Over the past couple of months I have been working, in collaboration with noted spiritual director, Dick Rice, in composing music to accompany the writings he is doing on the Servant Songs of Isaiah.
The music below is based on the first part of the Third Servant Song of Isaiah.
Here is the text.
SONG 4: Is 50:4-6
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. (NRSV)
I composed a poetic text based on this reading.
Oh my people,
As a mother hears the cries
Of her children, so have I
Heard your cries of pain.
Your misery, upon which
My gaze has seen, moves
My heart with compassion.
The despair of being forgotten,
Forsaken by the One
From whom you were created,
Swells within you, but
I have not forgotten you,
Nor will I leave you forsaken.
I wear your image, and,
In total solidarity with you,
Have put on your pain
Like one putting on a coat.
Its heavy weight of shame
hangs from my shoulders,
Memories of the blows from abuse
Rain on my back
like the lash of a whip.
My words to you are a balm,
Like that gently wiped
On angry welts
Raised upon the skin;
A source of hope to lift
Your beaten spirits from the dust.
For I do not count you
Among the disgraced,
But among my most beloved.
And hold you as close to me
As my breath.
(c) 2022 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Here is the music. It is based on the form of a Prelude and Fugue. The only difference is the Prelude is recapped, ending the song.
