloth piled on me.
I thought about kicking it off. It was hot.
But then there’s another dude sitting upon me.
I braced then to toss him off, placing my feet,

Kicking the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

“A moment,” the dude said, and breathed in my ear,
“I need you today,” and his hand brushed my neck.
Are you kidding? There are others who’ll carry
and haul. They’re not me. I’m my own. I won’t carry at all.

I’ll kick at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

But my hooves took their steps down the Bethany slope,
into the valley, along to the gates.
There were people about and they shouted, “Hosanna!”
They laid clothing and branches ahead of our way.

They covered the cobblestones – but it’s what I do.

I kicked at the cloth and I kicked at the greens.
The dude on my back, well, he chuckled at that.
“Kick away, little friend,” came that intimate whisper.
“It won’t be too long ’till you’re back home at last.

“And kicking the cobblestones.” It’s what I do.

With anyone else on my back I’d have bolted.
The noise and the heat, the dust made me sneeze,
the leaves made for treacherous footing beneath,
so that kicking made balance a tenuous thing.

When kicking the cobblestones is what I do.

The dude left my back with a softly said, “Thank you.”
Two of the dudes stripped the cloaks from my spine.
They turned me around to the gates and the valley,
and back up the Bethany hill to my home

Where I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 11:1-11, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Sixth Sunday in Lent, Liturgy of the Palms.

The borrowing of a “colt that has never been ridden” is an odd element in the odd story of Jesus’ serio-comic “triumphant entry” into Jerusalem. Mark gave it twice as much time as he gave to describing the procession itself. The entire project of borrowing an unridden colt begs for disaster: arrest for theft, an animal that refuses to move, Jesus careering through the streets on a bucking colt. I don’t claim to have captured the colt’s perspective in any real way here. Hopefully I’ve given some idea how odd it all was.

The image of a child and a donkey is by a Byzantine mosaicist of the 5th century – The Yorck Project (2002) 10,000 masterpieces of painting (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148600.

2023: The Songs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 7 Comments
A Kala 6-string ukulele, a Guild 12-string guitar, a Martin 6-string guitar, and a Kala 4-string ukulele ready for the Community Concert performance of October 20, 2023.

In 2022 I wrote twelve songs. That was a lot for me, and 2023 confirmed it. I wrote seven songs this past year, and one of them was not recorded – it was a special composition for a worship service. It’s possible I’ll return to it someday.

Six Days

First performed on April 5, 2023.

“Six Days” is a Holy Week song. I hadn’t written one before.

It’s So Good to See You

First performed during the Community Concert of April 14, 2023.

I have tried to write a song for Easter in most years since arriving in Hilo. This is the one for 2023, based on Matthew’s account of the resurrection.

Bring Me a Rose, Apostles

First performed on April 26, 2023.

One of my regular practices is to compose a poem or prayer (or both) related to the Scripture I’ll preach on. In this case, I wrote the poem, “Romance,” about Acts 2:42-47, a grim story about a couple who fail to keep their promises. To me, this story lays bare the “rose-colored glasses” with which we look at the Early Church. Maren Tirabassi read the poem and asked a simple question: “Is this set to music?” By the next day, it was, and this is it.

Breakfast on the Beach

First performed online on June 7, 2023.

Vacation Bible School returned to my schedule this past summer, with lessons that included the story of Jesus feeding his disciples on a beach of the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection. I thought it needed a song.

Bad Dreams Go

First performed at the Community Concert of October 20, 2023.

I have included the introduction I gave to this song in the clip posted above. I wrote it in the wake of the eruption of yet another bloody and intractable war between Hamas and Israel. Somewhat desperate, I went back to my daughter’s childhood, when I was equally desperate to assure her when she woke from a nightmare.

Fill Up Your Spirit with Love

First performed on December 20, 2023.

I set a goal for Advent 2023 that each of the Wednesday Songs from Church of the Holy Cross would relate to the theme for the coming Sunday. I hoped I might write new songs for three of the four Sundays. In the end, I wrote this one for the last Sunday of Advent on the theme of Love.