life beyond the well…

Author Archives: erin.almond


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The Power in Hymns

I grew up in an old-school, small, country Baptist church, and while we would sing hymns, we could usually be found singing just a few:  Pass Me Not, Blessed Assurance, What A Friend We Have in Jesus, I Know it Was the Blood…and a few others.  It wasn’t until I joined a Methodist church in college that I really learned some hymns.

Now, I know that my generation doesn’t usually appreciate hymns.  We usually lean more towards contemporary gospel or contemporary praise and worship.  Some of us really appreciate gospel hip-hop, and some listen to new-age christian or alternative praise and worship.  I’m part of a generation who has found unique ways to experience praise and worship through song.

Yet and still, there are some days that a hymn simply expresses the beauty of my love for Christ and the relationship that I continuously strive to grow in and maintain.  Lately, I’ve been listening to the following:

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

“Jesus sought me when a stranger/Wandering from the fold of God/He to rescue me from danger/Interposed his precious blood…Oh to grace how great a debtor/Daily I’m constrained to be/Let Thy goodness, like a fetter/Bind my wandering heart to Thee/Prone to wander, Lord I feel it/Prone to leave the God I love/Here’s my heart, O, take and seal it/Seal it for thy courts above.”

My Faith Looks Up to Thee

“My faith looks up to Thee/Thou lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine!/Now, hear me while I pray, take all my guilt away/Oh, let me from this day be wholly Thine…/May Thy rich grace impart/Strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire!/As Thou has died for me, O may my love to Thee/Pure, warm, and changeless be, a living fire!”

I Surrender All

“All to Jesus, I surrender/All to Him, I freely give/I will ever love and trust Him/In His presence daily live/I surrender all, I surrender all/All to Thee, my blessed Savior/I surrender all.”

Jesus, Keep me Near the Cross

“Jesus keep me near the cross/There a precious fountain/Free to all a healing stream/Flows from Calvary’s mountain/In the cross, in the cross/Be my glory ever/Till my raptured soul shall find/Rest beyond the river.”

As I listen to these songs and I read the history, I’m so in awe of God…and by the fact that although many of these songs are way older than I am, they can still reach the masses.  God is not bound to generations.  The same God of Abraham, David, and Paul exists for me…and is the same today, tomorrow, and forever.  Amen.


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A Thank You to Tim Wise

…and thank you Carmen for sharing!  Tim Wise has just written one of the best pieces I’ve read in a long time on white privilege, explaining how it is having it’s way in the 2008 Presidential Election.

Here’s an excerpt:

“For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

A HUGE thank you to Tim Wise, for articulating this issue with white privilege in a manner so that we all could understand it.