Singing the Lord's Prayer

By David Alexander

An aid to prayer. Through singing along with these metrically versified versions of the traditional prayer from the scriptures or prayer book, we hear the words, find the meanings, and pray anew. The tunes, some taken from traditional church sources (like Beethoven's Hymn to Joy), others from folk sources (like the Yellow Rose of Texas or the Mexican Hat Dance) and yet others from Taiwan and the Philippines, add rhythm and melody to the words from the hearts of the users.

The author began composing versifications of the prayer as an aid to his own meditation, and began setting them to tunes in order to remember them from night to night.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Alexander
• Release date: Oct 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463367230

David Alexander

Originally from Los Angeles Vietnam Veteran (18th Engineer Brigade, 577th Engineer Battalion) Undergraduate degree in Spanish Graduate degrees in Theology (MA) and Education (EdM) Clergy (Reformed Church in America and Presbyterian Church in Taiwan) 39 years of life in Taiwan. Took citizenship there in 2018 and promptly retired to Holland, MI. Life in Taiwan included college campus ministry, parish ministry, publications work and theological education. Finished career as a lecturer in practical theology and director of the language center of Tainan Theological College.

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Introduction

After a year away from Taiwan, we returned to Kaohsiung City, and I took on a new assignment, as a translator and editor at the Taiwan Church News. This was an office job in Tainan City that came with regular hours. It facilitated participation in evening activities at home. One thing we joined was an evening course in Spiritual Disciplines led by our friend, Scott Grandi. Among the topics covered was prayer as meditation and contemplation. In trying that out, I lit upon using the Lord's Prayer as I drifted off to sleep. The first several weeks found me in a battle between Our Father in Heaven and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

Eventually, when I got the beginning words right (and the others followed automatically), I fell into a rote thing which was unsatisfying. So, I went at it word by word for a while, meditating on the meaning of our, and when I had exhausted that, father, and so on, meaning by meaning.

My intellectual bent (if it can be so dignified) turned even that towards dissatisfaction, so I turned to poetry and music. I began to set the meanings to tunes. At that time, the tunes in the 1964 Seng-si hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan were most immediate to me. One after one, I would compose poetry for singing, using the meanings