“Nearer My God to Thee," contributed by Ru Perry-Mize (2025)
Sacred Harp singing is a unique form of communal hymn singing that places all its emphasis on participation and none on performance. Though the words being sung are almost always explicitly Christian, singers hail from a wide variety of religious and ideological backgrounds. The one thing that all Sacred Harp singers believe is that this music has power. That’s why I’ve chosen a Sacred Harp song as my contribution. This video is of singers in Stroud, Alabama singing 448 on the bottom in the Cooper revision of The Sacred Harp, “Nearer My God to Thee.” First, they “sing the notes,” meaning they pronounce the syllables that correspond to each note rather than the words. Only after they sing the notes all the way through do they launch into the poetry.
My first reason for imagining that this would be helpful for someone dealing with a loss is very simple: I have already seen it happen. Sacred Harp singing in general and this song in particular have a long history of comforting and supporting the heartbroken, the grieving, and the dying. More specifically, I think this song does a marvelous job of balancing a sense of profound difficulty and costly perseverance in the face of devastating sorrow on the one hand, with, on the other hand, the faith that perseverance is, finally, worth it. One thing I have learned from this class is the futility of trying to put an optimistic spin on things. While this song preserves a promise of better days to come, it does not minimize the struggle of the here and now—it only emphasizes that, despite all evidence to the contrary, we are getting somewhere. My hope is that the resonance of these words and their music can help people both with and without religious faith—as they do at this singing.