Dying

AS LIFE APPROACHES ENDING

Tunes:

ENDINGS 7676D
Melody: William L. Wallace
Harmony: Larry E. Schultz
PENLAN 7676D
David Jenkins 1849-1915

 

1. As life approaches ending
   What times should we recall?
   The times of grief and failure
   Or when success was all?
   It’s not a time for counting
   What’s wrong or what is right
   But now to be enveloped
   By singing in the night.

2. Whatever things have happened
   In times that are now past,
   Whatever joys and sorrows
   From birth until the last,
   Whatever love of part’ner,
   Of parent, sibling, child,
   Our love now forms the apex
   Of all that’s strong and mild.

3. Each ending is beginning
   Of what is ever new.
   Each closing is an op’ning
   To living’s final clue.
   As death descends upon us
   We find love’s sweet release
   In leaving all our living
   To find a time of peace.

Text and Melody for Ending © William Livingstone Wallace
Harmony © Larry E. Schultz
 
Click Here for Sheet Music – Ending
Click Here for Sheet Music – Penlan
 
Click Here for MP3 – Ending
Click Here for MP3 – Penlan
 

Click Here for Full Index to William L. Wallace’s Series

Hymns “Cosmic Mystery”

 
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William (Bill) Livingstone Wallace is a retired New Zealand Methodist Minister and one of our most prolific contributors. Bill says that his work springs from communicating with the fire in his gut and his observation of both the internal and external aspects of the Cosmos. Since an early age, he has been both sympathetic to and critical of the church, announcing at the age of 13 his belief in evolution. In his youth, he struggled with the disconnection between art and spirituality in his own and other denominations and with the way in which all of the liturgies prior to the sermon were regarded as preliminaries and longer sermons were viewed as superior to more concise ones.

He holds a B.A. in philosophy and a Dip. Ed. and is the author of nine published collections of his hymns as well as other resources on our website. His aim is to help people be empowered by the divine within them and the Cosmos and to work to overthrow the forces of personal and institutional greed which destroy both the ecosystem and human society.

Click Here for a Full Biography of William L. Wallace

Click here for a complete list of his work on ProgressiveChristianity.org