A new hymn text emerged from the Red Roof Inn in Independence, Missouri, USA, during the 2001 Hymn Society in the United States and Canada annual conference.
Composer William Rowan created a tune that he called “Temple of Peace” after spending time in Community of Christ’s Temple and Auditorium. He shared the music with Mary Louise “Mel” Bringle, known for her meaningful and timely hymn texts, in hopes that she might develop a fitting text.
Bringle started her hymn-writing career “by accident” in 1998, when a former student asked her to write a new hymn text for his wedding. Bringle was featured as an “emerging text writer” at the 2002 Hymn Society conference and served as president of The Hymn Society from 2008–10. She is the professor of philosophy and religion chair of the Humanities Division at Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina, USA.
She has won multiple international hymn-writing competitions, and her texts are published in a variety of denominational hymnals. Bringle was chair of the committee that oversaw the Presbyterian Glory to God hymnal, which was published the same year as Community of Christ Sings (2013). Because the two denominations were on parallel tracks for hymnal creation, we frequently were able to share ideas, challenges, and decisions. Bringle has seventeen attributions in Community of Christ Sings. We were especially privileged to be the first to publish her hymn, “Light Dawns on a Weary World,” CCS 240.
In recent correspondence, Bringle reflected on the process used to create this text:
I wrote it (or it wrote itself) refrain first. Sitting in my Red Roof Inn hotel room in Independence, I kept humming through the music that William Rowan had shared with me at the conference in the Temple of peace. A place in the refrain reminded me musically of a 'watered garden,' so I pulled out the bedside Bible left conveniently in the room by the Gideons and turned to the latter chapters of Isaiah, where I knew those passages about 'you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water that never fails' were found. Flipping around in the book in passages close to that one (in Isaiah 58), I came across the line in 55:12 that fit the scansion of the melody perfectly. This gave me the idea to shape the stanzas of the hymn around images from Isaiah as well.
The first stanza, about 'all people’s dignity,' owes itself to Isaiah 65, where the eunuch and the foreigner are assured of their welcome on God’s holy mountain, for God’s house is to be 'a house of prayer for all people.'
The second stanza is indebted to Isaiah 58, reminding us that the fast God chooses is for us to share our bread with the hungry, and inspiring us that when we do so, 'our light will break forth like the dawn.'
Stanza three alludes to Isaiah 51:3, where Zion is told that God will 'make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord.' I have taken some liberties with this image, though, since in Isaiah, the wilderness is seen as a 'waste place.' In my text, wilderness has become instead a positive image. What we need in our world, it seems, is not more development, but a restoration of wild places for the benefit of the many other-than-human creatures that live there.
As we consider “restoring of wild places,” “Light Dawns on a Weary World” provides thought-provoking, rich creation imagery. Bringle added:
In regard to all the Isaian topics above, the text remains timely—and has, perhaps, become even more timely of late. Forms of bigotry that want to reserve dignity for only a few rather than for ALL people seem to be on the rise. The elimination of aid to impoverished communities, not to mention the economic crisis exacerbated by foreign and domestic political policies, make food insecurity a daily reality for increasing numbers of people at home and abroad. Very recent decisions to open formerly protected wilderness areas to off-road vehicles raise questions about whether a human “right to entertainment” should take precedence over the rights of other creatures to habitat and to life itself. In so many ways, the world seems to grow ever wearier…and we have even more reason to hope, work, pray (and sing) for light to dawn.
Amen!
We echo that thought—light, love, and hope are dawning, and “we shall go out in joy, and be led forth in peace, as all the world in wonder echoes shalom.”
This ongoing Herald series explores the history and context of hymns from Community of Christ Sings. These words and melodies connect us to one another and to our identity. Is there a hymn you would like to know more about? Let us know at .