Two Hymns for Today

Cellist Yo Yo Ma and singer Alison Krauss perform Simple Gifts. The images are of Spring but the song is for anytime. We especially sing it during the holiday season. (There is one image, at about 2'10" into the video, that perplexes me. It seems to be a face of a man with a halo of flowers. I must be seeing things, or I'm not recognizing what it is.)



We sang this hymn when I was in school. Everybody knew it, everybody sang it. At one time it was a familiar melody on the radio and television around Thanksgiving. It is still often sung in churches. The lyrics are at the bottom right of the video. A biblical quotation from Psalm 1 is at the top left.



1: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2: But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3: And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4: The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5: Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6: For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
-Psalm 1 (King James Version)