Magellan's Log: The Texas Zen Hymnbook Introduction

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Introduction

Impulse.
The impulse to religiosity is no more or less mysterious than the impulse to any other human behavior. It comes to seem so only because of the layers of proprietary obfuscation and metaphysical privilege that, with the passage of centuries, are laid over the original impulse: THIS revelation is OURS, only ours; it is the one TRUE revelation, and woe unto those who don’t accept it.

Beneath the surface differences, as Aldous Huxley long ago pointed out (in The Perennial Philosophy), the expressions of religious impulse are universally very similar—and woe indeed unto those who do not see and celebrate this universality.

One of the great upward-wellings of this impulse in the West happened during the 19^th century. While the European (and American) elite was awash in an outpouring of extraordinary music of extraordinary complexity (Beethoven et al.), the various populist, "low-church" forms of Christianity exploded in song: simple, folk-like melodies that sprang from the same ancient and mysterious impulse that lies behind Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

For all their harmonic simplicity, these songs— "hymns"—had words attached which often reflected the many complicated accretions to Christian dogma across the years. While some branches of the religion welcomed these sometimes extreme, even bizarre statements ("There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins"; "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war"), others rejected the concepts and refused to allow the singing of such songs in their churches and temples.

For all the problems in the words, the music of these hymns remained what it was: a breathtakingly pure, humble response to that old human need when faced with the baffling reality of life: to sing the mystery.

As my own path took me far from the orthodoxy of my own culture’s dominant religion, the lure of the music that that religion had created in its golden age of hymnody always remained strong. Though more at home in other metaphysical fields, I could listen for hours to what many would dismiss as hard-core low-church songs. The melodies, harmonies, and rhythms were endlessly attractive and, I always felt, evocative of a deeper, common reality only weakly belied by the occasionally troublesome words.

I was very slow to come to the realization that these songs, though arising directly out of a certain small part of traditional Christianity, were in a much larger sense, part of the universal human heritage. Though no Christian, I could call this marvelous music mine. Whatever they say on the surface, the music of these songs belongs to all of us.

From that realization to the idea that I could insert my own words was a small but difficult step. As with the forced dogma of many organized religions, I have a number of problems with several of the exoteric positions of received Christianity.

Arriving at the place where I could hear the music—separated from its words—as rooted in the same experience that produced my own beliefs was a surprisingly difficult process.

But arrive I did, and The Texas Zen Hymnbook is the result: several dozen of the old hymns, with new words attached.

Offense.
Some Christians will be offended, most perhaps by the simple fact that I have appropriated "their" music to my own (in their view) heathenish ends. Others, only slightly less close-minded, will be offended by some of the metaphors I have put in place of the old Christian metaphors. To both these groups I can only say: the offensiveness—and the beauty—of any given metaphor is very much in the ear of the singer.

Up front, perhaps as gentle warning: My new words are in part a reaction to the following behaviors which I find problematic:

   1. The personification (anthropomorphization) of
   deity, with the various attendant metaphors of
   blood, suffering, intolerance, and unquestioning obeisance.

   2. The church militant, with its arrogant assumption
   of one truth and its implicit justification of violence against
   "non-believers."

3. The condemnation of earthly life as decadent and
the myopic focus on a promised, better life to come.

The music is the thing. Are the songs irrevocably linked to such narrow-minded stances? I think not, and offer my own lyrics as evidence that the music of these hymns, like that of all great songs, exists with a certain unassailable purity of its own which words—any words—can only hint at.

As will be apparent, for all my problems with many of the words, purple patches occur here and there in the old lyrics where the writer soars to meet the music. Several such patches I have, with utmost respect for the source, retained.

As for the "Texas Zen-ness" of the whole undertaking, I refer the reader to my remarks concerning why the motto of Magellan's Log is "The World's Largest On-line Magazine of Extremely Low-bandwidth Texas Mysticism."

If this all sounds terribly serious, well, it is. But the joke, the vast and vastly mysterious metaphysical joke, whether we like it or not, is always on us and always present. So too here, in perhaps the occasional trope in questionable taste, not to mention a few tunes that you maybe never thought of as hymns.
—Douglas Milburn.
Houston. November, 2002.

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