This is a book of prayer rituals and chants from Trisha Watts that you can buy at Willow. The actual book, Sanctuary: Where Heaven Touches Earth was written by Trisha Watts and Gabrielle Lord and is still available as an e-book. It reminds me of John O’Donohue talking about “thin places” where the gap between us and the numinous feels so narrow.
What is nice is that the chants here are in various styles, some uplifting and some more thoughtful, so not everything is like, say Taize.
I find it passing strange that the Catholic Church with its long history of mystics, poets and prophets currently finds itself thrall to an inappropriate and didactic resort to legalism and catechism. So along with Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen with now welcome Trish of Sydney to correct this and rightly so.
Each of these songs can also be purchased individually as sheet music and MP3s, and there is a snippet of her version there for each one to see how it should sound.
For some of these songs I had to make up some chords and sort out songs that are meant to be sung freely for metrical use in BIAB.
This is a selection from this book.
Let go, release, let judgment cease.
Let go, release, open to peace.
Hear the voice of justice cry, moving through our land,
Ringing over hills and plains linking hand with hand.
I am the land, living, breathing, dying, rising.
Do not despair when you fall or grieve.
Falling does not hinder great love.
Gathered on this night, we pause to remember,
Pause to remember, pause to remember.
Gathered on this night, in heat of the summer…
Gathered on this night, at close of December…
Gathered on this night, we praise our creator…
My soul proclaims with grateful heart,
My spirit rejoices: How great thou art!
Deep waters, flowing, calling all to follow.
Watching, list’ning, waiting, silence finds a home.
With child-like hearts, abundant love
Would fill our being, if we truly trusted.
All is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending.
Heavy the hearts that are burdened, tired the hearts that are pained.
Weary the hearts that are broken, come to our aid.
Comfort our hearts that are lonely, melt our hearts of stone.
Gentle our hearts with compassion, come, make us whole.
Choose life, that you and your children may live, may live.
Choose life, that you and your children may live.
I set before you life and death,
I set before you blessing and choice.
Choose life, that you and your children may live.
1 All we long for is a home, a place to rest our heads,
Where our children are free to play and grow,
Beyond terrors that we’ve fled.
2 All we long for is a home, a safety from the storms,
Where life is valued and revered,
Where trust can be restored.
3 All we long for is a home, a space in which to breathe,
Where the stories of our lives are heard,
And our hearts can freely grieve.
© 2003 Trisha Watts
Please explain “… inappropriate and didactic resort to legalism and catechism.” My aged brain doesn’t have as many litte grey cells (as Poirot might say) as it once did …
I don’t know I ever had that many grey cells – I can reread most Agatha Christie with no problems cause I still get fooled.
Listening to a lot of allusive songs from Trisha Watts reminded me of the cataphatic vs apophatic tension in the Catholic church. The thought that we can somehow codify God in a human document like a catechism, when anything that can be expressed in human language will be inadequate to describe God. That doesn’t mean that the catechism has no merit, it’s just a temptation to idolatry and closed mindedness if inappropriately applied.
Since the apophatic way accepts our inadequacy to understand God, and that the unmediated Beatific vision is beyond us, we approach such things through song, ritual and liturgy – looking sideways grateful for a glimpse when the whole is beyond us.
Trish rarely mentions God directly, yet her songs are a way into the vicinity of God – in the Cloud of Unknowing and all that.
The church is getting better though, the mystics aren’t routinely burned at the stake these days.
cheers
Geoff