Be Ye Glad

A good friend recently gave me an album of music by two very talented young people: Mark Weems and Julee Glaub Weems. The album is called Healing at the Roots: Songs of Renewal. They play a variety of instruments in this album: dulcimer, flute, guitar and others. With their voices blending in beautiful harmony, the music seems effortless. 

One of the songs on this album has stayed with me over these weeks of traveling, celebrating and recovering: Be Ye Glad. It is written by Michael Kelly Blanchard who is a friend and mentor of the Weems. The words of the chorus are: 

Be Ye Glad, be ye glad,

every debt that you ever had

has been paid up in full

by the grace of the Lord.

Be ye glad, be ye glad, be glad.

These words have imprinted themselves on my heart in the way that only music can carve itself into us. It is a refrain that my heart goes to in the midst of the darkness that can come in these days after so much celebration. The worry of wars, whether it's in the Sudan or inside our heart; the anxiety of unrest in so much of the world and in our own family or community. These things provide so much fodder for long nights of doubt and hurt. We are all seeking the comfort of knowing that somewhere, somehow there is a place of rest. I want to know that there is one thing in the midst of the darkness that I can celebrate; and that this one thing is durable and offered freely to all.

So be like lights on the rim of the water

giving hope in a storm sea of night.

Be a refuge amidst the slaughter,

for these fugitives in their flight.

For you are timeless

and part of a puzzle.

You are winsome and young as a lad.

And there is no disease or no struggle

that can pull you from God,

Be Ye Glad. 

(verse 3, Be Ye Glad by Michael Kelly Blanchard)