“HYMN OF PROMISE” was written by Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992), an American church organist and composer. After the death of a close friend, she meditated on a line from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” — “In the end is my beginning…” Inspired, Sleeth composed a poem that unfolded in overlapping circles rather than straight lines. Written in 1985, first as an anthem, her hymn is a contemplation of contradictions — death/ resurrection, doubt/ belief, winter/ spring, song/ silence, past/ future. In the spirit of Ecclesiastes, it speaks of seasons more than reasons. There are no easy answers here, which is why these lyrics are comforting to people facing staggering loss and for whom trite churchy platitudes would be an insult. One week ago, in an instant, a car went out of control on the Taconic, jumped the median, and caused a head-on collision, 4-car pile-up. After the names of the accident victims were released, late night phone calls conveyed real life nightmares. Before daybreak, word spread via social media. My church family is still reeling from the news. The directors of our PSUMC Gospel Choir and their daughter were returning from making music all week at Silver Lake church champ (UCC) in the Berkshires. As I write, Don, the beloved jazz pianist/ drummer husband/ dad, is hooked up to tubes, suffering multiple fractures. Ledell, a vivacious teacher, activist, and musician, always ready to lead an old civil rights song or belt out a gospel hymn, and their singer/ songwriting daughter Kat, didn’t make it. Their surviving son, Devan, was not in the car. Numbness is a blessing, but it doesn’t last. Shocking news insists on its truth, rips through our denial, screams death beneath an unblinking summer sun. We instinctively back away from the unthinkable, but stone-cold fact has gotten inside our brains and under our eyelids, broken our hearts.
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
