Yesterday, a student and I spent some time trying to figure out how one might play Luther Bridgers's "He Keeps Me Singing" with some literary and theological sensitivity.
My student brought the hymn to me commenting on the deep themes of the text that seem strangely juxtaposed with its perky tune. Bridgers wrote the text and tune, so it wasn't a mismatch in his mind. Like a lot of hymns with music in this style, it seems to be written from a place of reflection and experience so that its themes can be expressed joyfully ultimately, even though the words and concepts do not all seem joyful to us on first hearing.
When we started to read the text together, I was struck by the seeming jumble of images and metaphors in its five brief verses. In an attempt to make some sense of this jumble, we made a chart for sorting these words. We found the following:
- music words - melody, discord, strings, chords, swept, stirred
- water words - ebb and flow, wrecked, waters deep, stirred, swept (even though these last two words appear in a mostly music-word verse, they are words that could also resonate with water movement)
- land-journey words - leads, path, rough, steep
- flight words - starry sky, wing, flight
- being-in-God's-presence words - whispers, wing, smiling face, feasting, resting, seeing, shouting, singing, reigning
Biographically speaking, Bridgers wrote this hymn after the loss of his wife and children in a fire and the personal crisis that followed. The flow of the verses make sense as an expression of his healing process that involved conquering questions and depression through faith.
But Bridgers did not directly name the tragedy in his hymn. He kept the image very general: a wreck. And for several generations, the hymn has spoken more broadly than an expression of an individual's testimony. Its rich jumble of images still confonts and comforts us.
As my student and I looked at our chart, a meaningful progression through the verses started to emerge. We came to see the disparate metaphors as stages in a journey: the journey of Christian faith.
Being on the sea gives the sense that one's fate is very much out of one's own hands. The unknowns of the depths are frightening.These sea experiences are emblematic of the pre-faith phase of one's life. Although unrecognized at the time, the loving God is present.
Then comes a shipwreck: a harrowing and devastating running aground. But on the shore, we find Christ waiting with a feast, rest, and personal warmth.
With Christ, a pilgrimage begins. In this stage, we recognize his leadership and presence with us through the rigors of the journey.
In the final stage, the most freeing mode of journey is achieved: flight. In salvation future, we go beyond this world as masters in our own right.
It turns out the that the key to the entire text (at least in this interpretation) is the very last word of that cheery chorus: "go." The hymn is about going on the Christian journey. And I would assume that Bridgers the evangelist was very much about that himself.
A few more layers ------
The hymn seems to be a testimony to mystical, personal, religious experience. Jesus is whispering in the heart . . . and later, he's on the path with the singer. It's a bit like the road to Emmaus.
Jesus' words in the first verse are like his words during the tempest scene in the Gospels.
"Shout and sing" - in various translations of the worship scenes in Revelation, there is a mixture of shouting and singing.
The metaphorical story of salvation signified by modes of travel as described above is told in the context of a reflection in the hymn, so there are times when it seems a little unlinear. Naming the more reflective portions of the text as such helps the narrative stand out.
Once we realized how the story starts on the water, we saw how wavy the tune is: full of waves and chops plus a couple of big swells in the chorus. Play the tune alone and the chromaticism might even seem to add a touch of sea sickness.
To signal the transition/transformation to flight in the last verse, it might be a good time for a simple half-step modulation.
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