OYH: Episode 1 – Unveiling the Life & Inspiration Behind Mary Dana’s “I’m A Pilgrim”

00:09.
Welcome to Open Your Hymnals, exploring the purpose and value of Hymns so we can sing with s pirit and understanding. I'm your host, Irene Bennett.

01:05.
Many moons ago when I was getting a Masters in music education in Andrews University, I became an assistant for a music professor who gave classes and lectured a lot about hymns and sacred music, spending a lot of time preparing her materials, sitting in her classes, listening to her lectures and checking the essays of her students, really opened the window for me to look at the hymn on many different angles.

And so two years later, I submitted my final paper to culminate my masteral studies. And guess what? It was all about hymns, but mainly looking at the theological depth of the hymns that the Seventh Day Adventists started singing from its early days. That paper is now worn and dog-eared through the years, though I was eager to share what I have researched, but it took me a good 10 years to share what I really wanted to share through a medium I was comfortable with.

And so with the help of technology, a website was born out of that research paper. Hymns for Worship is a website that I created with a goal to help Seventh Day Adventist Church lay members appreciate hymns as an important genre of music. I wanted the site to be their online music ministers somehow, and seeing that many churches cannot afford or even find one.

And you know, in this day and age, the hymns becoming extinct. We sing it, yes, but on the times that we do, do we really know what we sing about Hymns express what the common church goer believes to be reliable and true. We sing, " Jesus is Coming A gain" because we believe He is coming again. We sing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" because we believe that Jesus is a personal Savior who cares about our griefs and disappointments, and will listen and care for us like a friend.

We sing "Don't Forget the Sabbath" because we believe in a day of rest, culminating six days of creation, and the seventh day being God's special day where we get to spend time with him. I mean, I mean , we can go deep and wide with this, right? But you get what I mean. We sing these hymns because we believe what it says, and that's on an individual standpoint. In a corporate worship service, meaning when we worship with a body of believers, hymn singing becomes the main mode of vocal participation for the congregation.

Yes, we may say amen together, but it is in the hymn, in the singing of the hymn that the voices truly unite in praise to God. As a member of the congregation, w e listen to the sermon and prayers, but it is in the hymn that we make a conscious response to the preaching and reaching and reading of the word. And when we sing the hymns, we pronounce that as a corporate body, this is what we believe.

But do you know what you believe in?

Hey, I'm not here to cast judgment, but this is why we are doing a series on hymns so we can study together and see whether the hymns we sing reflect what we believe. And my aim is that as we learn where these hymns are borne from, the beliefs that makes us a Seventh Day Adventist, so may it solidify and become stronger, and that as we sing these hymns in worship, whether in the home or in church or in simple gatherings in nature, that we gain a better appreciation and understanding of God.

And so if you love hymns like me, then this series is for you. And so I invite you all to open your hymnals to SDA hymn number 444, " I A m a Pilgrim".

05:37. (Music by Nairobi SDA Central Church)

07:39. Irene BENNETT
So that is, "I'm a Pilgrim" sung by regular church members of Nairobi Central SDA church. I like the idea of having a main song leader with assisting vocalists for harmony.

When was the last time you heard this hymn sung in your church? Or does your congregation even know about this hymn? Well, there is so much to be said about this hymn, and that is why I have divided our study - yes, it is a study - into four sessions. We're not going to do all of those sessions today.

We're just going to do the first one. And so when I told you that I want to go deep into the study, I didn't mean k nee-high water playing by the beach type of studying, right? I meant getting our diving gears and really looking at the bottom of the ocean floor kind of studying. And so for this first session, it is all about laying the foundation for the text.

We get to know the author's life and their beliefs and the story behind writing the text of the hymn, I mean, for this session to be devotional in nature. And so we would also spend some time looking at a few Bible verses and then exploring lessons or takeaways in the story of the author's life. Then the second section we will, which we'll be doing next week, is all about dissecting the text. And this is when we get into the hymn text itself, analyzing what the lines mean, why and how it represents SDA theology.

And then of course, we look at the Bible verses that inspires the hymn. And finally, we will look at the literary devices used so that we can also appreciate the creativity of the poet.

On the third session, it'll be dedicated to knowing the life of the composer or the tune into which we sing the hymn, because many times the author is not the composer.

It's like two separate people. Sometimes though it's the same person who wrote the hymn text and the tune. But we will also talk about whether the music was specifically written for the verse, or was it a popular tune in their day, which they just adapted. And we will also get to know the composers themselves and the story behind the composition of the tunes.

And then finally, the fourth session is analyzing the music itself and making everything we've learned so far as practical as possible.

We will spend a bit of time learning the melody of the hymn, especially if it is unfamiliar. And then we will explore ways wherein we can spice it up in worship. We will also explore different arrangements of the hymn, how to incorporate it in your worship services and many other practical things. So I am really excited about this series, and this is a weekly thing.

By the way, you are going to see it every Friday if you're in the Philippines, because we are airing from the Philippines every Friday night at 8 pm. So this is kind of like the hymnology class that you never had in college, but I hope that these sessions would be a benefit to your church and your personal walk with God. So if you're just tuning in, let's go back to the hymn of the hour. And if you're not there yet, grab your hymnals and open it to SDA Hymn No . 444, "I Am a Pilgrim and I Am a S tranger."

11:22.
This hymn was written by a woman whose life was beset with tragedies. She lost her sister, her brother, her son, and her husband in the span of three years. But instead of getting depressed and hopeless, she turned her attention to prayer and writing.

And with her words inspired many others. She sold volumes of hymns, poems, articles, and stories. And one of those hymns is the song we're learning right now. This particular hymn also has a special place in the, uh, history of the Adventists, particularly of course, in the alienated M illerites, i n the early days of Adventism. They were feeling isolated from their family and friends, church mates and workmates because of their peculiar faith.
And so the hymn, the the text of this hymn was a perfect, um, expression of what they were feeling. And it is truly a blessing when someone else's tragedy become someone else's encouragement. The woman of the hour, she has a long name Mary Stanley Bunce Palmer Dana Shindler. There you go. She was born in the year 1810 and died, um, 1883.

And she is recognized in history books as an American poet and writer from the Southern United States.She was a prolific contributor to popular magazines and, um, periodicals and known and known as successful hymn writer as well. Her writing talents may be attributed to the fact that her father was also an author himself, and his father was also a pastor for the Independent Presbyterian Church. So if you are listening on the podcast, you're right now, I'm going to show pictures of what Beaufort actually looks like in South Carolina, where Mary was born.

She was born in February 15, 1810. And like I said, her father, um, Benjamin Palmer was also, um, was a graduate of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University in 1800 and pastored the Congregational and Presbyterian churches in South Carolina. And at one point was the director of the Princeton Theological Seminary. So this was kind of like where the, the background where Mary is coming from. She's basically a pastor's kid.

Well, we do not know much about her mother, but she was definitely named exactly after her, Mary Stanley Bunce . So basically the junior of her mom. And this is just, um, a few pictures of the present Beaufort, South Carolina, um, very colonial kind of, um, rich history there. And when she was 4 years old, her father received a call to pastor in Charleston to a congregation of mostly planters, people who spent their summers in the city.

And then in the winters, they would go to their plantations. P articularly these planters were also the same ones who employed N egro slaves in their plantations near nearby Charleston. But we're not gonna get into that. So here are some pictures of the plantations in nearby Charleston. These are actually the, the actual houses of the slaves during those times. Well, going back to Mary, she was an innocent child. And she would recall though that this period of her life, you know, visiting the plantation, she didn't know any better.

She was a kid. She, she recalled that it was a delight and that she would usually anticipate Christmas holidays at these plantations where she and other children felt released from all the noise of the city. And she recalled, you know, running around the plantation with a wild spirit. This is, you know, her own words in her own, um, biography. And she said that it was just like they were, you know, released from, from the cages of being in the city.

More importantly though, this is when she developed a love for nature and she was still referring to herself as a kid. And she said there was something about the majestic trees, the mystery of the forest and e verglades, and the roar of the birds and all these instigated in Mary as a child, the need to write poetry, especially when she cannot really express herself in plain ways. I mean, can you imagine that as a kid you're like, well, I can't express myself, so I'm gonna express myself in verse, you know, because I'm so inspired by the nature around me.

16:31.
That's just so cool, right? As she continues to grow and mature, her schooling was first through a private tutor then in a female seminary.

What is a female seminary?

Well, basically it is a private educational institution for women. And it was popular, especially in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries when opportunities in educational institutions for women were scarce.

They succeeded the boarding school, which had offered a more family-like atmosphere. And in contrast, these seminaries were often larger institutions run by more professional teachers that, you know, basically like, um, something that was equivalent to colleges. But, you know, we have to remember at that time, men's colleges were just basically men and they had to have a separate school for women. And in the early 19th century, the word seminary began to replace the word academy and the new word connoted, a certain seriousness.

And the seminary saw its task primarily as professional preparation. So the male seminary prepared men for the ministry, and, but the female seminary took as its earnest job that the training of women was for teaching. Interesting. So first in a neighboring town, um, that's where she went, um, for her schooling in Wethersfield. And unfortunately, she only lasted there for six months.

18:09.
She was there and younger than 16 years old. So finally, when she was 16 years old, she was sent at a young ladies' seminary in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and she was a sickly girl, and her parents were hoping that studying in the northern state would help her health. But she's a southern girl and she pined for a southern home. And so basically she lasted only six months in that school. And then she requested to return to her parents. They tried sending her to another seminary run by a certain Reverend Claudius Harriet, still in the north, but this time in New Haven, Connecticut.

And she as usual just stayed there only for a few months. Now, the next path for a girl, for a woman is to, to get married, especially during this time. And so on June 19th, 1835, she became the wife of Charles. I'm not sure if I'm gonna mention this right, Eleutheros Dana.

And she was 25 years old. And so if you noticed it in the beginning, her name just got longer, right? 'cause she got married. Mary Stanley Bunce from her mom, and then the Palmer from her dad. And now as married to Charles Dana. Then she gets his name as well. Well, not much is known about her husband, but history books say that Mary would accompany him in his travels to New York where they stayed eventually for two to three years. And during this time, she would occasionally write little pieces of poetry, but she did not really publish any of them.

19:48.
In 1837, she gave birth to a baby boy named Charlie, and obviously named after her husband. A week after Charlie was born, Mary's sister died from tuberculosis. And on the screen is just, um, an artist's depiction of what it, uh, what happens to a person, the changes that they go through from, from health, and then as they deteriorate, um, due to the disease.

And this is actually art from the 1800s as well during around 1830s. And so this is how they depicted it. And, and you can really see the terrible changes that happens. And so the following year, more catastrophic things happened to Mary. In the fall of 1838, she traveled with her husband and son together with her parents, but this time towards the west. So they're coming from New York , and they wanted to go over to the other side of the States.

And as they were nearing New Orleans, she received a letter that her only brother who, who was a physician himself, was sick and deteriorating rapidly. So there's three of them in the family. Mary has a sister, and Mary has a brother. So the sister already died. And now as they're traveling, they hear the news that her brother is, um, dying as well.

Unfortunately, the letter came too late. And when her parents tried to visit him in Alabama, he had already been buried for several days. Oh my, what a sad plight. And so with her parents now being in Alabama, the Danas continued their journey towards the west and embarked on a steamer in St. Louis. They remained in that steamer for six weeks and alighted in Bloomington, Iowa and seeing that it was a rest stop, t hey were curious to just have a look- see at what the quaint town has to offer.

And then they were planning to go with a steamer. But they were so pleased with how the place felt like, and that they decided to tarry and even spend the summer over there. There were only about 300 people in that town, and everyone seemed healthy. Everything seemed like it looked okay, but apparently that summer proved to be different.

You see, at that time there was a drought and the Mississippi River was quite low. And so, you know, you have that low water, then you kind of like invite mosquitoes to breed, right? And so there was a prevalence of congestive fever or what we now call malaria in all of that region. Mary was the first to contract the fever. And she had scarcely recovered when her husband and her son Charlie became really ill.

Now, this is not really Mary, but like I said, these are depictions of the artists. Um, what they were trying to draw and paint during the time when, you know, tuberculosis, malaria, things that today we have medicine for. But during their time, of course, it was like, it was almost like the pronouncement of death when you have, when you have those diseases. And so that's how they depicted their, um, they show it in their artwork.

And so back to Mary, her son got sick and her husband got sick and they were trying to send for the doctor, but they cannot send for the only experienced physician in town because he was sick himself. Sad to say her husband Charles did not recover from the fever and he died. And then two days later, little Charlie died as well. I mean, can you imagine? Right? What a tragedy!

23:45
And fortunately, you know, Mary survived the ordeal and she wrote to her friend describing the experience, and this is what a portion of the letter she wrote,

"Nothing but the consolations of religion could have supported me under this double bereavement. L eft entirely alone, thousands of miles away from every relative I had on earth. There was no human arm on which I could lean, and I was to rely on God alone…It was well, perhaps for me that I was just so situated. It has taught me a lesson that I have never for forgotten, that our heavenly Father will never lay upon us a heavier burden than He will give us strength to bear."

Amen. And this reminds me of the story of Job, who even though all his children died, all his properties taken away from him, his own friends, and even his wife cursing and blaming him, yet still, he remained faithful to God. And here we see Mary doing the same thing. Mary did find the strength after this tragedy.

24:59.
Praise God. She was young, just two year, um, just two years shy from being 30 years old. And so she took up writing again. She also made a project of writing words and then adapting it to preexisting music, meaning music that's already composed by someone else. So it can be popular music during her time that is both sacred and secular, as long as it matched the words that she was writing.

And so this project thrived. At first, it was a private thing that she would share with her friends, but with their encouragement, she decided to publish it. And not only her words, but the matching music as well. And so in 1841, the Southern Harp was made available to the public for the first time. And so she also wrote more poems that did not necessarily partner with tunes, but the theme of her writings banked heavily on affliction. And I can't blame her with all the stuff that she went through.

And so the result was a volume of poems entitled " The Parted Family and Other P oems." Y ou know, I was scanning, um, scanning through the book 'cause it's available online and you can, you can read it for free. And it really talked heavily about her experience regarding her son and husband's death. Now, the Southern Harp was so successful that her publishers asked her to publish another songbook, and the second volume was called the Northern Harp.

Interesting, um, uh, sequel. And so both volumes became a very profitable venture for Mary. And one of the reasons it was a success is also because it was published right a mid the fervor of the Second Great Awakening, which was a Protestant religious, uh, revival movement that swept across the United States between roughly 1790 and 1840, around that time. And so what's interesting with Mary though, is that she experienced a change in her religious views in the 1840s.

27:10. Irene BENNETT
She, she was raised as a Calvinist, but she converted into a Unitarian point of view. And then at one point she even joined the Millerite Movement.

And then in 1848, she converted to Episcopalian and remarried to Reverend Robert Shindler, which is now her last name. And she was 38 at that time. So in her later years, she's been known to go from one belief to another and never really finding the truth, always searching for the truth. And her latest publications were contributions, unfortunately, towards spiritualism. And so she died in Texas in 1883, and she was 73 years old.

27:59. Speaker 2:
Now, some, some people might ask, okay, so if she is contributing to spiritualism, should we even sing her songs? Well tune in for next week and then we will talk about that. But anyway, " I'm a Pilgrim and I am a Stranger" was written by Mary. It was one of her poems that was included in the Southern Harp, the first not hymnal, songbook that she published.

And so the performance that you're about to hear is done by the Andrews University Singers led by Stephen Zork, and they sing an acapella version of this beautiful hymn.

28:38. (Music by the Andrews University Singers)

30:55. Irene BENNETT
And so for those familiar with the history of the Seventh Day Adventists, do you remember J.V. Himes? Is that name familiar or, or not really? Well, anyway, basically Joshua Vaughn Himes, um, born in 1805 and died in 1895, was a key figure in the Millerite movement during the Second Great Awakening in the States. How important was he?

Well, he was a major promoter of William Miller's teachings. He founded the first Millerite newspaper, which is Signs of the Times in 1840, which helped spread the message of Christ's imminent return. He also edited and published multiple editions of Miller's lectures, making them accessible to a wider audience. Not only that, he played a vital role in organizing the movement itself.

He helped establish local conferences and camp meetings, fostering a sense of community among the Millerites. He also provided significant financial support to the movement, enabling the publication of materials and organizing events.

And he also managed various fundraising initiatives and ensure that the smooth, um, functioning of the organizational structure. And so, I mean, this guy is the publicist for the advent message, right? You know, with all of this responsibilities that he was carrying on his shoulders. H e was the go go go guy. And so he was really excited for the early advent messages that William Miller was preaching. B ut he didn't stop at publishing newspapers and lectures or fundraising and organizing meetings.

No, he didn't stop there. And I mean, if you would translate that today, he was not just content with just having a blog, I need to have a YouTube channel, or I need to have my Facebook page and I need to be on TikTok and all these things, right? So that's, that's him, that's his mentality. He needed to be everywhere and anywhere for people to see, because his message is very important.

I mean, not his message, but the message that he was promoting basically. But, and so he didn't stop at these three things, the three things that, sorry, I see on the screen, right? He also compiled and published hymnals featuring songs that explicitly supported William Miller's message of Christ's imminent return. You know, when I was doing my research on J.V. Himes, I was thinking he was doing all this big admin stuff in promoting the messages. But I mean, why a hymnal? Isn't that kind of like a small thing to, to bother about?

You know, hymnals, don't waste your time with that. But he knew the power of music. He knew that these hymns served as catchy, memorable tools for spreading the doctrine. And so it resonated with the deeper emotions and anxieties of believers awaiting the Second Coming.

One influential hymn in that, in, um, Himes included in his compilations was this very hymn, " I am a Pilgrim and I am a Stranger."

34:17. Speaker 2:
And that's why we're even talking about him. This hymn expressed the Millerite sentiment of being in this world, but not of it, and constantly looking forward to a heavenly home which really resonated with their belief in an imminent Second Coming.

You don't want to miss next week's episode because we are really going to pitch our tent on what the text means to them and to us today. And what does it really mean when you say imminent second coming?

And it was also included in James White's 1849 hymn book entitled Hymns for God's People that Keep the Commandment of God and the Faith of Jesus. And as you can see, the hymnal that they had before was, is very different from the hymnal that we have today because they didn't include the notes. And that basically gave them a lot of flexibility as to what tune to sing to, to the words.

And actually it also provided to, uh, it became a problem for them as well if you would see the, the reactions that the congregation was having. And they would write this in Review and Herald. But anyways, that's all for next week, and I'm really getting ahead of myself.

But anyway, today this hymn is still included in the current International, SDA Hymnal, giving people the hope that while life on earth is a pilgrimage, that as if, um, if you're still holding your hymnal as in written in the third stanza,

"There's a city to which I journey
my Redeemer, my Redeemer is its light
There is no sorrow nor any sighing,
nor any tears there or any dying."

This was Mary's words and Mary's life was a tapestry of triumphs and tragedies. What lesson can we learn from Mary Shindler's experience? But before we unpack those, I would like to share with you a piano arrangement that I recorded a few years ago.

This is from the Almost Home album. It was a project that I did in collaboration with Filipino composer Alejandro Consolacion. “I am a Pilgrim and I am a Stranger.”

36:22.
And so we are now here at the last part of our session for today, and I would like to spend a little bit of time to kind of like unpack the lessons that we can learn from Mary Shindler's tragic experience. And, um, before we really go into that, if you're interested in all of the, um, stuff that we've been mentioning so far, all of those links are on the description of the video. So you can just go there and and explore a little bit more.

And so we, one of the lessons that I think we can learn from her experience is that grief can be transformed into purpose. Mary's life was marked by immense personal tragedy, and yet she did not succumb to despair. Instead, she channeled her grief into her writing, transforming it into hymns that comforted and inspired others going through similar struggles.

And this teaches us that even in the darkest moments, we can find ways to express our pain and use it to connect with others and make a positive impact. And if we would, if you remember the letter that she wrote to her friend, she said, it seemed like this is really where God has placed me, but I know that he will not give me something that I cannot bear, and that is our God. And so again, connecting her story with Job, she probably claimed the same words in Job 13:15, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in Him."

Another takeaway is that faith can be a source of strength. Of course it is. And Mary's deep faith sustained her through her losses. It needed deep faith. Turning to prayer and writing, hymns provided her with an outlet for her emotions and a source of hope. And her story reminds us that faith can be a powerful resource in times of hardship, offering strength and guidance when we need it most. We know that we turn to family, we turn to small groups, and you know, we do all these things, but at the end of the day, it's our faith in God that will help us to get through, um, the, the sufferings that we have.

And so just voicing out what the Psalm, um, the Psalmist said in Psalm 28:7, the Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him and I am helped.

43:05.
And because through faith, Mary endured her sorrows just like David. Another thing that I'd like to kind of like mention is that perseverance is key, you know. And despite experiencing repeated blows, because it was not just Mary's husband, not just her son, but also her brother and also her sister, and then of course the continual searching for truth. But she never gave up and she continued to write and create and find meaning in her life.

And this resilience serves as an inspiration to persevere through our own challenges, reminding us that even when the path seems daunting, we can move forward and find strength in this resilience. And despite repeated losses, Mary persevered, mirroring the Psalmist's resolve "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and He delights in his way." Also, we are reminded that we are not alone in our suffering.

44:11.
Mary's story resonates with anyone who has faced loss and feels like a stranger in this world. And that's basically everyone in this world. And her hymns remind us that we are not alone in our struggles and that there are others who understand our pain. And this shared experience can offer comfort and solidarity in times of grief. You know, Mary's hymns reminds me that even Jesus experienced loneliness and grief.

Remember that verse in Matthew 27:46 when, um, Matthew wrote about Jesus saying, "M y God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But the same God promised in Matthew 28:20 "L o, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." That is a real blessing and a real encouragement, especially for anyone who might be listening and going through and experiencing through, um, deep turmoil, suffering, loss, and all of that, Jesus is with you.

45:21.
And finally, there is hope in the midst of darkness. You know, though written in the face of a personal tragedy, " I'm a Pilgrim" is ultimately a hymn of hope. " I'm a Pilgrim" offers hope for a better tomorrow. Like the prophet Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 65:17, he wrote, "For behold I create new heavens and the new earth and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind."

45:52.
But I like this one as well because it really resonates with Paul's assurance where Jeremiah wrote in, um, Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." And that is exactly what happened to Mary. Her life is a testament to the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity and her story and her hymn offer valuable lessons for anyone facing challenges in their own lives reminding us that even in the midst of darkness we can find strength, hope, and purpose in God.

And that is all the time we have for today. I hope to see you again next week as we dive deep into the meaning of the text and how we can make it more relevant to us today.

Let us pray.

Our dear heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time that we can spend a little bit of, um, our time to dive into the life of Mary and see how you have led her life. And we just thank you Lord, that you have, um, written h er story, the way that you have written it, because today we are able to get lessons from it.

Lord, there might be people who are listening here that are experiencing loss and tragedy in their lives. And may this serve as an inspiration and a reminder, um, to them that you are always there and that you will never leave us.

That you have a plan and a hope and a future for us. We thank you so much, even though we may be experiencing pilgrimage on this earth, we know that there is a heavenly home that we can look forward to. T hose who are in the Sabbath now and or watching this, um, while welcoming the Sabbath, We just pray, Lord that we will continue to be in the spirit of the Sabbath and we just thank you for, um, giving us the stay of rest so we can get closer to Y ou.

Thank you so much for all of these things. In Jesus name I pray, amen. Thank you everyone and see you next week!

48:16.
This media is brought to you by Hymns for Worship, a website dedicated to help church members sing with spirit and understanding. If you want more resources on hymns, please go to www.hymnsforworship.org.