“How Foolish They Were”
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.
The Hymn of the Month for January 2024 is “How Foolish They Were” tune ROCKVILLE, another winner from the Keithahn-Horman hymn-writing team. It is an Epiphany hymn, which combines a text with a decidedly unusual, even awkward, meter with a tune that completely belies that meter with its completely natural and singable flow. While the first three stanzas focus on the Epiphany story of the “foolish, and yet, oh, so wise” magi who followed a star “to give a poor boy their frankincense, myrrh, (and) precious gold,” the final two stanzas give meaning to the story for our twenty-first century ears by suggesting that “we be such fools (and that), we be so wise” as to “dare to care, to give and to share, that one day the world may be healed.” Thus, the particularity of the Epiphany narrative becomes a far more relevant reminder for the church of today “to see in each face, in every poor place, the Child in the lost and the least,” a message definitely worth singing about for the entire month of January.
Mary Nelson Keithahn (b. 1934) 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.
John D. Horman (b. 1947) 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, half of which appear in Faith that Lets Us Sing: Fifty New Hymns and Short Worship Songs, published in 2017 by Leupold Editions.
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