#does any other place have this song because it feels britsh

[almoststedytimetravel]

I love custard, but whenever I go to make it all that plays in my head is "They give me sausages and custard covered in mustard pizza three days old. Green jelly ham and black berry jam stuck to the side of my bowl. They give me jelly on toast with last week roast and a slimey ice cream cone. All mixed in and slopped in a tin, I think I'll find my bone!" And honestly, it kills my appetite.

[profanityandprophecy]

Theistically Neutral/Nontheistic/God Optional Hymns (Or How I’m Accidentally, Inadvertenly Compiling a Hymnal)

As a minister for a theistically neutral congregation, and one small enough that we don’t have a separate music minister, it’s up to me to provide appropriate music. Seeing that the music was and is a huge part of what I love about services (and about religion in general), plus having been a music minister & cantor for many years as a child and teen, I’m not just gonna skip it. (It’s half the reason I GO to services!) So obviously I went looking for resources, and writing some myself. And what happened?

I think I’m accidentally compiling a theistically neutral/non-theistic hymnal.

<Insert Withnail & I, “We’ve Gone On Holiday By Mistake!” jokes here>

(Because I’m the “anything worth doing is worth overdoing, obsessing about, and doing to exhaustion” type.)

Because there are resources out there, they’re just very scattered, don’t show up easily on a Google search. In fact, there’s been resources since at least the year 1900. (Yes, I totally accidentally came across, on the Internet Archive, the song book that the New York Ethical Society put out in the year 1900.)

There’s a number in the various UU hymn books. (Singing the Living Tradition, Singing the Journey, and I’m assuming in La Voces del Camino, but also Hymns for the Celebration of Life (the first UU hymnal from 1964), and We Sing of Life (a joint project between the Unitarians and the Ethical Culture folks in 1950!), and probably in Hymns for Living (the hymnal for Britsh Unitarians and Free Christians)) (Edit: the Earth & Spirit Songbook was supported by a grant from the UU church, as part of their Green Sanctuary program, and has non-theistic songs.)

There’s a book called The Secular Hymnal.

There’s the various song books that various Ethical Culture and Humanist Societies use. Noted above was one, and I’m hearing tell of a Humanist Hymnal by Jerry Phillips (part of it is anti-Christian, part of it is Tongue-in-cheek, but some songs apparently have values.) and of a volume called Heritage Songs by the St. Louis Ethical Society, although I’m having problems finding info on both of them other than mere mentions. (The HH has some Geocities archive pages, and leads to a dead URL when you click humanisthymnal.com)

There’s songs where you least expect them. Surprisingly enough, there’s songs in the LDS (that’s right, the Mormons!) Hymnal that have extremely few to references to God or the supernatural that talk about doing good & duty and stuff. (”Have I Done Any Good” comes immediately to mind.) (Also, other denominations? This is how to do your hymnal right. (Damn near) every song online, every lyric, every piece of sheet music, every MP3, and even some ASL translation videos. The whole thing is almost COMPLETELY accessible to all.)

And then there’s various works by various people.

Greta Vosper, leader of the Toronto suburb United Church of Canada that went non-theist/theistically neutral years ago when she came out as an atheist, has a whole category on her site for new words for old songs. (Note: She’s the only one I’ve seen other than myself who has taken a contemporary/folk hymn, often popular with Catholics, and give it theistically neutral/non-theistic lyrics.)

Her music director wrote a bunch of new songs and made a hymnal called Wonder of Life. Also her and him adapted a bunch of old songs and made a hymnal called Sing it Forward: Traditional Hymns Recast and Rewritten for Religious and Humanist Communities.

Dr. Matt has written what he calls 3 Humanist Hymns. (I’m saying “what he calls” because I haven’t listened to them yet.) He also mentions The Humanist Hymnal Project, of which I can find no other reference online (not saying it doesn’t exist... I’m hoping someone else can find info on it!)

Jesse David Sykes did what he called a Secular Series, which includes polyphony w/values (and some Godless language) & new lyrics in Latin, as well as Christmas carols.

And there’s other songs that aren’t “hymnal worthy” but still fun and relevant, like You Are Theist, I Am Humanist, to the tune of “16 Going On 17″ from The Sound of Music.

And then there’s the stuff that I’ve done, that has an emphasis on the contemporary/folk music popular in the Roman Catholic church, because it’s a large part of my spiritual music tradition, and one that simply isn’t reflected in places like the UU hymnals: Haugen, Haas, Schutte, and more. (Imagine my delight when I found that Greta Vosper redid “Here I Am, Lord” by Schutte! Her stuff is complete rewrites, while mine is often adaptations trying to keep as much meaning, or at least feel, as possible. What she does is WAY harder! I’m not NEARLY that good!) (And I really should put more of my works out there. I’m just worried about copyright issues.)

And I’m sure there’s more I haven’t found yet, but will find in the days to come.

And they’ll be rounded up by me, and maybe they’ll end up in an informal “hymnal”. But someone else needs to get permission from all the publishers.

P.S. For more on Liberal Christian/Unitarian/Universalist/Unitarian Universalist hymnody, Jason Shelton did a paper on the history of U/U/UU Hymnody. (BTW, the “new hymnal” he refers to, not only was it published, but he’s the biggest contributor to it, having more original hymns in it than anyone else.)