Assist me to proclaim

The final hymn at church yesterday was, "O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing". The moment I saw that, leafing through the bulletin during the prelude, I chuckled and pulled out the hymnal to make sure the version printed in the Hymnal 1982 was the same as I was used to, lyrically. "O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing" is one of the hymns I know best... one of the hymns I can sing without the hymnal. This is largely because of Mark Miller's anthem based on the hymn, which I have sung many, MANY times. In many, many situations. With additional verses sometimes, with lyric changes, with Mark himself... that "O For A Thousand Tongues" and parts of Leavitt's Missa Festiva are probably my most sung anthems. Mark Miller's version is a rock-gospel jam session. It was incredibly strange for me to sing the "straight" version of "O For a Thousand Tongues To Sing", and I think I had a strange grin on my face throughout the whole hymn, recalling the joy of Mark's version.

I later found myself walking down Lafayette, going to a Pi Day party (because I'm cool), and singing Mark's "O For A Thousand Tongues" to myself. It's almost embarrassing to admit that I had never really paid attention to the lyrics before (sorry Charles Wesley!)... but since I've known them ever since I can remember, they've always been words I've never questioned. Most of the hymn is pretty straightforward, about Christ healing our wounds and that's so joyous we must sing about it ("Hear him, ye deaf! Ye voiceless ones, your loosened tongues employ! Ye blind, behold your Savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy!").

But what struck me was the title phrase:

O, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise!

This plea for some way to sing praise seems almost Shakespearian to me ("O, for a muse of fire," "Ay, that I had not done a thousand more!"), and I immediately latched onto it. How often I have wanted to have more than my own voice and my body because the amount I have to express requires more than I have! How many times I have wanted to scream with more than one voice! O, if I only had a thousand tongues so I could even begin to sing, "Gloria!" and "Hosanna!" and "Alleluia!" and "Sanctus!"

And then I realized, oh wait...

That's what directing is.