A Changed Perspective

I had one of those perspective changing experiences last night. One of those times that make a person sit and and look at the world in a new way.

I was invited by the Sisters to come along with them to the Cathedral, for a memorial mass for Bishop Harold de Soysa, who was the Bishop of Colombo in the sixties. The Cathedral itself is magnificent. It is built in Sri Lankan architectural style, so it resembles a Buddhist temple. It is build in an octagonal shape, and designed with the altar in the middle, so that the congregation can gather around the altar. It is made out of rough concrete, but the soaring arches and dome are incredibly beautiful. The sense when one goes in is of air and space and coolness (important in this climate).

When we went in we were handed a leaflet with the hymns for the evening. The Church of Ceylon uses English hymnals (at least in the English services) and I recognized all the hymns (some of my favorites, including "To God be the Glory, Who Great Things Has Done). The hymn for during communion was "How Great Thou Art".

How Great Thou Art has always been a favorite of mine. We used to sing it every summer at our annual Church Camp, when most of the congregation of Holy Trinity would pack up their tents and RVs and head out to the David Thompson Resort for a weekend. We would have the Sunday eucharist service out on a hillside, looking over a valley of pine trees and beyond to the startling blue of Abraham Lake. We would worship there, surrounded on all sides by towering mountains, and sing "How Great Thou Art". We are the products of our experiences, and so I always associate that hymn with the pine forests of the Rocky Mountains.

When through the woods
And forest glades I wander
I hear the birds
Sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down
From lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook
And feel the gentle breeze;

These words have always conjured up for me a vision of wandering through the sparse pines around The David Thompson Resort, coming unexpectedly on a small stream maybe, and feeling the ever present breeze off Lake Abraham. Your average Rocky Mountain experience, familiar to anyone whose had the opportunity to visit the forests of Alberta. It is a very Canadian scene.

So here we were, merrily sweltering in the sticky heat of the tropics, belting out this old hymn, this hymn that I associate totally with Canada, with Alberta. As we were singing, I got to thinking: The Sri Lankans have forests. And mountains (grand ones too!) they have brooks, and they have gentle breezes (for which I am always grateful!). The mountains and forests look nothing like the ones in Canada. No evenly spaced pines here! No jagged chunks of rock poking into the sky. It was then that I realized that this hymn was not necessarily a Canadian hymn. The Sri Lankans who sing this hymn do so with perfect sincerity, and a totally different image in their minds than I do.

Yet we both mean the same things by it. For this is not a hymn to nature, but a hymn to God, and we both worship the same God, each from our own contexts. So I will continue to think of the lovely Rocky Mountains when I sing it, and I hope that the Sri Lankans will think of their mountains, and we will agree on the chorus:

Then sings my soul,
My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art!
How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul,
My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art!
How great Thou art!