Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.
Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.*
Benny called last Friday. That gravelly voice–my high school debate colleague. Who traveled to tournaments with Anita and me. Who introduced me to jazz. Cool, hip, experienced–to my studious naivete. Neither a jock nor a nerd. Even then on his own path. We’ve been in touch in recent years. San Francisco to Helena. I’ve sent him writing and he’s sent me his own music—compositions of memory and heart like those that I try to craft in words. We share small town Kansas, our ages, a fierce commitment to social justice, a clear-eyed sense of the precipices on which we live. I signed off in tears—deeply grateful, loved, whole, peaceful. Resting in the light of understanding. Of caring and camaraderie.
Which took me further back to evening gatherings at the McPherson Church of the Brethren. They often ended as we sang “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” Four-part harmony, quietly acapella. Even as a child, I understood a moment of shelter and safety and fellowship.
I have a complicated relationship now with the hymns of my youth. The scores sing through my memory, the hours of my day. They are often earworms—borne of just a word or phrase. Though halting, my piano-playing hands know the chords and rhythms. While contemporaries memorized Elvis and Connie Francis, I absorbed the words and phrases that we sang every Sunday. When I read about people consigned to long jail sentences, I’m convinced that my only entertainment in such circumstances might be moving through The Brethren Hymnal.
Except I no longer believe the theology, the teachings captured in those hymns. I love the spirit of joy and gratitude, of awe and silence and reverence for our world. But now when I Iink those emotions to the constraints and hierarchies, the narrownesses and prejudices and consequences of organized religion, I cannot speak the words. I do not believe in a god with supernatural, intervening power. I do not believe that any one religion has a lock on “A Story to Tell to the Nations” or that a god is required for us to feel “Amazing Grace.” And that relentless religious insistence on only one narrative, one set of measures, and one body of do-or-you-must-die rules create unspeakable pain.
Over the holidays, I’ve savored many conversations from friendships and relationships that span the places I’ve lived and what I’ve experienced. Teaching and learning and Gettysburg and DC and preservation and travel and stepmoming. On paper, electronically, I’ve relished the feelings and memories and laughter and sadness shared over miles and years. I’ve felt the stillness and acceptance of ties that keep me close to extraordinary friends. Of shared fears and hopes and troubles.
The more familiar, often flamboyant traditions of this winter season–Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa—pale for me in comparison to our seasonal communication. To the opportunity we seize to offer each other our hearts and hands and thoughts. The ties from our lives that we honor and strengthen. The kindred spirits we hold consciously closer in these short days.
Long after I’ve stored the small basket of holiday decorations from my childhood and the girls,’ I reread the letters and cards that arrived. And once again—picturing the lives and concerns and gladnesses they describe. The shared comfort and care. I revisit the calls and emails that make me smile and my heart sing. That unquestioned holiness. Truly, blest be the ties that bind. ©
*A flicker of background: John Fawcett, a British Baptist, a character, a hymn-producing machine crafted “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” Offered a prestigious London post, he chose to remain with his small Yorkshire congregation—with whom he felt close ties. This hymn captured Fawcett’s reason for staying with the people to whom he was so attached. That deeply personal decision has become part of the hymn’s story. Fawcett published the song in 1782—a decade that would see the colonies declare our independence. Break the ties that held us to England. The tune we know for this hymn was arranged by Lowell Mason in the mid-1880s, based on music by the 18th century German composer Johann G. Nageli.
