麻豆约拍

Good morning.听 Throughout this week Prayer for the Day will be drawn from one of the best-known and best-loved hymns in the English language - Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. It was written by the wonderfully-named John Greenleaf Whittier.听 Born in the early years of the 19th Century, Whittier was an anti-slavery campaigner and a poet, though he never intended these words to be used as a hymn.听 As a Quaker, singing in worship wasn鈥檛 part of his practice.听

In fact Dear Lord and Father of Mankind was originally part of a much longer narrative poem called The Brewing of Soma. Apparently Soma was a hallucinogenic drug used in ancient Vedic rituals. The story is of priests brewing and drinking Soma in an attempt to experience divinity. It describes the whole population getting drunk on Soma, and compares this to some Christians' use of "music, incense, vigils drear / and trance, to bring the skies more near / or lift men up to heaven!"听 Whittier鈥檚 original started Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our feverish ways.听 So this simple hymn is about the nature of our relationship with God.听 Effectively he is asking God to forgive us our complexity in seeking him; our noisy songs and our frantic rituals.听 Instead let us approach God in quietness, simplicity and purity.听
听
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
Amen