William Billings was a true American pioneer. His father died when he was only 14, and he was forced to drop out of school and to take up tanning hides to make ends meet. He began composing without any formal music training, and never really made any money on it, despite the fact that his music was very popular.

Billings music is rustic. It’s rough around the edges, yet meaningful and innocent. What fascinates me about this music is how much different it sounds from what was happening in Europe at the same time. Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven were composing lavish operas, oratorios, and symphonies in opulent concert halls and cathedrals, while Billings and his American counterparts were composing rustic hymns and songs in barns and simple, wooden churches. It was honest. They made the best out of what they had, true to early American gusto and ingenuity. I think that’s why I love it so much.

Despite Billings’ lack of formal music training, today’s anthem is written with a rather complex style called a canon. Canons are not easy to write. I remember having to write a canon in 18^th century counterpoint, an undergrad theory class – a very unsuccessful venture for me. I suppose I’m not much of a pioneer! A canon is a melody that can be sung in a round, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat or Frère Jacques.

Who knows why Billings chose to set this text as a cannon. It just seems to make sense. It’s repetitive, it’s thought-provoking, and it almost is like an incantation. The spellbinding nature of the layered lines echoes with a compelling tenderness, illustrating the cathartic and necessity of grief’s sweet release. The image of Jesus weeping at the graveside of Lazarus is one of scripture’s most poignant moments. Not even Jesus could contain his emotions over his friend’s death. That only teaches us that grieving is a part of life, a spiritual force that frees us from the “guilty world around.”

We all have a tendency to over attach. We are bound by relationships, medications, addictions, dead-end jobs, obsessions, compulsions, etc. We are codependent on things and situations to keep us happy. But Jesus overcame all of that. He says in John, “I have overcome the world.” He never “needed” a job, a relationship, things, or any other vice. But the one thing that he could not overcome was grief over losing a friend. That’s because grief is a reminder that life is the most precious of all gifts. Your home, your car, your job, your possessions – they are all secondary. I’d like to think that if my house burned to the ground, or my retirement accounts got wiped out (like those who invested with Bernie Madoff), I wouldn’t lose my spiritual grounding and put such loss on the same plane as the loss of one’s own life. But one never knows until it actually happens, right?

If we equate life itself with money, then when the stock market crashes, people will jump out of windows, as they did in the Great Depression of 1929. But life is the only thing that really matters. Everything else can be let go, leaving us to live in true freedom and inner harmony. Overcoming the world isn’t easy, but Jesus taught us that it’s doable. When death strikes, grief is something we all must go through. But in many ways, it is the most valuable teacher on earth. It shows us that everything is temporal on the physical level, and that what really matters is the gift of eternal life. Soli deo Gloria.