Whenever Mei Le Smith, 10, a choir member at Queen Anne Lutheran
Church, Seattle, hears “On Eagle’s Wings”
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 787), she
thinks of her grandpa. It was his funeral
hymn and is her go-to choice whenever she’s asked to pick a song.
Hymnal highlights
• 1786: Erbauliche Liedersammlung (the first official American Lutheran hymnal, also called the Muhlenberg Hymnal) • 1795: A Hymn and Prayer Book (the first English-language Lutheran hymnal in America) • 1913: The Lutheran Hymnary • 1917: Common Service Book and Hymnal • 1925: Siionin Lauluja (songs of Zion, Finnish and English-language hymns) • 1925: The Hymnal and Order of Service (Augustana Synod) • 1930: American Lutheran Hymnal (used by the American Lutheran Church) • 1941: The Lutheran Hymnal (used by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod for more than 40 years) • 1958: Service Book and Hym- nal (eight Lutheran church bodies helped create this hymnal) • 1978: Lutheran Book of Wor- ship (used by the three ELCA predecessors) • 1988: With One Voice • 1998: Libro de Liturgia y Cantico (Spanish-language worship book) • 1999: This Far by Faith (African- American worship book) • 1999: Worship and Praise (contem- porary songs) • 2006: Evangelical Lutheran Wor- ship (primary worship resource for the ELCA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada)
24 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
thing flows around building up our baptismal promises.”
Hymns at home “Our first child was born on Maundy Thursday 2009 ...,” wrote Annie Haverlah, Prairie Wind Lutheran Parish, Junction City and Abilene, Kan. “Even with help, caring for this newborn soon left me feeling inadequate and utterly exhausted. … ‘Day by Day’ (ELW, 790) sustained me. ... I would sing it to my son as I rocked him to sleep. “Day by Day” is still one of his favorites. Almost 4, Andrew drifts off to its familiar strains while his mom rocks his baby brother, Nathan, to sleep. Patti Axel, pastor of Nativity Lutheran Church, Bethlehem, Ga., turned to “Borning Cry” in her last year of seminary. “My daughter was going through a crisis and had called to tell me she was in trouble. I could do nothing to help her except pray. … One of my classmates took down
a copy of With One Voice and read me the lyrics. … It reminded me of God’s lifelong relationship with us through our baptism and Luther’s [teaching] that God never gives up, every day being a new opportunity to start fresh.”
Not everyone finds the song easy to sing. “It’s impossible,” said Mary Anderson, Lutheran Church of the Atonement, Barrington, Ill., “because I can’t sing when I’m cry- ing.” She wept when the song was sung during her son’s freshman ori- entation at Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill. “Every word speaks to the mother and believer in me,” she said. Her head angled to the floor, Mar-
cella Appel, Lord of Life Lutheran Church, Kennewick, Wash., lis- tened to her doctor’s orders: “Don’t sneeze. Don’t cough. Don’t move. We’re trying to buy every extra moment possible for this little one. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a few extra days.”
She recalled: “The outlook was
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