The Tender Land

Yesterday I ended my post with a link to a beautifully done music video of "The Promise of Living" from Copland's moving opera "The Tender Land." The setting for chorus and orchestra is by John Williams.

[Can you name two movies that feature soundtracks by John Williams? If not, click on his name to read more about him.]

THE HARVESTERS Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The painting at the left by Pieter Bruegel the Elder is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. What a wonderful scene the artist creates, with the workers sharing a break for refreshment in shade of a lone tree.

In this version of "The Promise of Living", a well-done scene from the opera version, I could swear that's my older brother singing the opening bass solo.

Here is the lovely text for this song :

The promise of living with hope and thanksgiving

Is born of our loving our friends and our labor.

The promise of growing with faith and with knowing

Is born of our sharing our love with our neighbor.

The promise of living, the promise of growing,

Is born of our born of our singing with joy and thanksgiving.

For many a year we've known these fields

And all the work that makes them yield.

Are you ready to lend a hand?

By working together we'll bring in the harvest,

The blessings of harvest.

We plant each row with seeds of grain

And Providence sends us the sun and the rain.

By lending a hand,

By lending an arm bring out

Bring out from the farm

The blessing of harvest.

Give thanks there was sunshine!

Give thanks there was rain!

Give thanks we have hands to deliver the grain!

O let us be joyful!

O let us be grateful

To the Lord for his blessing!

As the season of planting, hoeing, and tending the fields gets into full swing, won't you join me in saying a prayer for the farmers across our land and around the world?

God of the Universe,
You made the heavens and the earth,
So we do not call our home merely “planet earth.”
We call it your Creation, a Divine Mystery,
a Gift from Your Most Blessed Hand.
The world itself is your miracle.
Bread and vegetables from earth are thus also from heaven.
Help us to see in our daily bread your presence.

Upon this garden
May your stars rain down their blessed dust.
May you send rain and sunshine upon our garden and us.
Grant us the humility to touch the humus,
That we might become more human.
That we might mend our rift from your Creation,
That we might then know the sacredness of the gift of life—
That we might truly experience life from the hand of God.
For you planted humanity in a garden,
and began our resurrection in a garden.
Our blessed memory and hope lie in a garden.

Thanks be to God,

Who made the world teeming with variety,
Of things on the earth, above, the earth, and under the earth. 

Thanks be to God,
For the many kinds of plants, trees, and fruits,
We celebrate.
For the centipedes, ants, and worms,
For the mice, marmots, and bats,
For the cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers
We rejoice,
That we find ourselves eclipsed by the magnitude
Of generosity and mystery.
Thanks be to God!    Amen.

                                         from Common Prayer, published by Zondervan, 2010

And a final thought . . .

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed.  Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

                                                         Henry David Thoreau