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Author Richard Leach
Released 2/24
Catalog no.125-428E
Price $16 (U.S.) |
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Description
Fortunately for the church, Richard Leach continues to add to his body of hymns for the use in worship, and Enough for All collects hymns written since his last major collections of texts. Includes 36 new texts and 28 hymns first published in various other collections. Many are written for a particular Sunday's lectionary readings, and others are useful with various themes and readings. Includes extensive indexes, including a lectionary index, and notes.
Introduction by the author
This book presents new hymns written or brought into their current form in 2021 and 2022. Along with them are texts first published with music in The Sower Comes Again (2016) and Soul Becomes a Song (2020). So Enough for All provides a sequel to my previous comprehensive collections, Tuned for Your Sake and Banquet Without Walls. The new texts are a resource for composers and editors. Some have already been set to music, and I look forward to publishing more of them with music.
The previously published texts are in alphabetical order in the book’s second part. The new texts are ordered according to the Bible passages they are based on, from Exodus to the Psalms to the Gospels. In several cases there is more than one text on the same Bible passage.
Some of these hymns will only work when the Bible passage they are based on has been heard. They are not generic hymns of praise or doctrine or what-have-you. That may seem a limitation, but I believe that the satisfaction of having a song that is exactly right for a certain Sunday makes up for it. And when one reaches a certain age the lectionary’s repetition of passages every three years does not seem all that infrequent.
Hymns with a wider focus are here as well. I have included notes on selected hymns, when I thought it would be helpful or interesting.
Richard Leach
Stamford, Connecticut
January 11, 2024
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"Leach's sturdy and timely rephrased psalms want to rush like a courageous first responder to this Sunday's liturgy." -The Hymn
Review
"What do we hope to find when we read a new hymn for the first time? A fresh ideation of the Wesleyan or Wattsian style? A dense poem that has risked hymody's quicker stage? Something strophic, but loose (and accessible) enough to attract the attention of the modern worship song singers? Perhaps the twenty-first century of David and his harp?
The stanzas, taken as a collection, in Enough for All: New and collected hymn texts of Richard Leach function within the performance practice and expectations of nearly anyone who would think to search its pages. Leach's sturdy and timely rephrased psalms want to rush like a courageous first responder to this Sunday's liturgy. And in entries numbered 21-24, Leach lets us in on a tug-of-war he had with Psalm 107.
With images such as 'Harvest is the crown you give to the turning of the year,' and 'But my need is all I have,' Leach rewards the Wesley and Watts admirers. At the line, 'As armies trample over them [seeds], the sower is defied' the lover of poetry slowly shakes an affirming head. Yet, our praise of Richard Leach is not in his echoes of earlier hymnic greats. Our praise of Leach is based on his prophetic presence in, and of, the now. His remarkable hymns of peace and reconciliation include gleaming lines such as 'And yet no table is a world,' (from 'How Can the World Be Mended'). In context it is stunning, Leach's work facilitates praise, prayer, and testimony, steadying us for meaningful worship during difficult, even devastating change.
Leach's hymns present a number of places for pondering, not the least of which is 'Yes, Let Us Worship the Child' (number 28). At first reading the hymn might be seen as a bit annoying with the word, 'Yes,' at the beginning of each of its 20 lines. But, upon further reading (and pondering) the text becomes rather intriguing. Then, as the payoff for reading it yet again, the hymn reveals its enlightening message, putting a 'Yes' into the singer's mouth at important points along the way of a life of worship and discipleship.
Acknowledging that Sunday comes, relentlessly, week after week, this collection containts the following clear and helpful indexes: 'Notes on Selected Hymns,' 'Published Settings,' 'Scripture,' 'Topical,' 'Lectionary,' 'Metrical,' and 'First Lines and Titles.' " --The Hymn, Winter 2026.
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