Sing, Jesus, Sing

April is Poetry Month.

I’ve particularly enjoyed Copperbadge‘s picks for poem of the day so far, which include an excerpt from Tagore’s The Gardener and this wonderfully complementary piece by Pablo Neruda.

The bane of my existence has been an inability to understand anything but the most literal poetry (thus somewhat defeating its purpose). Pity my poor, literary-appreciation-challenged brain. But this is the sort of thing I love to participate in, even if it’s only going to be only sporadically rather than every day, and under redefined terms. See, I think I might be able to rustle up examples of close cousins of poetry that may be of interest to you: songs.

I’m a pretty decent singer though I’ve had next to no training. At school in India I was in the standard “song team”, girls who were always picked to perform group songs at occasions like independence day or cultural competitions. Since it was a convent school we learnt a lot of Jesusy numbers during singing periods, plus after I went to Singapore I joined the school choir. As a result I know about a billion very obscure songs that you won’t find even by asking this vast god of archival magic, the google.

It’s difficult to find songs that say very much (She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain When She Comes, anybody?) and when they do they hardly ever mean anything (I’m looking at you, Sound Of Silence). Two types of songs are the worst transgressors in my experience: patriotic songs and devotional hymns. Sometime later this month I’ll tell you about all the insipid “Bharat Maata Ki Jai” numbers I had to perform at school, but today I’m going to tell you about a sweet little exception to the legions of boring hymns I know.

It goes like this:

Chorus -
Sing life, sing love, sing Jesus!
Sing out whoever you are.
Sing life, sing love, sing Jesus!
Sing out whereever you are.

Life is around us to use or abuse,
Life to the great or the small.
Each one of us has the power to choose
Whether to notice or just ignore
Life’s call.

(Chorus)

Love is around us to take or to give,
love bringing life to us all.
Each one of us in the way that we live
Show if we notice or just ignore
Love’s call.

(Chorus)

Jesus loved life but for love Jesus died,
Jesus, the truth and the Way.
Though life was lost and the truth was denied,
Love lives again as we greet the Lord’s
New day.

(Chorus)

I can’t help but feel respect for this song. And if you know me, you’ll know that is no mean feat for a song about Jesus. It doesn’t stop at just saying how awesome god is, end of story… er, song. It sticks to its theme throughout, and there’s a unity of purpose directing every word and its placement. The twinning of the first and second stanzas, and the way it all comes together in the third. Life, love, Jesus, and Truth. It’s simple, and beautiful because it is so simple.

And how amazing is it that in a Christian hymn suicide is a presented as a choice rather than SIN SIN MAJOR SIN YOU SHALL GO TO HELL SINNER.

So. Any of you people know any good hymns? Comment and share!