O Day Full of Grace

May 22, 2015

Dear Grace Victoria,

Now that we have a name picked out for you, we are also enjoying imagining your personality. As time goes on, I can feel you more active inside me, sometimes just little flutters and sometimes full on kicking and punching, sometimes what seems like you are having a dance party in there! (By the way, I do hope we will have dance parties together. We will put some great music on the turntable and rock the house!) With each movement, I imagine you, trying to picture what you are doing and why, and trying to piece together who you are, still several weeks before we will meet face to face.

One thing I have been trying to do is sing you some of my favorite hymns, so that you will know them and respond positively to them once you’re in the outside world. One of these is Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling. This was a favorite of my Solberg grandparents, and your dad and I had it at our wedding. Another is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. But one that is on my mind especially right now is O Day Full of Grace. Seems an obvious choice because of the name, right? For me, every day is a day full of Grace – I feel it, see it, experience it! But the reason it is on my mind is that it is a Pentecost hymn (and Pentecost is this coming Sunday), and it was your Great-grandpa Dick’s favorite hymn. In fact, this week I had a dream in which I was singing it, and then I looked up and saw he was singing it too, with a smile on his face. (He died my first year in seminary, 2006.) Then I saw my Grandma June singing it, too. (She died my last year in seminary, 2010.) Grandma June sang in the St. Olaf choir under F. Melius Christiansen, a giant in choral music, and Grandma June had a wonderful alto voice. Then I saw all the Solberg siblings singing it, too – David, John, Mary, Daniel, and my mom (your grandma), Lois. And they all sang with such joy in their faces, looking at me and one another the whole time. In my dream, I couldn’t go on singing. All I could do was stand there and weep for all the joy I felt. In my dream mind, I felt they were singing for you.

Grandpa Dick and Grandma June, plus all five Solberg siblings, 2005

So I wanted to include the beautiful text of this hymn here for you. It is a Danish hymn, so it hearkens your Scandinavian roots (which you get from my mom’s side, Norwegian, and my dad’s mom, who was Swedish).

O day full of grace that now we see appearing on earth’s horizon,

Bring light from our God that we may be abundant in joy this season.

God shine for us now in this dark place, your name on our hearts emblazon.

O day full of grace, O blessed time, our Lord on the earth arriving;

then came to our world that light sublime, great joy for us all retrieving;

for Jesus all mortals did embrace, all shame and despair removing.

For Christ bore our sins and not his own, when he on the cross was hanging;

and then he arose and moved the stone, that we, unto him, belonging,

might join with angelic hosts to raise our voices in endless singing.

God came to us then at Pentecost, the Spirit new life revealing,

that we might no more in death be lost, its power over us dispelling.

This flame will the mark of sin efface and bring to us all true healing.

When we on that final journey go that Christ is for us preparing,

we’ll gather in song, our hearts aglow, all joy of the heavens sharing,

and there we will join God’s endless praise, with angels and saints adoring.

                                                                                                Love you, my sweet,

                                                                                                Your mom

Here is a recording of the St. Olaf Choir singing F. Melius Christiansen's arrangement of O Day Full of Grace. My grandma June sang in this choir, under the direction of this composer.