“Great Spirit, Timeless Wind of Change”
This month we continue our 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 will often be thematically appropriate for a particular season of the church year or it may be related to a more general theme about the church’s mission in contemporary society. 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. Additional hymns will occasionally be suggested for a particular Sunday in the church year or for annual commemorations, such as the liturgies of Holy Week; such hymns may only be appropriate on the designated day, or they might be used as a Hymn of the Month in anticipation of or in response to the particular day observed on the church calendar.
John Core’s text, Great Spirit, Timeless Wind of Change (suggested familiar tunes: SUSSEX CAROL, MELITA), is appropriate not only for the Day of Pentecost, but might well serve as a Hymn of the Month for June, though introduced on the Day of Pentecost which, in 2023, is the last Sunday in May. While each stanza begins by addressing the “Great Spirit” and concludes with the word, “Pentecost,” the first stanza alludes to the “breath of life” in the creation story, the second to the “wings and song of dove beside the Jordan” in John’s account of the Baptism of Our Lord, and the third to the “Spirit Fire of Pentecost” who appeared on that first Pentecost “in tongues of flame.” The concluding fourth stanza serves as an invocation of the Holy Spirit to “embrace us all (and) guide us . . . now toward an unending Pentecost.”
Core (1951-2017) was born at Camp (now Fort) Rucker, Alabama, and earned a BA in Speech Communication from West Virginia University in Morgantown, where he served as a Library Associate cataloging music from 1975 until his death in 2017. He was a member of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and published four collections of hymn texts with Leupold Editions, Inc.
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