I was thinking today about the promotional video that I saw at Camp Deer Run back in 1965. Then, just as today, all of the Christian colleges sent recruiters to camps to plant the seeds for later enrollment in the campers. I actually never went to camp as a camper, but during the summers of my junior and senior years of high school, I worked as a counselor for the ten-year-old boys at camp—so the college recruiters were very interested in me.
The tagline for the Harding promotional then was “Harding Sings.” I don’t think that would play well today, but then, it worked—at least on me. I’ll never forget the first day in chapel at Harding when Dr. Ken Davis led the 1200 students in morning hymns.
I had grown up in big churches and had sung in high school choir, but this singing experience was instantly transforming! We sang in chapel, we sang at evening devotionals around the Lily Pond, we sang as we traveled, we sang at club meetings—we sang every song in the songbook—literally!
But occasionally, the Harding A Capella Chorus would sing in chapel or hold an on-campus concert, and these concerts lifted your soul. Of all the choir pieces, hymns, and spirituals that they sang, this was by far my favorite.
You’ll recognize it as the Prayer of St. Francis, although he did not have anything to do with writing it. The words first appear in this form in the 20th century. It has been recorded and sung in myriad versions and melodies. I have loved it in the following version composed by Michael Janrick Rivera, however, and although it is not a professional recording, I thought you might enjoy hearing it also, sung by the Harding Honors Choir in 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVlfHuoGFAI
Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console,
not so much to be understood as to understand,
not so much to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.
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