Recently, Carrie and I have been emailing about organizing a concert for her in the Calgary area, so I told her about Mom’s little song. Carrie replied, “Just the other day, I played a gig and was asking the audience if anyone knew the original nursery rhyme containing Merry Sunshine! Although my mom called me that, I have no recollection (nor does she) of where it came from! So thanks for that! Glad you finally got the song. :)”
Until today, I had never looked for it online, but apparently it's quite long with a couple of different tunes.
I found it here with two different midi tunes. The second midi file containes the tuneI'm familiar with, but it’s longer.
I found lyrics here, and a slightly different, but apparently official, set of lyrics here, with source citation. Who knew the song’s composer had a name? G. Ambrose.
How delightful to discover that the song is a dialogue between a child and the sun. And here I thought Mom's four-line lullaby was all about me!
Interestingly, my Mom's tune is very compatible with Carrie’s for a little medley. Carrie’s lyrics also reminds me of another song Mom used to sing to me and with me: "Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In". I remember entertaining groups with this song when I was about 4 years old ... and 40 ... and many ages in between. But I didn’t know Pebbles and Bamm Bamm had performed it!
I’ve been asked to sing “Child of My Heart” at The Word Guild Awards Gala in Mississauga, Ontario on June 16th. My parents are donating Aeroplan miles for the flight so I can share this song.
In January 2009, Dara and I sang it on our Minus 40 Tour. In May 2009, Lisa and I sang it for the Mother’s Day banquet at Arlington Beach Camp.
Last spring we won Award of Merit for song lyrics and this year I’ve been asked to sing it. I hope and pray that this song is used more and more widely for the glory of God and for the freedom of endless women and children!
For the month of May, “Child of My Heart” will be on IndieHeaven’s Fan Faves Chart. Click on www.indieheaven.com/fanfaves, select SONGWRITER in the dropdown box, the click the VIEW button. Add your vote by clicking on a star to rate the song.
Bryan Moyer Suderman rides the rails over 9,000 km to share songs from new CD\
What better way to celebrate the release of a new CD than to ride the rails for a month, covering over 9,000 km from Toronto to Vancouver and back, with plenty of singing stops in between?
That’s what Bryan Moyer Suderman is doing from September 15 to October 15, eager to share the songs from his new CD “A New Heart: songs of faith for small and tall.”
Moyer Suderman describes his newest CD, the 4th released on his SmallTall Music label, as the most “playful” and “ambitious” of any recording he’s done so far. With original songs that are evocative, engaging, and simple without being simplistic, Bryan sings from Genesis to the Gospels, Esther to Ephesians with a top-flight crew of backing musicians in styles ranging from folk and bluegrass to zydeco, bossa nova, and New Orleans jazz.
It’s easy to see why Moyer Suderman has become known for his unique gift of crafting songs and performances that draw from the deep wells of biblical vision and wisdom while being accessible and fun for young and old alike. Since the release of his first CD in 2002, Bryan’s “songs of faith for small and tall” have become favourites with families and churches across North America and beyond, and have been published in various hymnal, songbook, curriculum and other resources.
But why travel by train?
While travel and performing is an important part of Moyer Suderman’s work (he recently returned from Paraguay, where he was part of the song leading team at the Mennonite World Conference Assembly), he also struggles with how to carry out this vocation in a way that is sustainable economically and ecologically as well as sustainable in terms of healthy relationships with his family and local community (he attends Community Mennonite Church of Stouffville Ontario).
As a result, Moyer Suderman works to keep his long-distance travel schedule confined to a limited number of weeks per year, and then to “make hay while the sun shines” and perform as much as possible while he is on the road. The CanRail Pass offers a way to do that at a low cost and in a way that reduces the carbon emissions that would result from more “one-off” flights to long-distance engagements. Moyer Suderman completed a coast-to-coast USA railroad tour last spring, and has begun planning for the next one as well. “Besides,” Moyer Suderman says, “I love to travel by train!”
Another key component of Moyer Suderman’s long-term strategy is what he calls his “Community Supported Music” system. This is an innovative online delivery system for music that is patterned after the “Community Supported Agriculture” (CSA) approach, making regular “deliveries” of new songs that are “fresh, home-grown, and always in season.” Since pioneering this alternative business model for the arts which is entering its fourth year, Moyer Suderman has made 12 “deliveries” of new songs - complete with music notation, chords, thoughts and reflections, and activity ideas and tips for using the songs in home, school, and congregational settings. Various other artists have picked up on the idea as well, have been applying this model to their own work.
Moyer Suderman will be performing an all-ages concert at the Old United Church in Duval, SK on Sunday, October 4th. There will be a potluck at Newschool Arts (the old school) at 5:00 p.m. with concert to follow in the old United Church at 7:00 p.m.
Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually (p. 30).
Jean’s early life involved many sacrifices in and for Briercrest, while her later life led to unimagined opportunities. She had a career in higher education, followed by two special marriages, first to Tom Rohde, a Wall Street lawyer, and later to Bob Mahn, a faculty member at Ohio University. Keenly interested in matters of historical record, Jean was eager to meet with me. She remained connected with Briercrest throughout her life, as a supporter, an encourager, and sometimes challenger. During one life season, Jean and Bob lived in Moose Jaw and ate frequently at the former Pilgrim Restaurant.
Jean Mahn’s life is a story of reversed fortunes. As a girl in the 1930s involved in a fledgling college, she felt that she suffered and sacrificed many things by someone else’s choosing, yet these things were returned to her and multiplied later in life. She told me her father could have been a millionaire, but that he gave it all away to the school; later in life she would associate with millionaires, naming one as a best friend and, with her second husband, would give a $1 million gift to support Ohio University Libraries. Denied a bicycle in her teens, she flew on the Concorde jet in her seventies. She went from cleaning up Briercrest’s Yale Hotel in the 1930s and working into her 50s to support herself and supplement her parents’ pension, to marrying—for the first time at 53—a husband who, she said, “did not want me to work.” From giving up her bed for countless guests in her teens, to being “able to stay at [New York's] Waldorf Astoria any time, any weekend” because of her first husband’s job. Both husbands took care of her and helped to provide for her parents. Jean Mahn’s life is a great reversal: closed and “governed” at first, but ever expanding.
In spite of marrying so late in life, Jean’s husbands occupy a prominent place in her narrative. During her single years, Jean did some things she had always dreamed of, like learning to dance, but it was after she married that she really felt she began to have “an exciting life.” Near the end of her interview, Jean told me, “I have a lot to be thankful for, that I had such good friends and I don’t suppose anyone’s had the privileges that I’ve had in my later life.” Indeed, few people experience such dramatic shifts in a lifetime.
Jean met her first husband through a chance encounter, meeting Tom Rohde at Le Moal Restaurant in New York City through a stranger who very kindly invited her to share his taxi when she was stranded due to a snowstorm at La Guardia Airport.
She met her second husband through similar happenstance. Jean had always tried to follow her father’s advice: “Anytime you go to a strange city, be sure to take a bus trip if you can.” This is how she met her second husband, Bob Mahn, whom she married twenty years later. She was able to convalesce in her final home in Athens, Ohio thanks to Bob, who had arranged 24-hour live-in care for her after he died.
Jean basked in the companionship and privileges that came with both of her marriages, yet she remained quite independent. For example, refusing to cancel a lunch date when Bob Mahn came from the States to visit her in Moose Jaw, then putting off marriage to him until after a pre-planned trip on the Queen Mary to the British Isles.
Very interested in historical records, Jean referred often to her late husband Bob’s archival work at Ohio University. In fact, because of their separate academic careers they often consulted with each other in the 20 years between meeting and marrying. As you know, together they founded the Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections at the Ohio University Libraries. Jean used our visit very intentionally to provide me with as much material as possible to support my research: letters, newspaper clippings, other writings, and pictures.
I emerged from my research with a sense of wonder at being entrusted with precious memories, living connections to history that enrich the particular story of Briercrest and the wider stories of women in Saskatchewan and North America. Perhaps in Jean Rohde Mahn’s story someone will, as Frederich Buechner hopes, “recognize that in many ways it is also” theirs.Certainly, in Jean’s life we can see the active hand of God. To have known Jean, even for 24 hours, and to have been entrusted with her story has enriched my life.
I started speaking on Monday evening, August 17th. Tuesday through Friday I spoke 3 times a day: briefly in the morning at staff devotions, later in the morning I would tell a story from the book of Daniel, then in the evening we talked about God's work in our own lives. The kids were very responsive, and I had fun getting them involved through acting out the story or chanting or just asking review questions. They were amazingly attentive and some of the cabin groups went back and read more! One cabin leader said his boys had become "Bible addicts." Fun!
On Thursday I spoke from Ephesians 2:10 about being God's Masterpiece. It fit with the week's theme of being ALIVE in Christ and that we couldn't have done that for ourselves. It also fit with something we were learning from Daniel: that God is the one who gives wisdom and greatness, and if we think we're good and powerful and self-made, we might enjoy ourselves temporarily but we're in for a big surprise later!
To explain God's Masterpiece, I used a series of pictures of the pottery process from my brother Jeffrey's website. There is absolutely nothing that clay can do to help itself become something wonderful. And it takes time and a lot of pushing and pulling and spinning for the clay to be shaped into some thing beautiful and/or useful. After shaping it sits on a shelf and dries for several days (or weeks, as with teapots). Then it needs extreme heat... twice! Along the way there's decoration, that doesn't look like much, but the potter knows! Finally, after a long, intense process, you have beautiful plates and platters, big and small and medium bowls, mugs and goblets, cream and sugars, pitchers and teapots, vases and candle-holders, casseroles and cookie jars, and more!!! Jeffrey has even done sculptures and space ships with stained glass windows!
On Friday evening, I did a mini-concert and talked about how each of us has a story and God is writing it. One of the cabin leaders asked if he could sing Fingerprints of God by Steven Curtis Chapman. It fit perfectly, so at the end of the chapel service he sang and I joined with some harmony on the choruses. It was a perfect ending. For cabin devotions after chapel, I challenged the cabin leaders to go around their whole cabins and tell each child one thing they've noticed about God's fingerprints on that child. The next morning in staff meeting many cabin leaders shared how well that went over. In one cabin it became an encouragement fest, with all the guys sharing good things about each other. In another cabin, after the leader was done the girls wanted to tell the leader about God's fingerprints on her! Sometimes we can be faithful to our calling and not get to see the fruit of what we do, but that was such a treat to hear about all that sharing.
At Saturday morning's closing rally, I recapped the week for the parents, explaining the Daniel stories and the masterpiece and fingerprints of God. Just 5 minutes. Amazing how I had to pray harder about those 5 minutes than the longer ones! The less time you have, the more it counts. Hmmmm.
The most challenging part of the day was climbing the big hill 3 times a day to the dining hall. I think my favourite part of the day was worship. During staff meetings we all agreed that this was our favourite--the energetic and heartfelt worship of 9-11 year olds. I loved seeing this one little guy in the aisle with his hand raised up.
My friend Kathleen McMillan has been a speaker at Manitou twice before, so I asked her for some advice. Here's what she told me:
If I remember correctly lots of farm kids at that camp, first nations too? Tell stories. sing to them. be who you are. The best advice I can give is keep it simple and be there as much as you possibly can to talk to them, hang out, be a real person. It is not so much what you say but how much you care that will stick with them.
Build on each day using small bits and repeating them as the week progresses. I did one once using a skateboard to represent the steps to spiritual growth the board was salvation and the wheels each represented prayer, bible reading good friends attending church we put it together and used it to crash a counselor through a wall of garbage cans with a bucket of water on the top.
Have a contest. My first time speaking for camps I had 2 baby bunnies with me and I had a contest to name the bunnies. If a child came to me with a name I would give them a candy and put their name and their suggestion in the draw. At the end of the week we chose a name.
Once I had a "guess the Professor's name contest" another time I told them that if they came to me, introduced themselves, and told me a story about themselves or something interesting about their summer I would give them a candy. It was very interesting and they responded well to it. Almost every kid came to me at one point or an other. I had to encourage some of the shyer ones but it was worth it. Everyone wants to be listened to.
Love and small kindnesses is all we really have to offer. Sing "My Grandmother's House" at night before bed. Or "Prairie Soul." I think singing quiet meaningful songs to them when they are tired will be effective. Funny songs in the morning. Tell them your stories. Talk about what is important to you, what you are passionate about is your best message.
"I keep wondering what role of ministry I should be in here, and yet God is leading me to do 'ministry' without the official title, I am reminded that we live our faith. Don't have to be structuring it for a certain night of the week."
~ Dara Hallett on her recent move to Buffalo Narrows
I am doing a writing retreat with my friend Kathleen at La Casa resort in BC’s Okanagan. My brother Tom has this cottage and offered it for writing, so I accepted. Kathleen and I came late yesterday evening via a twisting, turning, rather suicidal road we thought might never end! But we survived and arrived to the delightful spot. When I awoke around 8:30 this morning, Kathleen had been up since six and had already written 1300 words about our adventure. I asked her for an excerpt to share with you:
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The sun places its hands on the window frame and leans around the corner peeking through the glass, between the slats of the blinds to see if I am there. Seconds later he leans in close and touches my cheek. “Are you awake?”
“So tired,” I say.
“Go back to sleep, I’ll come back later,” he says, and slips silently away.
It is too late, his touch has stirred me and my mind begins to wander over trails once traveled. He has retreated to a respectful distance but I am awake. He comes no nearer, fearing to tempt me to leave my sleep, but I know he is out there, waiting, and I cannot go back. I have begun to walk down the path of a new day. Words, like manna begin to fall from my fingers, onto the keys, spilling out, filling the page. There will be just so much, enough for the day, no more.
I remember picking wild strawberries with my mom and sisters as a child. The precious little jewels plinking so quietly into the yogurt container. Pinking my fingers and sometimes my lips. We dare not sample too many of the tiny sweet morsels or there will be no jars lining the pantry shelves this winter. The berries are so tiny and rare, there are few who will bother to gather them, but we are joyfully greedy, thankful for both.
Like gathering those berries, this trip was hard won. A series of small but rare and precious events. The Lord says, “I will give you what you need for the day, no more, no less.” Some times it is hard to be satisfied with that. Months ago I decided, once again, to take him seriously and do what he told me to do many years ago. No more buts. Just do what I can. Write when ever, where ever.
Waiting for Zephan at basketball camp, writing for three hours a day for five days, I realize I am a happy person when I do this. I like who I am. That is rare. (The word of the day shall be “rare”, I declare. Yesterday it was prefaced with ‘religiously”. I shall religiously write on this rare occasion.) Usually I do not like who I am. Usually I am not gathering strawberries early in the morning.
When Colleen wrote and told me she had access to this cottage and would I join her for a writing retreat I could not believe it. As God promised, after I agreed to do the job, he would provide the desert and the manna. Our rations consisted of microwave popcorn, a bag of raw quinoa, a bottle of club soda, a box of chocolate, two oranges and two grapefruit. I’m hungry but am I hungry enough to travel that road again so soon? In the valley below the field is full of wild strawberries ready to be picked. The sun is shining, it’s a new day. Yes, I am ready. Let the plinking and pinking begin!
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We have since gone shopping. Our pantry is now amply stocked for the next 4.5 days and we have warm blankets for our beds. Let the writing proceed!
This weekend I hosted two wonderful women for an art retreat. Andria and Vivien, students at Briercrest College & Seminary, spend 36 hours carving clay, painting pictures, telling stories, singing songs, sharing delicious food, and savouring beauty. Before they left we prayed together and Vivien sang a song for me:
Say to those who are fearful hearted
Do not be afraid
The Lord your God is strong with his mighty arm
When you call on his name, he has come to save.
He has come to save you
He has come to save you
Say to the weary one, “Your God will surely come.”
He has come to save you
He has come to save you
He has come to save you
Lift up your eyes to Him, you will arise again
He has come to save you
Significantly, she changed the words from future tense (“He will come and save you”) to present perfect (“He has come to save you”). The Lord has been speaking to fears in my own life, and he has also called me to this kind of ministry, speaking peace and rest to the fearful and weary. God is not just coming in the future, He is an ever-present God in the now. We declare that the kingdom of God is HERE!
