Covenant (Tim Blickhan)

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  • (Posted 2012-02-18)  CPDL #25601:     
Editor: Tim Blickhan (submitted 2012-02-18).   Score information: Letter, 48 pages, 289 kB   Copyright: Personal
Edition notes: Score and Parts. Copyright © 2004 by Charles Timothy Blickhan. Original text by Joseph Gastiger. "Endless Song" attr. Robert Lowry, 1869.

General Information

Title: Covenant
Composer: Tim Blickhan

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: SacredSacred song

Language: English
Instruments: organ, trumpet, string quartet, offstage choir (SATB)

First published: 2004
Description: Commissioned for the sesquicentennial anniversary of First Congregational United Church of Christ, DeKalb, IL

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

From muddy fields and wire mills, shops tucked beside the railroad tracks,
the people of old photographs would come.

Unused to silk and ribbon--builders, come to thank a worker Christ,
remake a church where all might be made one:

Where native-son and runaway, poor wanderer and refugee--
the rich and ragged find an open door.

Not just ourselves-but seekers sent by One who gave the stars their light--
no sister turned away, but welcomed in.

A child in the dark, the least of these whom Jesus calls his own
belongs to us--we hurt to bring him home.

What few could save, they gave away, and what they gave
we used to build. We are the heirs they blessed but could not see.

The family is not complete--our tables yet have empty chairs,
and our story so many pages blank.

Friend, help us try to build the realm where love restores the broken,
it bears new light, within a church where all might be made one.

--JOSEPH GASTIGER

My life flows on in endless song; above earth's lamentation,
I hear the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul--how can I keep from singing?

--ROBERT LOWRY, 1869
Tune: ENDLESS SONG, attrib. to Robert Lowry