This is My Song

It's not too often that, when prepping for my cantoring gig at St. Mary's, I have a flashback to an Indigo Girls concert in Indiana, circa 2000 or 2001. But alas, that nostalgia switch has been tripped, this time to Finlandia. I'm not talking about Finlandia University, but rather, the symphonic poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Most of the poem is rousing and turbulent (and when you get a chance to hear the London Symphony do it, trust me, it's rousing), but towards the end of the symphony, the orchestra calms and Sibelius wrote this beautiful, melodic hymn that evokes a great sense of serenity and peace -- The Finlandia Hymn. 

Now, if you've ever been to an Indigo Girls concert, you'd know that perform the Finlandia Hymn a cappella towards the end of their concert. Needless to say, when I was a little bit of a sheltered kid from Boston coming out of his shell at an Indigo Girls concert at Butler University, I couldn't help but flashback to those (beautifully remembered tree-lined) streets of Charlestown. I remember turning to one of my friends at the end of the Finlandia Hymn and, with a hint of tears in my eyes, proclaimed that the Indigo Girls "performed that church song" so beautifully! She told me I'd make a great lesbian. Touche...

Well, we're singing this hymn tonight as our preparation hymn. I really think that the hymn will offer the congregation a powerful reminder on this Fourth of July Weekend, that as wonderful as we believe our nation to be, as much as we may believe that we are blessed, we got to remember that as much as we may believe our skies to be blue, but so do the folks in every other nation.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
with hope and dreams as true and high as mine.