Mary Louise Bringle’s “Now the Heavens Start to Whisper” is one of twelve Advent season hymns in Worship IV which were not in Worship III. (Five Advent hymns in Worship III are not included in Worship IV.)
About this text Mel Bringle herself wrote in her 2006 hymn collection, In Wind and Wonder: “In the fall of 2005, Randy Sensmeier wrote me from GIA and asked if I would write an Advent text ‘with a Celtic flavor’ for the Welsh melody SUO GAN. To get into an appropriate frame of mind for the assignment, I went to the Brevard College library and checked out a few books on Celtic spirituality. I was very drawn to the notion of ‘thin places’ – places where earth and heaven, or secular and sacred, seem to be in closer touch with one another than elsewhere. Advent strikes me as a ‘thin’ – or at least a ‘thinning’ – time, an idea reflected in stanza one of the text. Other images (the ‘softening’ of hearts, Christ as the Sun of Justice, etc.) come from various Celtic prayers."
Besides being included in Worship IV, “Now the Heavens Start to Whisper,” published six years ago, has been included in the 2010 Celebrating Grace Hymnal (ecumenical but Baptist-leaning), set to the tune JEFFERSON, and will be included in the soon-to-be-published Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God, set again to the tune JEFFERSON.
About this text Mel Bringle herself wrote in her 2006 hymn collection, In Wind and Wonder: “In the fall of 2005, Randy Sensmeier wrote me from GIA and asked if I would write an Advent text ‘with a Celtic flavor’ for the Welsh melody SUO GAN. To get into an appropriate frame of mind for the assignment, I went to the Brevard College library and checked out a few books on Celtic spirituality. I was very drawn to the notion of ‘thin places’ – places where earth and heaven, or secular and sacred, seem to be in closer touch with one another than elsewhere. Advent strikes me as a ‘thin’ – or at least a ‘thinning’ – time, an idea reflected in stanza one of the text. Other images (the ‘softening’ of hearts, Christ as the Sun of Justice, etc.) come from various Celtic prayers."
Now the Heavens Start to Whisper
Now the heavens start to whisper
As the veil is growing thin.
Earth from slumber wakes to listen
To the stirring, faint within:
Seed of promise, deeply planted,
Christ to spring from Jesse’s stem!
Like the soil beneath the frost-line,
Hearts grow soft to welcome him.
Heavy clouds that block the moonlight
Now begin to drift away.
Diamond brilliance through the darkness
Shines the hope of coming day.
Christ, the morning star of splendor,
Gleams within a world grown dim.
Heaven’s ember fans to fullness;
Hearts grow warm to welcome him.
Christ, eternal sun of justice,
Christ, the rose of wisdom’s seed,
Come to bless with fire and fragrance
Hours of yearning, hurt, and need.
In the lonely, in the stranger,
In the outcast hid from view:
Child who comes to grace the manger,
Teach our hearts to welcome you.
Text: Mary Louise Bringle, b. 1953, © 2006, GIA Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of GIA Publications.
Tune: SUO GAN, 8 7 8 7 D
Besides being included in Worship IV, “Now the Heavens Start to Whisper,” published six years ago, has been included in the 2010 Celebrating Grace Hymnal (ecumenical but Baptist-leaning), set to the tune JEFFERSON, and will be included in the soon-to-be-published Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God, set again to the tune JEFFERSON.