March 5, 2010 11:28 AM
Now the green blade riseth - A Lenten reflection
Just got back from driving Matt to work. We've been making do with two vehicles (our 12 passenger Ford Club wagon and Ford Fusion (love those Fords! Love that they stayed independent of government control), so with four drivers at home - and Maddy as of last Friday makes 5 - with different places to go and people to see, it makes for some interesting logistical planning and definitely more quality car time :)
Virginia's looking pretty unappealing right now. Though we actually still have plenty of snow on the ground, it's dirty and uninteresting and bouncing through the potholes kinda takes away the wide-eyed wonder of it all. With the lush greenery stripped, the expanses of untrimmed trees look stark and bleak and depressing.
"Every year in March I can hardly believe that in a short time it will all be green and beautiful again," I said to Matt. Matt's my second son and one of 21 native Californians who came to Virginia when I wanted to come home in 2002. At 24, he's spent 2/3 of his life in California and 1/3 here.
"Yeah, at least in summer in California when the hills turn brown the trees are still green," he said. I think spending your early years in a state really imprints it on your heart. California is really part of who my children are.
That's true, but I have to admit - even after eight years in Virginia, I appreciate going through this bleakness. When spring comes, it's simply amazing to behold. Each day as new plant varieties burst forth, you get a new shade of green, a new piece of the puzzle. I never realized how many shades and textures of green there were. And then the wildflowers. Orange one week, purple the next.
As I was musing and looking forward to this imminent free-to-anyone-with-eyes-to-see spring spectacular, a song started playing in the back of my mind, a song we sang in chorus in my freshman year at Falls Church High School (I transferred to O'Connell in sophomore year). That was 48 years ago, but I remembered the tune perfectly and this line: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green. What was the title?
Thank you God, for Google! I mean that. Straight from the car to my computer fo see what I could find. I actually spend a lot of time researching to find the best rendition of a hymn or song I want to share. Sometimes there are a lot to choose form, sometime it's slim pickin's.
But here is what I found:
Love Is Come Again:
.
Here are the lyrics (and music):
Now the Green Blade Riseth
Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
love lives again, that with the dead has been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
thinking that never he would wake again,
laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
love is come again like wheat the springeth green.
Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
he that for three days in the grave had lain,
quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
When our hearts are wintry, grieving in pain,
thy touch can call us back to life again,
fields of hearts that dead and bare have been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
--John M.C. Crum, 1928
In addition to only 2 choral performances on YouTube, there is a plethora of handbell groups, but I preferred this guitar version:
Tune also at Cyberhymnal.
Posted in Lent, Music | Permalink
