Two Months and Two Days... One God Almighty.

It has been necessary to be elsewhere, doing other things, but it is so good to be back posting. Thank you for still being around.

I woke up this morning with The Doxology playing in my head. I's a good way to start the day and I like to sing it when I'm alone. (Sometimes I sing it when my daughters are with me, but I have to kind of cool it... I'm already making that eventual institutionalization decision way too easy for them.)

Something is telling me I've shared this in the blog before, but I have to get back to work and I don't have time to check it out. And this is a song that is worthy of a repeat.

THE DOXOLOGY

[A] doxology in widespread use in English, in some Protestant traditions commonly referred to simply as "The Doxology" and in others as “The Common Doxology”[2], is "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow". The words are thus:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

This hymn was written in 1674 by Thomas Ken, a priest in the Church of England.[3] This hymn was originally the final verse of two longer hymns entitled "Awake, My Soul, and With the Sun",[4] and "Glory to thee, my God, this night",[5] written by Ken for morning and evening worship, respectively. It is usually sung to the tune "Old 100th", but also to "Duke Street" by John Hatton, "Lasst uns erfreuen", and "The Eighth Tune" by Thomas Tallis, among others. Many Mennonite churches, especially those composed primarily of ethnic Mennonites, sing a longer and more highly embellished version of this doxology to the tune "Dedication Anthem" by Samuel Stanley.[6] This version more fully utilizes the a cappella harmonizing for which Mennonite services are known.

Ken wrote this hymn at a time when the es­tab­lished church be­lieved on­ly Script­ure should be sung as hymns, with an em­pha­sis on the Psalms. Some con­sid­ered it sin­ful and blas­phe­mous to write new lyr­ics for church mu­sic, akin to ad­ding to the Script­ures. In that at­mo­sphere, Ken wrote this and sev­er­al other hymns for the boys at Win­chest­er Col­lege, with strict in­struct­ions that they use them on­ly in their rooms, for pri­vate de­vo­tions. Iron­ic­al­ly, the last stan­za has come into wide­spread use as the Dox­ol­o­gy, per­haps the most fr­equent­ly used piece of mu­sic in pub­lic wor­ship. At Ken’s request, the hymn was sung at his fun­er­al, fit­tingly held at sun­rise.

_{Doxology. (2009, June 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:01, June 9, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doxology&oldid=295448685}

Even if you are tone deaf and have a terrible voice it all arrives at the Throne as beautiful praise! All together now:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

And Amen.