“This Is a Light Year”
This month we continue our Hymn of the Month series in which one or more hymns drawn from collections published by The Leupold Foundation will be posted on the website and published in The Organist Companion for consideration by pastors and musicians who may wish to introduce the hymn to their congregations the following month, perhaps by having the choir introduce the hymn on the first Sunday of the month or season and then inviting the congregation to join with the choir in singing the hymn on each remaining Sunday. Additional hymns will occasionally be suggested for a particular Sunday or festival in the church year; 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 on the church calendar.
HYMN OF THE MONTH FOR JANUARY 2025:
Text: “This Is a Light Year” by John Thornburg, The One Who Taught Beside the Sea, p. 25. Tune: TIME, by Amanda Husberg, When You Pass through the Waters, p. 55.
Celebrating the dawn of a new year, the Hymn of the Month for January 2025 is “This Is a Light Year” by John Thornburg (b. 1954), a text set to the tune TIME by Amanda Husberg (1940-2021), in which each of the first four stanzas begins with a declaration about the year: “This is a light year, . . . a new year, . . . a doubt year, . . ., (and) a friend year,” after which the first stanza is effectively repeated as a fifth stanza. In reference to this hymn, which was composed for the 50th anniversary of Walnut (Hill) United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, Thornburg has written: “The guidance for this text’s imagery came from the first sermon preached at that church by The Reverend Charles Denman, founding pastor.” Although the text is obviously appropriate for liturgies on New Year’sEve/New Year’s Day, thematically it could certainly be sung every Sunday in the month of January.
John Thornburg is a fourth-generation United Methodist minister whose grandfather was a noted gospel singer, touring as a teenager with the legendary Homer Rodeheaver. After graduation from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Thornburg served in parish ministry for twenty-two years before embarking on a new ministry of song leadership and worship consultation. He is now a senior area consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation. Amanda Husberg studied organ at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska, and early childhood education at Hunter College in New York City. She served for some five decades as Director of Music for Saint John the Evangelist Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York, and worked for thirty-six years as an Educational Director in New York City’s publicly funded day care system. Three collections of her delightful hymn tunes have been published by The Leupold Foundation: When You Pass Through the Waters (2005), A Treasury of Faith—Lectionary Hymns, New Testament, Series B (2012), and A Treasury of Faith—Lectionary Hymns, Old Testament, Series C.
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