This poignant song based on a line from the Sufi poet Rumi was shared with the MMC community by Ana Hernández. The intuitive melodic shape makes it easy to teach, and groups are quick to sing and harmonize.
Ana suggests using the piece for centering and meditation practice. She also blogged about her experiences using the song in a 12-step community.
It can be sung unaccompanied or with guitar or keyboard.
"There is some kiss we want with our whole lives.
The touch of spirit on the body."
Here is a recording of the song by Ana:
This "peace" was written by Benjamin and Tamika Jancewitz who teach it in the video at an MMC event in Baltimore 2015.
This South African Song in Xhosa is roughly translated “Go with us, our Savior” and comes from the repertoire of anti-Apartheid Freedom Songs written in the 1970's and 80's. It was shared with the MMC community by Paul Vasile, who learned it from Pamela Warrick Smith. In the spirit of music from many African contexts, the song invites opportunities for improvisation and adding actions/themes specific to the community's needs or experiences.
We have seen leaders share it as zipper/pocket song (i.e. Go with us, Lord, and give us your love/joy/peace) or deepen its communal spirit by crafting new verses (i.e. Come walk with us and share in our bread/...and join in the song). It makes a powerful sending song.
"Hamba nathi Mkhululi wethu"
There are several poetic translations of the song into English, not all faithful to the original Xhosa:
1. You Are Holy, You Show Us the Way
2. God With Us, Lord, and Set Us All Free
3. Come Walk With Us, the Journey Is Long (Anders Nyberg)
Teaching note from Paul Vasile: When you lead Hamba nathi, make sure that you keep a steady beat so the group feels the syncopated rhythm of the tune. I teach the tune first and once that's set offer the bass line. If folks don't intuitively add harmony (almost every group I've taught this to has), outline parts.
Here is sheet music for an SATB setting in Xhosa.
Here is a recording of the song by the Drakensberg Boy's Choir in South Africa.
This song is originally from Ghana, and the version we've sung at many MMC events is from a setting by Marty Haugen and Marc Anderson. You can find the sheet music and a recording of the song at GIA Music.
This layered song by psalmist Richard Bruxvoort Colligan is based on Psalm 31. Each part can be taught to a different part of the community or choir. When each is secure, they can be combined to create a rich, textured space for prayer.
The song can be sung a cappella or can be accompanied. It could be useful in Taizé-style services, and the text also invites it to be sung during Holy Week, especially Good Friday.
Part 1:
"Into your hands I place my life."
Part 2:
"Oh, loving faithful God."
Part 3:
"Oh, my life is yours."
Richard's music is licensed through CCLI, OneLicense.net and Worldmaking.net. Be sure report use of the piece if you print the text or music for your community.
Find sheet music for the song on Richard's PsalmImmersion website.
Peace, Salaam, Shalom was written by Emma's Revolution (activists and singers Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow) after September 11, 2001 and it quickly became an anthem of the peace movement. It sets the word 'peace' in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, offering a powerful interfaith message that has been shared at protests, religious services, and in other community contexts.
"We were moving from NYC to the Washington DC area over September 11th, 2001. When the only response from the government and the corporate media was “war and retribution,” we wrote “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” and sang it at an impromptu peace march in DC that week. Less than a month later, we led the song at the first peace rally in NYC after 9/11, where over 10,000 people sang with us for the three hour march, all the way from Union Square to Times Square."
Emma's Revolution asks groups, organizations, schools, churches, etc., that use their music to pay a one-time, sliding scale fee of $75-150 for use of the song in perpetuity. See their website for more information.
Sheet music can be found in Singing In Community, our latest songbook published by Augsburg Fortress. You can also purchase a lead sheet from their website.
Here is a recording of the song by Emma's Revolution:
Here's a clip of AnnaMarie Hoos teaching it at our MMC Leader's Retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in September 2015:
Fear Not the Pain was composed by Rachel Kroh at a Music that Makes Community Composers' Retreat in 2013. The text is from Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.
The song can be used in many different contexts: at the bedsides of the dying, a mantra for individuals struggling with chronic pain, in interfaith worship gatherings, as well as in liturgies centered around themes of healing, justice, and reconciliation.
"Fear not the pain,
let its weight fall back into the earth.
For heavy are the mountains, heavy are the seas."
Sheet music can be found in Singing In Community, our latest songbook published by Augsburg Fortress.
Here's an audio recording of Fear Not the Pain made in Brattleboro in 2013 as well as the melody transcribed by Marilyn Haskel.
Here's a a four-part arrangement of the song by Peter Amidon. If you enjoy it, you might want to see some of Peter's other arrangements in 55 Anthems for the Small Church Choir.