Simple Gifts

A Shaker hymn about acceptance and sharing.

Piano/Keyboard Methods/Series

If there is one simple phrase that lies at the heart of this moving tribute to the pleasures of singing hymns, it is this: "Only joy." Bill Henderson, a tough man with a gentle vision, found community and religious grace as a middle-aged man while lifting his voice in church. In a book that will inspire readers to share his passion, he writes of his love of traditional hymns and how he sought to learn about their origins. This is a much-needed book about the songs of our lives and will be warmly welcomed by thoughtful people of many faiths, especially those who reject the narrow orthodoxies of religious fundamentalism. For Bill Henderson, the researching of his favorite hymns became more than fact-finding. As the author went about his research, he learned that he had cancer. Someone slipped a note into his typewriter: "Only Joy," it read. He adopted that phrase as a motto for writing and for life. While Simple Gifts is partly a memoir, it is a work not about one man's health but about his pursuit of godliness. That the joy of congregational song aided Henderson in his recovery he has no doubt, but he offers a wider vision, one that is truly life-enhancing. Bill Henderson grew up attending a Presbyterian church in Philadelphia with his quietly religious family. He left his faith as he became a teenager and didn't rediscover it until many decades later. What brought him back to church was the sheer pleasure he found in singing old familiar hymns with others. Some of these hymns moved him to tears, and so he decided to immerse himself in the history of Christian music. With three themes under consideration -- Songs of Simplicity, of Wonder, and of Love -- the author begins with a look back at plain chant; the songs of Martin Luther, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and others; and the emergence of modern church music. "Simple Gifts," the great Shaker hymn, opens the Songs of Simplicity section, which includes "In the Garden" as well as many Christmas carols like "O Holy Night" and Christina Rossetti's "In the Bleak Midwinter." The amazing story behind "Amazing Grace" leads into the Songs of Wonder chapter. Also appreciated here are "Be Thou My Vision" and "How Great Thou Art." With the Prayer of St. Francis as a pretext, Henderson discusses Songs of Love: "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace," "There Is a Balm in Gilead," and "Abide With Me." Henderson believes that many of these old hymns are in danger of being forgotten as "modern" churches have adopted rock-based music or watered-down, politically correct verses. More important, he meditates on the hymns' values as he tries to understand his own relationship with God, even as they inspired him through his bout with a life-threatening illness. While this book celebrates mainstream Protestant hymns, it is by no means sectarian. It is about songs of the heart, songs that move us, the songs of our lives. It is about joy.

This charming musical is adapted from the nativity scriptures and reinforces the positive values of Christmas gift giving. Incorporates the beloved animals' tale from the 12th century carol, The Friendly Beasts." Costuming and staging suggestions included in Director's Score. Grades K-5, approx. 20 minutes."

Weary of life with his alcoholic, abusive father, sixteen-year-old Billy packs a few belongings and hits the road, hoping for something better than what he left behind.

When Marlene Queens has to go home to Missouri to settle her aunts estate, she only plans to stay for a week. She never intends to run into her childhood sweetheart, get drawn back into the life of the town, or risk revealing the secret that shes kept for years.

In Simple Gifts, June Sprigg tells the story of one of America's last Shaker communities--Canterbury Shaker Village, in Canterbury, New Hampshire--during its twilight years, and of its seven remarkable "survivor" women, who were among the last representatives of our longest-lived and best-known communal utopian society. As a college student Sprigg spent a summer among them, and here she gracefully interweaves the narrative of their lives with the broader history of Shakers in America as she shows us how her experiences there affected her own life and opened the door to her creativity. Gleaning information from old records and journals that she pored over that summer and later, Sprigg brings to life the generations of Canterbury Shakers from the eighteenth century to the present--their customs, their architecture, their spirituality. She also explores the social and cultural forces and the internal imperatives and tensions that caused membership to decrease, all of which, by 1972, brought the community to crisis. Chronicling the daily life of the village as she found it, Sprigg uncovers the affirming energies of the Shakers--the prominence of mutual love and respect, the devoted tradition of mothering surrogate children, and, above all, the surviving women's spirited eccentricities. She reveals the Shakers as individuals--their personal histories, their wildly different beginnings, what they gave up to join the Shaker community, and, more important, what they gained. Through her lively text and drawings and her intimate connection with the community, Sprigg brings us close to its people with a book that both enlightens and inspires.

This small book of everyday reflections and prayers reveals that literally everything in daily life can reflect Gods love and goodness. A smile, a knock at the door, a seed waiting to be sown, a pillow, a branch from a vine, a leaf: all reveal something of the deep mystery of God. Through these simple gifts, prayer washes over all the moments of the day and makes it more spiritual and meaningful. This is a beautiful and affordable gift book for your catechists.