Hymns and Spiritual Songs from The North

Hymns and Spiritual Songs from the North

Nordic Christians Sing Their Faith

Compiled by Gracia Grindal

The typical Nordic hymn, in the spirit of Martin Luther, is usually a meditation or sermon on a Biblical text which grows out of the text for the Sunday. Sometimes it is long a slow, even mournful, giving singers the possibility of meditating on God's Word in their own context. Less often it is joyful, but is always filled with longing and hope. We can imagine Gradma, during the long dark winter, sitting by the fire, spinning or knitting as she sang stansa after stansa of an old favorite hymn or spiritual song, teaching her grandchildren to sing with her. When they learned to lisp those words with her, they were learning how Scripture could be used to meet the deepest sorrows and greatest joys of life. As they were dying, they whispered them, or heard their children standing around them singing these songs as they crossed over into the light.

(Soft cover; 230 pages)