Hymn: Open My Eyes, That I May See
Clara Scott, the author of this hymn, taught music at the
Ladies’ Seminary at Lyons, Iowa for many years. She wrote many pieces for voice
and instruments, including The Royal
Anthem Book (1882), which was the first collection of anthems published by
a woman. The phrase “Open my eyes” is drawn from Psalm 119:18, which reads,
“Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”
Hymn: How Happy Is Each Child of God
From The Presbyterian
Hymnal Companion: This text is a paraphrase of Psalm 128 by Dwyn Mounger.
While a pastor in Valdosta, Georgia, Mounger tried to remain faithful to the Common
Lectionary’s choice of Psalms and scripture lessons for Sundays. There were
psalms that The Hymnbook (1955) did
not have either to be read responsively or to be sung. He and his associate
began to paraphrase the psalms and set them to familiar tunes. This text was
one of those paraphrases. It became a favorite and was sung on Christian Family
Sunday every year.
Hymn: God, You Spin the Whirling Planets
LindaJo McKim writes that this hymn, written by Jane Parker
Huber for the 1979 National Meeting of United Presbyterian Women, used the
creation story (particularly Genesis 1:26-27) as its basis. The conference’s
theme was “In the Image of God.”
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