My friend Louise’s mother died two weeks ago, of complications from motor neurone disease (=Lou Gehrig’s Disease in the United States). She still had her mobility, and could drive, but had lost the ability to speak and to swallow easily. She wrote on her notepad a few weeks before she died: “I can’t spit, swallow, or lick. My sex life is shot.” (she has been widowed since the late 1990’s). She was obviously a very good mother and a fun person to be around, and the family was grateful that she had not lost her mobility when she died.
In any case, after the funeral there was the usual collation at her house, and lots of old friends from my first job here in London were there. While it wasn’t a happy occasion, it was rather jolly in many ways, and I’m glad I went.
It got me to thinking about my own funeral, (yes, I know it’s morbid, but what else are funerals for but to make the living think!) The hymns that Louise’s family picked were her mum’s favourites (All Things Bright and Beautiful, Guide me now, Thou Great Redeemer, and He Who Would Valiant Be) All very nice hymns.
I want one from the US Episcopal Church Hymnal: Number 293, I sing a song of the saints of God. It was written by a woman named Lesbia Scott (1989-1986) as a hymn for her children. The tune is Grand Isle, named after a place in Vermont. It’s a difficult tune to sing because until you’ve heard it, you don’t know where the notes and the words match up unless you can read music. It’s not generally known here in the UK (at least I’ve never heard it sung here) but I WILL have it sung, if it kills me.
I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus’s sake,
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there’s not any reason no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.
They lived not only in ages past,
there are hundreds of thousands still,
the world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’s will.
You can meet them is school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.
After doing a web search, I came up with this webpage, giving the history of the hymn. It is known here, but not in the places I frequent.
Every time I hear or even read this hymn I break down. I have heard it at numerous funerals in the United States: many gay men choose it because of the fifth line of the first stanza.
And from comes a year-old post from soc.motss giving one gay man’s take on this hymn from beyond the grave.
