This originally appeared as part of the article "Singing the Sovereignty of Christ Over Creation" where you will find additional reflections and other congregational song suggestions on similar themes.
“O God, You Planted a Garden”
Words and Music: Andrew Donaldson © 2012 Andrew Donaldson
The score is available for download in the resource section below. Reprints permitted by contacting Andrew Donaldson at wendywyattdonaldson@gmail.com.
Background
The song “O God, You Planted a Garden” was written for the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which occurs once every seven years and took place most recently in November 2013 in Busan, Republic of Korea. The song, which focuses on the human relationship to the earth following the departure from the garden of Eden, picks up the assembly’s theme, “God of Life, Lead Us to Justice and Peace” and turns it into a rallying refrain. The songs of composer and guitarist Andrew Donaldson, who serves as worship consultant to the WCC, are rich in scriptural allusion in the manner of other hymnists such as Fred Pratt Green, John Thornburg, and fellow Canadian Gordon Light. The song’s prophetic edge makes it a good fit for a service focused on themes of justice and creation care, as it turns the image of departing from Eden into a reflection on our culpability in pollution and climate change.
Analysis
Donaldson begins each stanza with a reference to God’s formative act of planting a garden as a home for humanity “eastward in Eden.” “You formed us there, you named us there,” stanza 1 begins, alluding to Adam’s formation “from the dust of the ground” and so to humanity’s innate humility or “closeness to the earth.” Following stanza 1, Donaldson diverts the narrative from the familiar one of Eve’s culpability in partaking of the apple to one of humanity’s culpability in the ongoing exploitation of the earth’s natural resources. First “we plucked, we ate,” then “we mined, we drilled, we squandered, spilled,” and, echoing creation’s groaning in labor pains in Romans 8, “now all earth cries out for release.” The confessional, urgent imagery of each stanza culminates in a stirring one-line petition: “Lead us in your way of justice, O God. Lead us in your way of peace.” The shift in tone from stanza to refrain is emphasized by a temporary harmonic shift from E minor to E major. Donaldson comments that in writing this song he wanted the lyrics to emphasize our continuing participation in this story, which is grounded in the creation narrative of Genesis: “The point of the story is not that it happened, but that it happens.”
Harmonically, the stanzas move through a circle of fifths, beginning in measure 5 with A minor and moving through dominant relationships (D major, G major, C major, and so on). Donaldson employed this progression, which for musicians trained in a Western idiom has a strong sense of forward harmonic pull, in order to mirror the driving compulsion evoked by the text. “Then I spiked it with flat tenth chords,” Donaldson notes, his training in classical and jazz guitar showing through.
Performance Suggestions
The style of this song invites accompaniment by one or more guitars (electric, acoustic, or steel-string), piano or keyboard, and hand percussion, cajón, or drum kit (perhaps using rutes or brushes). The melody could be supported by recorder, violin, or flute (consider taking the melody up the octave in places), or a combination. If you have multiple instrumentalists, experiment with changing the instrumentation for the four-measure refrain to support timbrally the change in key and narrative tone.
A music ensemble called Lift! associated with the Lutheran Church in Hungary has made an imaginative realization of “O God, You Planted a Garden” that is available on YouTube (tinyurl.com/LiftGarden). As this group does, consider adding one or more bars of instrumental “vamp” on E major following the refrain before a new stanza starts. This allows some musical (and literal) breathing space.
In using this piece in worship, build in some time—perhaps near the start of the service—to teach the melody to the congregation. Consider teaching the refrain first, using a lining-out technique; this approach of “beginning with the end,” so to speak, not only allows you to start with the simpler material but gives a satisfying sense of arrival once the more complex material is learned. Next, demonstrate the melody of the stanza in short phrases, with light harmonic support, having the congregation echo back as you go. Once you have taught the melody in chunks, sing the whole thing through. By the time you come to sing it in worship, the song will already feel like a familiar friend. This song and many other newly-composed selections are available in Hosanna! Ecumenical Songs of Justice and Peace, an ecumenical and multilingual collection in the spirit of the Busan Assembly.“O God, You Planted a Garden”
