Artist: Michael Card
Year: 1998
Starkindler, a "Celtic conversation throughtime" is a collection of hymns performed by Michael Card.
It features ten songs:
- Be Thou My Vision
- Starkindler (a Card original)
- Morning Has Broken
- I Will Arise
- Let All Things Now Living
- The King of Love My Shepherd Is
- Jesus, Lover of My Soul
- I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
- Holy God We Praise Thy Name
- Be Thou My Vision (reprise)
I absolutely love this album. I don't know that I appreciated it when I was younger. (I was in college when it came out in 1998). But now that I've experienced God's goodness and grace more and more with each passing year, I find myself living in hymns.
This album features hymns that were mostly new to me. That is I didn't grow up singing The King of Love My Shepherd Is or Let All Things Now Living. (I had heard of Be Thou My Vision and Morning Has Broken). I loved getting to know these new-to-me but still traditional hymns.
I love the FLOW of the album. There may be a fancy word for this that I'm missing. But what I mean is how all the songs fit together and sound like they belong together. None of them sound out of place or thrown into the mix. It's a cohesive experience.
I love the Celtic sound. IT's a great balance. The arrangements don't overpower the deep richness of the lyrics. (And the lyrics are quite theologically rich.) Yet the arrangements ADD so much. Everything is beautiful.
One of my absolute favorite songs is Let All Things Now Living. According to Hymnary, it was written by Katherine Davis in 1939 and the tune is Ash Grove.
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who guided us on to the end of our days.
His banners are o'er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
'Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.
His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a song let us raise
'Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!"
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!"
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who guided us on to the end of our days.
His banners are o'er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
'Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.
His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a song let us raise
'Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!"
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!"
Another favorite is THE KING OF LOVE MY SHEPHERD IS inspired by Psalm 23 and written by H.W. Baker in 1868.
The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never,
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.
Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.
In death's dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.
Thou spread'st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!
And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.
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