Sometimes a Light Surprises

William Cowper

Who said that the contemplative life is superior to the active life? Well, everybody did. You can find it in Plato — as C. S. Lewis’s Professor Kirk said, scratching his head as he wondered why young people didn’t know this or that, “It’s all in Plato, you know.” But you will find it everywhere in Scripture too. Debra’s long thought that poor Martha got the short end of the stick, when she was doing all the work for supper, while her sister Mary was seated at the feet of Jesus, gazing up at him and listening to his words. I feel a bit sorry for Martha, too! But then, we’re all taught that unless you’re busy, you aren’t worth anything; and one of these days I’ll do an entry on sloth, which the philosopher Josef Pieper says is the besetting sin of a society in which everybody is at work all the time. For spiritual sloth is irritable and never at peace, because it can’t take joy in what really ought to bring joy: it’s the sin against the Sabbath, said Thomas Aquinas.

I chose our Word of the Week, candle, in honor of the Feast of the Presentation, when the infant Jesus was brought to the Temple on the fortieth day after his birth, as the law of Moses prescribes. There in the Temple were two saintly people, both of them quite aged: Simeon and Anna. Simeon had prayed that God would not let him die before he had seen the Anointed One. Anna had been widowed after seven years of marriage, and since then had spent more than fifty years of being in the Temple, praying. The thing that strikes me about these two old believers is how spry they are, how full of life. Herod seems a doddering fool by comparison, even apart from his murderous intent. But why should we be surprised? People who live so deeply in contemplation drink from the wellsprings of light. It is light that nourishes the soul, not sweat. I don’t speak here as someone who is far advanced in the practice of contemplation. When it comes to that, I’m too easily distracted — meaning, pulled this way and that. Yet we should tend to the soul’s peace, and we should remember too that heaven is described not in terms of doing, but in terms of seeing.

And that brings us to our Hymn of the Week, another by the gentle and amiable William Cowper: “Sometimes a Light Surprises.” It first appears in 1779, in Olney Hymns, the splendid collection which Cowper and his friend and fellow minister John Newton put together. But then in 1830, across the ocean, the Reverend Joshua Leavitt published it in The Christian Lyre, where it appears with a melody which someone, perhaps Leavitt himself, composed for the poem — a melody called Light. Leavitt was not, like Cowper, shy and retiring; though, like Cowper and Newton, he was an ardent abolitionist, serving as the editor of The Emancipator for seventeen years (1833-1850). Yet his most prominent form of action had a good deal of the contemplative about it. I say that because The Christian Lyre wasn’t intended as a hymnal for regular church services. Leavitt had it in mind for what he called revivals, that is, evening meetings, somewhat apart from the regular rounds of seasons and feasts in the Christian year. He made a deliberate choice that ran a bit counter to what you would find in other hymnals, even in the Appalachian shape-note hymnals scored for three parts, with the melody in the tenor, books such as The Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony. I’ll let him describe it: “As the number of parts is apt to distract the attention of an audience, or to occupy them with the music instead of the sentiment, the tunes here printed will be generally accompanied with only a simple bass, and sometimes not even with that. In a vast number of cases the religious effect of a hymn is heightened by having all sing the air only. Possessing no musical skill beyond that of ordinary plain singers, I send out my work, without pretensions.” Yet if it was he who wrote the melody for “Sometimes a Light Surprises,” he was a skilled melodist indeed.

One comment on Cowper’s words: surprise is brilliantly chosen. The light God gives is not ours to demand at will, as if you could turn a spigot and drink when you please. It takes us unawares. The best we can do is to try to be ready for the light, or to pray for it, and to be grateful when it comes.

We were not able to find a recording of this hymn to the tune written for it, “Light.” But we did find a bright and cheerful organ version of another tune, played by John Keys. If anyone finds a version to the tune, “Light,” please do send us a link.

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian when he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in his wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation,
And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
Let the unknown tomorrow
Bring with it what it may.

It can bring with it nothing
But he will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing
Will clothe his people, too:
Beneath the spreading heavens
No creature but is fed;
And he who feeds the ravens
Will give his children bread.

Though vine nor fig-tree neither
Their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the fields should wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there,
Yet, God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice,
For, while in him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice.