Good News...

I am a pushover for good news. 

I suppose every Christian is, since the Gospel, is--literally--the Good News.  I can go for weeks and weeks on a bit of good news that comes either expectedly or unexpectedly.

Today, I am rejoicing in two pieces of good news having to do with my hymn writing.  One came in the mail and one in the email which to my way of thinking is a nice blend of old and new technology.  Both came from hymn publishers...

The first good news came from Scott Shorney who is the Vice President of Hope Publishing Company, in Chicagoland, which is the largest and leading publisher of hymns in the country--at least that is what I have been told.  The Shorney family are Hope Publishing and vise versa.  Scott is a great fellow and among other things he and his family host the Life Member Dinner at the Annual Meeting of the Hymn Society which is always a joyful evening.

Scott wrote to request permission that one of my hymns may be printed in a preview book that is now underway for the Community of Christ hymnal (due to be published in 2013).  This will give members of that denomination a chance to sample some of the hymns that will be in the new book.  Of course I said yes.  I was aware that the book was underway and also had received word that some of my hymns would be in it, because of several happy communications from Dale Luffman, who was in my doctor of ministry cohort group at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary back in the mid 1990s.  Dale is one of the leaders of the Community of Christ denomination and when the editors of their new hymnal met with him a year or so ago to show him what had been selected for the new hymnal, he was happily surprised to see the name of an old friend among the names of the authors, and got in touch with me.  Dale and the others who were in our D. Min. group were all from "all over" both geographically and denominational speaking; I was the only person in the group who lived in Pittsburgh.  So every time our group met (in June and January for two years), Judy and I would have a dinner to which all of the others and all our professors and their spouses for that semester, were invited, as well as Sam and Doris Calian, the President of the seminary and his wife, who are dear friends.  Good news in the form of a letter and good memories, combined.

The second good news came from Lucy Sullivan who is with Wayne Leupold Editions, another fine publishers of hymns and sacred music.  Wayne Leupold is a human dynamo and an excellent organist and founded this company ...  about a dozen years ago and it has been a real boost to sacred hymn writers.  Lucy is the editor at WLE.  This news came in as I was starting the September Worship Committee meeting.  I happened to hear the computer make that "ding" noise that says a new email came in.  I took a look and lo and behold there was not one, but two emails, from Lucy.  Now, in 2009 WLE published a collection of 62 of my hymns called "We Turn to God" and I had the joy of working with Lucy then.  Since that time they had told me that a second book would be brought out in 2013.  So I had that in the back of my mind but in these matters the publisher always takes the lead and the author follows the steps, if you will permit a dancing metaphor. 

The news in the emails confirmed that Wayne Leupold is indeed planning to make my new book ready in time for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Hymn Society.

As the evening progressed, in Longwood, FL, we were working on many things having to do with worship in the next several months include Scottish Sunday on September 30th and World Communion Sunday the week after that.  In Colfax NC, Lucy was working (well into the night I might point out) on hymn publishing stuff--and I was on her radar.  So that when my meeting was over, I had several more emails from Lucy one of which was a conversation about the title for the book.  From some months back, we had had a tentative title and then a second working title and both were taken from first lines of hymns that would be in the book, but neither of them had really grabbed either of us.  In one of the emails, Lucy suggested that we turn the first line in one of the proposed title hymns from passive voice (in which it was written) to active voice.

Ta da!  What a wonderful idea.  And not only that, since the number of syllables were exactly the same, Lucy suggested that the active voice version might fit the hymn as well as fit our ideas for the title.  So it was that I went to the text of the hymn to see.  And yes, not only does it fit, but fit beautifully.  I told Lucy she is the hymn writer's angel--which she is.

So we are underway. 

And I am thankful to the Lord that these two good news items were in my head when I awakened today.