Today’s offertory is an arrangement of “Repton,” one of Parry’s most beloved tunes. He wrote the tune in 1888 for an oratorio. And in 1924 George Gilbert Stocks, director of music at Repton School, set it to “Dear Lord and Father of mankind,” hence the tune’s name, “Repton.” Parry had no clue that his melody would be paired with this hymn by John G. Whittier, an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States.

This anthem is an arrangement by H.A. Chambers, a composer and publisher. The best verse is “Breathe through the heats of our desire thy coolness and thy balm; let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm.” It’s remarkable how this beloved treasure of a tune, a hymn, and an anthem rose up in different people who never intended to be “collaborators.” We’re all collaborating, but we just don’t realize it. The collective is at work, but there are those among us who think otherwise.

When we let our senses be dumb, our flesh retire, and we yield to the still, small voice of calm, things just seem to fit together. We realize everything is indeed out of our hands. Most of us, however, are too busy “making” things happen. In a famous Bee Gees song, “Staying Alive,” the lyrics say, “I’m a lady’s man, no time to talk.” We’re busy trying to make it. We’re trying hard to keep our separate identities alive.

The idea of staying alive is more related to death than anything. In this sense, we are trying to keep the flesh alive – our exteriority and our cause. How futile! You indeed have time to talk. The crux of life is softness, anonymity, willingness, and surprise. If you’re too busy being “Elon Musk,” you have no time to talk. I heard he must travel with 20 bodyguards. What a shame. He can’t just anonymously meander into the local coffee shop for a chitchat. Keeping up that kind of rigid persona is very much like staying alive, forgetting that you are indeed dying.

In letting go, cooling down, and “retiring,” we relieve ourselves of the nonsense of keeping up appearances. By remaining open, we begin living by our heart’s desire, which breathes through the heats of our superficial desire. Parry wrote a melody that was never intended to be a hymn, yet it lives in infamy that way. It was conjured up and “stays alive” in ways we cannot explain. It seems propped up by itself. It made an appearance and never had to keep one up. No one had to work hard to keep it up or make it “stay alive.” It was created and has life on its own, abundantly. The same is true of us, if only we would drop the pretense of our controlling waywardness.  

Breathing through the heats of desire is what cools you down to learn of your heart’s desire – unconditional love and service to your higher calling. If you are open, supple, and yielding, you are really living. Your heart’s desires are always giving and forgiving and they breathe through the heats of your fleshly desire. Staying alive is different from being alive. You never know how things will be conjured up. Best to stay out of the way than to stay alive. What a great reminder in this mysteriously moving anthem that seems to have been constructed in a surprisingly circuitous way. Soli Deo Gloria!