Another song by Brian Boniwell of Corinda or Toowoomba, but in Queensland at least. Biographical information is thin on the net so anyone who knows the details please pass them on.
This song is very frequently sung at our church and I must admit having not noticed just how odd it is until I looked at the lyrics printed without the music. It is sung as if from God, so unsurprisingly no “Yes” from the NLMB, and consists of a series of questions or challenges to our commitment.* A brave thing to be doing and quite blunted by repeated use I’m afraid. I will have to pay more attention.
This may be also be due to technical problems of a distracting nature that arise when singing this song. The “will yous” are to be quavers but somewhere along the the line our assembly have voted for crotchets, so if you sing it as written there is a battle on. Also there is a sign for a pause at “night”, but everyone wants to come back in a different time and so best ignored I reckon. On the other hand the descending chords after “I die” are most effective. Here is a Youtube clip of solo voice and guitar doing the song.
Verse 1
Will you give me your life forever?
Will you carry my cross every day?
Will you walk in the light of my presence?
Will you follow the truth of my ways?Refrain
Will you love me as I have loved you?
Will you live with me the darkness as I die?
For the moon and the stars will be gone like
the night,
And the sun will be shining on you.Verse 2
Like the purest of gold in the furnace,
Is your love strong enough to endure?
Does your faith carry on through the shadows?
Does it shine in the night for the world?Refrain
Verse 3
Can you walk in the footprints of silence?
Through the wilderness sands in the sun,
From the desert of doubt and temptation.
To the glorious mountain of fire?Refrain
© Spectrum Publications, 1978.
http://www.spectrumpublications.com.au/
* I was wrong – astonishingly it was approved – they put a bracket at the beginning so the song appeared out of sequence in their list.
hi,
I am a music ministry leader in our parish in deer park Victoria.
one of my friends in the praise and worship group have asked me
if I have the music of this song. I checked my music library
and couldn’t find it. searched the YouTube and only found one.
very nice music but couldn’t find the music sheet at all or even
just the chords. I really love the song, and would like to teach my
group. can I please get a copy of the music sheet?
God bless.
G’Day
I’m sorry, I can’t send sheet music of copywrited material.
Brian Boniwell hasn’t much of a web presence but I think his e-mail is boniwell@usq.edu.au if you want to ask him about it.
I use the combined As One Voice guitar edition, which currently is less than $70 for 320+ songs and is available here:
http://www.asonevoice.com.au/as-one-voice-vol-1-2-combined/9781876357429
If your parish doesn’t own As One Voice it would be a good investment of their music ministry budget.
I know it seems churlish not to help, but I met some of the Australian songwriters in AOV at a conference some time ago, and they barely get any money for their work, so I think we should support them where possible.
Geoff
Hi Geoff, fyi. Info I know is Brian Boniwell was involved in Emmanuel years ago. Anyway he lived in Corinda during 70’s and 80’s. Then they moved to Toowoomba. For the last number of years he and his family live on the Gold Coast and Brian is involved in the music in Surfers Paradise Parish at the Clear Island Waters church.
That’s great to hear. I wonder if he knows people are still looking for his music?
oh my goodness, why arent his songs available on itunes? I mean if they are going to make you use their itunes thing exclusively for music.
I’ve been playing this song for years and do a pretty lively version of it. It’s still VERY popular with our congregation and always gets a great response from them; like they just about lift the roof off. I wish I could find the sheet music for it for myself and I’ve had others ask me where it might be available.
G’Day Ian
I still can’t find this a single sheet anywhere, so the only place I know it is available is in the AOV collections. Spectrum might know.
Geoff
Hi
Had been in music ministry at st Brigid’s Parish Coggee NSW. I love this song. We used “one voice ” music version . We manage to sing in SATB with the whole church singing along.
Cheers
Hi from Brian Boniwell
Sorry I have been so hard to track down. I now live on the Gold Coast at Varsity Lakes. I do have music books available if you want to email me: boniwell@aapt.net.au
I have also put four albums of my music recently on iTunes.
God bless
Brian Boniwell
Great to hear from you, Brian.
Geoff
I first heard this hymn in a Victorian Country Church don’t remember where & ever since I have been trying to have it sung in our Church but with no success. We have the One Voice CD & Hymn Book but this hymn does not feature in the CD.
My attempts [computer savvy/skills extremely weak] to try to get some thing to help us along has failed. I have asked for some help today from a couple of guys who no better
& hope we get there to be able to sing it on Palm Sunday at the Saturday 6.00pm Holy Mass with our limited choir.
Trying to connect with Brian Boniwell.
My all time favorite Psalm is #23.
I even named my Company “TLM Shepherd” Pty Ltd after “The Lord’s My Shepherd.
It was also my favorite hymn, that is until I heard Brian’s beautiful, yet disarmingly humble and simple Hymn, “The Lord is my Shepherd . . . and I want to follow”.
What an awesome gift the Lord has given you Brian. I share your birth year, but was born in Glasgow, not here.
Would dearly love to connect with you Brian, if you ever see this. Kindly email me at dms17@outlook.com.
Blessings, Doug.
Hey Geoff,
I’ve been apart of music ministry for about 12 years, i moved to a different parish due to change of employment and just found out some hymns are forbidden as it uses ‘God’s voice’. I just wanted to ask more about this please as a lot of the ‘old time favourite’ hymns use God’s voice.
Pray Blessings over you and all for the new year ahead.
G’Day Cyprian
I don’t know about singing in the voice of God being completely forbidden, since this hymn has been approved by the National Liturgy and Music Board in Australia and so it can’t be a blanket prohibition. However, there have certainly been suggestions over the years to avoid hymns of this nature.
If I remember correctly, the Body of Christ is present at Mass in the Priest, the proclaimed Word, the Eucharistic elements and the assembled faithful, so maybe it’s OK if it is not a solo. I also suspect some people have a lack of poetic imagination if they can’t situate the voice of a hymn – no one singing these songs think they are God.
I wonder sometimes if this suggestion to avoid hymns that had us singing in the voice of God was a cover to get rid of songs that weren’t to the taste of the organist.
I think it’s a bit like saying we should only have “we” songs on liturgy when many psalms are “I” songs, as there are parts of the mass where we do proclaim in the voice of God.
The discernment needed is as always – does the song fit the liturgy, is it culturally appropriate, does it have beauty within that context, is it scriptural or based on the words of the mass, etc. I have also discovered many songs that are very meaningful to some of the asssmbly because an association with important times in the their lives, friends and family who have died or to events in the life of that parish and there would need to be a good reason to stop singing such songs.
Whether you want to wade into local liturgy wars is up to you – I try to keep my head down these days.
cheers
Geoff
Geoff
Thank you for this very meaningful consideration of “God’s voice” in hymns.
Relationship with God is the very keystone of the Christian life. From the earliest times Christians have expressed their relationship with God through poetry, symbolism, metaphor and figurative language. These forms of expression are able to connect with the inexpressible mystery of God in ways that are more open and universal.
Since the Reformation in particular, Western Christianity has become more literal and less figurative in its understanding and expression of God. A rediscovery of the contemplative tradition in the Western Church has reawakened an understanding of God as mystery, One who desires to be in intimate relationship with us. This sees us seeking to relate with God not just through beliefs and ideas, but also through deeper relationship.
Silent prayer calls us to listen to God, not only through the Church, creation and all that surrounds us, but also to find God dwelling deep within us. Awakening to God dwelling within us, and in all that surrounds us, changes our perspective on God, ourselves and how we see virtually everything.
Thanks so much, Brian.
I think it was Father Guardini back in the 1960s who suggested modern man was no longer capable of the liturgical act. Our poor disintegrated post enlightenment brains struggle to think and feel simultaneously and lose the poetic and metaphorical.
If we live in the the questions and the mystery rather than false certitudes we might get somewhere, otherwise we may as well sing the catechism.
As always thanks for the music, Brian.
cheers
Geoff