Recently, I found myself standing in church singing a hymn I do not recall having sung before.
The first verse of this unfamiliar hymn says,
Once to every man and nation,
comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side;some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
offering each the bloom or blight,
and the choice goes by forever,
‘twixt that darkness and that light.
These words were written in 1849 by the American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). They embody a worldview that has plagued the Christian church for centuries.
For Lowell life could be neatly divided into the polarized opposites of: truth or falsehood, good or evil, bloom or blight, light or darkness. You must decide. Take your pick. You can align yourself with evil and darkness or goodness and light.
According to this tidy vision of life, God is present in the truth, the good, the bloom, and the light. God is absent from the falsehood, the evil, the blight, and the darkness. In this bifurcated universe, the goal of life is to get where God is and get away from where God is not.
But, can God possibly not be anywhere?
As the Psalmist asks,
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)
For the Psalmist, God is present in Sheol, in “the farthest limits of the sea,” even in “the darkness.” There is nowhere God is absent, no corner of existence from which God is ever excluded.
When we fail to affirm God’s presence everywhere and in everything, we begin dividing the world and ourselves into the parts we approve of and accept and the parts we do not like and therefore reject. Life becomes a constant turmoil of likes and dislikes, good and bad, in and out, light and dark, acceptable and unacceptable. We live as victims of our preferences, happy when things seem to be going the way we want, sad when the tide turns and our circumstances seem difficult.
There is no place for pain in this divided vision. Pain will always be rejected as the ultimate evil. Pain is the great enemy in the dualistic vision. We perceive that something is desperately wrong when things do not go the way we had hoped and we find ourselves in pain. Any strategy that holds the promise of reducing the pain, no matter how costly that strategy may be, will always be viewed as a good thing.
Jesus did not share this understanding of pain. Jesus said,
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)
To “take up your cross” is to walk directly into the centre of the pain. Cross-bearers refuse to escape, deny, or ignore the reality of pain.
It is in that very act of acknowledging the painful realities of life that our hearts open to an awareness of that power of love who is never absent.Even James Russell Lowell hints at the possibility that, the heart that opens to the Presence that permeates all existence, will discover that
behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow.
But the real spiritual journey is to discover that God is not just “behind the dim unknown” but within. As Lowell affirms, God is “within the shadow.”
The writer of the Gospel of John says,
The light shines in the darkness. (John 1:5)
It is not that there is no darkness. The affirmation of the gospel is that the light is always present no matter how dark the darkness may seem. All of life is one. The manifestation of love is present in every dimension of existence. The challenge is to have eyes that are open enough to truly see. The answer to “Where can I go from your spirit?” is absolutely nowhere.
********************
Here is the text of the full hymn:
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;Some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by for ever
‘Twixt that darkness and that light.Then to side with truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And ’tis prosperous to be just;Then it is the brave man chooses,
While the coward stands aside
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.By the light of burning martyrs
Jesus’ bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever
With the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward
Who would keep abreast of truth.Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ’tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.
In A Spacious Place 
9 comments
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July 27, 2012 at 7:16 am
Dave
Have you seen the film “Good” with Viggo Mortensen? It’s worth seeing. It’s about an apparently very nice academic fellow who, through a series of chances and choices, ends up high in the SS and thus complicit in the Holocaust. I think the hymn might be about such a story.
July 27, 2012 at 8:22 am
joan
“The Lord of the Dance” was removed from the official hymnbook but this kind of either/or theology remains! This hymn is also in exclusive language which, from a woman’s point of view, is fine as, speaking personally, we cannot relate. But Sydney Carter’s famous song says: “They cut me down and I leap up high, I am the life that will never never die. I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me, I am the Lord of the Dance said he.” You decide which should have remained!
July 28, 2012 at 8:36 am
kimgye
I love “The Lord Of The Dance”!
July 27, 2012 at 10:39 am
Tress
This concept . which you express so understandably is absolutely what I have understood as the non dualistic explanations of” Advaita Vedanta” as it translated into an Indian language( i am not sure if that is Hindi)
i like ,so much, that your explanations reveal the depth of the teachings of Jesus ,because of your knowledge of correct translations of bible writings,
So many people , frustrated by the simplistic interpretations used by many clergy , to accommodate the less thinking or educated of their flock ,have abandoned the church, and sought explanations of the meaning of life and the nature of the creator. or just creation , from other disciplines ( if that is the word!?
When the most important teaching of love for each other and creation that Jesus made us understand , is mostly replaced in other teachings by duty . I know that without love we are nothing.
In fact, perhaps this is an idea that should be considered by those who lament the decline of the church?
July 27, 2012 at 6:44 pm
jaqueline
but how is this idea presented in the hymn different from the two wolves story?…one wolf we feed…he is the good wolf, we want him to win and be in control..the other we starve and we want him to die and disappear…make your choice.
Someone might say “well the difference is that the two wolves is speaking to what is within ourselves…..and the hymn is dividing the world outside between darkness and light, good and evil…
Well I want to ask..where exactly did this division begin?
I think the division out in the world begins with the division within, when we judge bits and pieces of ourselves as a good or bad wolf…and find that there are aspects of ourselves we cannot accept or cannot forgive or cannot want redemption for.
And if we are the sort of people who want to be good,,well it is easy to transfer that we which deem unacceptable about ourselves onto other people.
July 29, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Steve
All the talk here must be over my head because I don’t understand the debate around the either/or theology and I don’t understand about new correct translations or interpretations of the Bible. In reading this hymn what I see is entirely different, I see it is timely, Mr. Lowell has put his hand on the issue which is at the core of present day strife within the church. He suggest an answer to those who would be bound by church dogma by saying truth must be constantly refined and the dross burned away. I see him saying the church musts continually examine and reinvent itself, that truth is a living thing and not static dogma or church doctrine.
In my own inarticulate words, I see Lowell as saying causes come along and function as God’s new Messiah’, as if we were in the first century and a man walks by and says follow me. The situation demands a choice. It asks; Are you with me or are you going to sit this one out. The choice is demanded because “New occasions teach new duties”, dogma has become “uncouth”, He is saying truth is like silver, as it is refined it becomes crusted over with “wretched” dross or crust. The great cause is the time for the burning away of the dross so that the truth once again will be acceptable to God. Some will be safe and side with the crusted over truth, and they will be lauded ones, they will be the ones to receive fame and profit for defending an impure truth. In stark contrast are the brave ones, those who stand abreast of the truth, who as with the naivety of a child and says “the emperor wears no clothes”, they are the ones, abreast of the truth ever “toiling up new Cavalries” with the vision to understand “New occasions teach new duties”.
I see this hymn as the embodiment of the life of those like Martin Luther, William Wilberforce, and Martin Luther King, Jr. who hear the voice of the living Jesus. But the fate of the man who upward and onward would go, chooses to carry the cross, to track in Jesus’ bloody footsteps at the cost of being labeled heretic, to be castigated, to be crucified as if to carry the burden of the sin of the people who have fallen into error. This, at least, “Till the multitude make virtue Of the faith they had denied”.
But it is by no means about causes of historic proportion, it is about all of us, we all have to choose weather we will be part of the crowd that stands aside or the brave man that chooses. Perhaps it is a once in a lifetime event or maybe it is an everyday thing, I’m not sure.
I relate to it because I find myself continually pulled forward by the great open space that is God and being pulled back by confining dogma. I have been asking myself over and over the past few months if something that was once true can no longer be true, does truth change to suit the age? I know there are moral absolutes, I know God does not contradict Himself but I also know Jesus has released us from the demands of the law and given us a new covenant. I know He is the Living Jesus and it is the living Word of God. I feel pulled away from some long held doctrines and am trying to revaluate what truth is. Lowell seems to be suggesting truth does not change but it must be continually refined. Do we have beliefs or do we have convictions? We must choose if we will be “upward and onward” or be safe. I think I understand what this passage means.
“Then it is the brave man chooses
While the coward stands aside
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied”
That’s just what I see, I think it is a beautiful hymn. I learned from it, intellectual debates about finer points of theology don’t matter
July 29, 2012 at 7:52 pm
jaqueline
“toiling under new Calvaries.”..
whatever happened to Jesus dying “once, and for all” ?
July 30, 2012 at 5:23 am
Steve
“Christ believed in the power of suffering love. We all admit there is no power like that of love. Through it Christ overcomes the enmity of the world. Every other victory gives only a forced submission; love alone gives the true victory over an enemy, by converting him into a friend. We all acknowledge the truth of this as a principle, but we shrink form the application. Christ believed it, and acted accordingly. He said too, I shall have my revenge; but His revenge was that of love, bringing enemies as friends to their feet. He believed that by silence and submission and suffering and bearing wrong, He would win the cause, because thus love would have the triumph.
And this is what He desires of us too. In our sinful nature there is more faith in might and right than in the heavenly power of love. But he who would be like Christ must follow Him in this also, that He seeks to conquer evil with good. The more another does him wrong, the more he feels called to love him.”
“And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple”
Luke 14:27
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”
2 Corinthians 4:8-12
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
Galatians 6:14
“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3:8-11
“For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.'”
1 Peter 2:19-22
If we do not agree on this then we have a different religion. This is the central tenet of all Christianity.
July 30, 2012 at 11:20 am
jaqueline
Book, chapter and verse would have been just fine.