The upcoming online March 26th summit, “Holy Ground, Holy Table” presented by NE Minnesota Synod’s EcoFaith Network and St. Paul Area Synod’s Care of Creation Work Group, will be sown together, so to speak, with a new hymn, In Sacred Manner from All Creation Sings. The author of this hymn text is the late Susan Palo Cherwien, who left our mortal community this last December. We are using her hymn as a loving tribute to Susan, who is one of the most powerful voices in our church’s hymnody for this generation. Six of Susan’s hymn texts are found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship and six in our new supplement, All Creation Sings.

Her voice will sing on.

On March 26th the six stanzas of In Sacred Manner will be interspersed with stories of Holy Ground, Holy Table: Regenerative Practices for Wholeness of the Earth, told by story tellers whose work centers on issues of food justice, earth-healing, agriculture, gardening, setting the table, urban/rural conversation, and the place of our church in the middle of all this. The text of the hymn almost seems to have been written with our summit in mind. Stanza one ends with the couplet “We stand on holy ground. We stand on holy ground.” Actually, the name of the summit was coined before we discovered this beautiful hymn. Can we say it was “a God thing?”

In his upcoming book A Companion To “All Creation Sings,” to be published by Augsburg Fortress Press, Paul Westermeyer writes of the hymn text:

This hymn was included in O Blessed Spring (1997), the first hymn collection of Susan Palo Cherwien (#923). It details the parts of creation we are called “in sacred manner” to live and to love: earth, stars, green, fire, animals, and the “living round” on “holy ground.” The author says that “this hymn on creation was written in response to the class ‘Fate of the Earth’ taught by Bill Hill, philosophy, and Tony Gramza, biology, at Mundelein College, Chicago. Each stanza begins with the native American prayer that we may walk ‘in sacred manner upon the earth,’ and closes with a biblical image (Exod. 3:5; Ps 19:1; Ps 96; Job 12:7)” to which Palo Cherwien has added Job 38:7.

Susan’s husband, David Cherwien, a well-known organist and church musician and founder/director of The National Lutheran Choir, provided a commentary on the hymn in a video from The National Lutheran Choir. (This commentary, as well as an exquisite performance by TNLC with beautiful video images, can be found on the website https://nlca.com as “Hymns We Love to Sing #16.”) David quotes Susan’s words:

How much we can learn from the indigenous first nation people about the relationship we have with the earth. How different would things be if settlers had sat at their feet and learned how to live with the earth instead of dominating it. Native Americans had this prayer that began “May we walk, may we see, may we touch, may we hear . . .”

The 5th stanza, one of David’s favorites, begins “In sacred manner may we live among the wise and loving ones.” Our minds go to people we know, but here the sages turn out to be the other animals of the earth, our “four-legged, finned and feathered friends.” The hymn text, using indigenous peoples’ voices, relates in a profound way our proper relationship with the earth and its creatures, our “holy ground.”

The tune for the hymn, written by Pastor Robert Buckley Farlee, director of music at Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis, is named Seattle – for two reasons: 1) David and Susan spent the first six years of their married life in Seattle; and 2) the city is a place where there is a great awareness of nature, its lakes, ocean, mountains, forests, creatures, and natural abundance. Moreover, Chief Seattle of the Sequamish ad Duwamish nations, gave a famous speech in which he said “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.”

The six videos for our summit (one for each stanza) are being created by Duluth videographer Linda Kalweit, using paintings by Robyn Sand Anderson (robynsandanderson.com) and Charlotte Schuld (charlotteschuld.com). The musical arrangements and orchestrations are by Paul Jacobson, composer, flutist, and cofounder of The Lyra Baroque Orchestra. Musicians from Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul created the recordings: Kristina Rodel, soprano and Erik Krog, baritone, both soloists with Vocalessence; Ellen Hacker, violin and organ; Paul Jacobson, flute and organ; and Elianna Thorne, cello. These videos will not only serve as a framework for the summit, but also they will help us all become familiar with this wonderful hymn.