As a grumpy old man it is my lot to complain about things. The challenge of older age is to find enjoyment in complaining and being annoyed (that’s definitely something Qohelet could’ve said). Anyway, thinking about the way many modern church songs are written, I thought it might help us all to consider how The Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise in Luke 2, may have been written had she lived now rather than 2,000 years ago. I reckon it would go something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My soul glorifies the Lord,
\toh yes, my soul glorifies the Lord,
\tmy soul glorifies the Lord,
\tand my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
For the Lord has been mindful
\tof the humble state of his servant,
Yes, he has been mindful
\tof the humble state of his servant,
\tthe humble state of his servant.
So my soul glorifies the Lord,
\tfor he has been mindful,
\tyes he has been mindful,
\tof so mindful,
\tof the humble state of his servant.
From now on,
\tyes from this time on,
\tall generations will call me blessed,
\tthey will call me blessed,
\tyes all generations will call me blessed!
They will call me blessed
\tfor the Mighty One has done great things for me,
\tsuch great, great things has he done for me.
They will call me blessed for he has done great things.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
My soul glorifies the Lord,
\tfor his mercy extends to those who fear him,
\tto all those who fear him,
\tfrom generation to generation,
\tto all generations.
Yes his mercy extends to all those who fear him,
\tto all generations his mercy extends.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
He has done great and powerful things,
\the has scattered the proud,
\the has brought down rulers,
\the has lifted up the humble,
\the has filled the hungry,
\the has sent the rich away empty.
He has done great and powerful things,
\the has scattered the proud,
\the has brought down rulers,
\the has lifted up the humble,
\the has filled the hungry,
\the has sent the rich away empty.
He has done great and powerful things,
\the has scattered the proud,
\the has brought down rulers,
\the has lifted up the humble,
\the has filled the hungry,
\the has sent the rich away empty.
He has shown mercy to his people,
\tto the descendants of Abraham,
\tto his descendants forever,
\tjust as he promised.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.
Holy is his name.<\/pre>\n\n\n\nSure, it’s quite a bit longer. And a lot more repetitive. But those do seem to be common features of modern songs, don’t they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a grumpy old man it is my lot to complain about things. The challenge of older age is to find enjoyment in complaining and being annoyed (that’s definitely something Qohelet could’ve said). Anyway, thinking about the way many modern church songs are written, I thought it might help us all to consider how The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,29,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-music","category-new-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}