God of Wisdom and Compassion
This month we continue our new Hymn of the Month series in which one or more hymns drawn from
collections published by Leupold Editions will be posted on the opening page of the website for
consideration by pastors and musicians who may wish to introduce the hymn to their congregations the
following month. The Hymn of the Month may be particularly appropriate for a given Sunday during the
month, but often will also be thematically relevant for every Sunday during the month or season. Thus
pastors and/or musicians may wish to have the choir introduce the hymn on the first Sunday of the month
or season and then invite the congregation to join with the choir in singing the hymn on each of the
remaining Sundays.
The Hymn of the Month for September 2021 is God of Wisdom and Compassion, with a text by Mary
Nelson Keithahn (b. 1934) and a tune by John D. Horman (b. 1946). The hymn focuses on music and the
arts as many congregations celebrate the beginning of a new program year of choir rehearsals, concerts,
art exhibits, and other arts related ministries.
Keithahn is a United Church of Christ pastor and educator, now retired in Rapid City, South Dakota,
where she still works out of her home as a freelance writer, lyricist, and hymn writer. Horman is a
composer, clinician, and former public school music teacher who serves as organist and director of music
at First Congregational Church (UCC) in Washington, DC, and has over 250 published anthems to his
credit. Collaborators for over thirty years, Keithahn and Horman they have written over a hundred hymns
together, some of which appear in more than a dozen recently published hymnals and supplements. Faith
that Lets Us Sing: Fifty New Hymns and Short Worship Songs, published in 2017, is their fourth
collection of hymns and their first under the Leupold Editions imprimatur.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.