Prelude — Suspirium
Thom Yorke (2018) · piano
Thom Yorke composed this haunting waltz for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 film Suspiria. Its opening lyric states, “a waltz thinking about our bodies and what they mean for our salvation.” The title is Latin for “a sigh” — the body’s most involuntary expression of grief. As these gentle, slowly circling harmonies open our service, let the sighs of the music become your own — a space to exhale before we enter the Lenten questions of weeping and laughing together.
Introit — Be Thou My Vision
arr. Alice Parker · choir & organ · Deb Bokum, solo
This hymn traces its roots to a Middle Irish poem, possibly as early as the 8th century. Alice Parker — the legendary choral arranger who collaborated with Robert Shaw on over 200 settings — builds her arrangement from a unison melody into layered, luminous harmony, a musical enactment of the community gathering itself into focus. On a day when we consider both tears and laughter, we begin by asking God to be the lens through which we see everything.
Hymn of Praise — All Creatures of Our God and King
St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1225), adapt. William Henry Draper, tune: LASST UNS ERFREUEN · HPP #261, vv. 1, 3, & 5
William Henry Draper translated and adapted St. Francis of Assisi’s 13th-century canticle, and hymnals have long paired it with the soaring German tune LASST UNS ERFREUEN (1623), whose cascading Alleluias sound like laughter itself. This is our chance to truly rejoice in the Ecclesiastes sense — to cry out in unbridled gratitude alongside sun and moon, rushing wind and flowing water.
Anthem — There Is a Season
Alfred V. Fedak · choir & organ
Where last week’s anthem gave us Pete Seeger’s folk song setting of Ecclesiastes 3, this Sunday we hear the same ancient text clothed in a very different voice. The ancient poetry breathes without commentary: “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” Seeger gave us strophic simplicity — a circular melody that returns again and again, just as the seasons do. Fedak’s elegant setting gives us something more through-composed and harmonically searching.
Interlude for Reflection — Blue in Green
Miles Davis / Bill Evans (1959) · organ
“Blue in Green” first appeared on Miles Davis’s landmark 1959 album Kind of Blue, though pianist Bill Evans is widely believed to be its true composer. The piece is built on an unusual 10-measure circular form — it doesn’t resolve, it simply returns to its beginning — and the melody consistently rests on notes that resist the underlying harmony. For a Lenten meditation on seasons that turn and return, this structure is quietly profound. Allow its gentle ambiguity to hold you as we reflect on the porous boundary between sorrow and joy.
Offertory — The Servant Song
Richard Gillard (1977) · HPP #442 · choir & organ
Richard Gillard, a New Zealand songwriter, composed this hymn in 1977 as a meditation on mutual service within the body of Christ. We begin at verse 2: “We are pilgrims on a journey, we are travelers on the road…” As you bring your offering forward, consider that walking with another through their weeping — and celebrating their laughter — is itself a sacred offering.
Communion — ‘Round Midnight / Were You There / People Get Ready
Thelonious Monk (1944) · African American spiritual · Curtis Mayfield (1965) · piano
Thelonious Monk’s "‘Round Midnight" — built on chromatic descents that never fully resolve — is the sound of a mind turning sorrow over in the small hours. From solitary ache, we move into communal witness: “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” — one of the oldest African American spirituals, daring to place us at the foot of the cross. And from that sacred grief, Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” carries us forward — “there’s a train a-comin’… don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.”
Three songs tracing a single arc: from isolation through witness to deliverance, asking us to stay awake through the longest night and trust that morning is on its way.
Closing Hymn — Bless Now, O God, the Journey
Sylvia Dunstan (c. 1985) · HPP #511
Sylvia Dunstan (1955–1993) was a United Church of Canada minister and prison chaplain who wrote over 100 hymn texts before her death from liver cancer at age 38. This hymn does not promise an easy road — it speaks of “the terrors of the way” and the “hard-won hope” that sustains us through them. We leave worship not with neat resolution but with pilgrim courage: the faith that the God who holds both our tears and our laughter walks the Lenten road beside us.
Postlude — Over the Rainbow
Harold Arlen (1939), lyrics: E. Y. Harburg · piano
Harold Arlen composed this melody in 1939 for The Wizard of Oz, and legend holds that the famous opening octave leap — that aching upward reach — came to him suddenly while driving down Sunset Boulevard. Lyricist E. Y. “Yip” Harburg crafted these words about longing for a place beyond our present struggle: “Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”
We end where we began — in the space of holy longing — but now with a quiet smile. After all the weeping, here is the laughter of hope.