Pictured is the River Strong outside D’Lo, Mississippi, where my daddy’s family is from. This particular location of the Strong River also happens to be where the baptism scene in Brother Where Art Thou was filmed! All of which kind of fits in with this morning’s hymn recording.
For the music and words go to https://hymnary.org/text/ive_got_peace_like_a_river. The New Century Hymnal has this footnote for the hymn: “Most of the spirituals that drew from biblical stories and images used the Hebrew scriptures, rather than New Testament as their inspiration. The imagery of “peace like a river’ derives from the book of Isaiah.” Among the scriptural references listed at the top of the hymn is Isaiah 66:12.
There’s lots of way to do this hymn but this morning I opted for kind of an easy-listening approach. Should work for singing–or at least humming–along. It’s #478 in the New Century Hymnal.
Just a reminder that the complete collection of these hymn recordings is available for free listening (streaming) at https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/hymns-at-lakewood. When each new recording is posted on the church website, it is also added to this album.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 