Nine Hymns on Spiritual Life

To my friends, and to students of the Urantia Book

Nine Hymns on Spiritual Life

Music by Jerry Gerber

These pieces were composed and sequenced into a computer (A DAW, or digital audio workstation) and the choir is from a "sample library", which is essentially many thousands of recordings of professional singers singing various syllables, vowels, consonances, siblances and plosives. The composer chooses which samples will sing which words by typing text into a "word builder", which uses its own programming language to arrive at a reasonably close approximation of how human singers would pronounce the words. As you might know from experience, when a live choir is singing in a reverberant hall or church, it's often difficult to understand the text unless program notes with the printed words are available or the listener knows the words by heart. I included the text and score for each piece to make it easier to understand what the choir is singing.

Hymn to the Divine

Impervious to uncertainty and loss
I put my faith and trust in the divine
I rise above fear and hate, to seek only truth, beauty and love
I grow my soul and heal my mind
with truth and righteousness
When clouds of darkness hide the light
I remember the ascension plan
I feel grateful for the sacred miracle of life
New worlds await when my mortal sojourn on this rebel planet ends.

Jerry Gerber

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Desire

I desire you more than food or drink.
My body, my senses, my Mind,
Hunger for your taste.
I can sense your presence in my heart.
Although you belong to all the world,
I wait in silent passion,
For one gesture, one glance from you.

Rumi

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This Place

This place is a dream.
Only a sleeper considers it real.
Then death comes like dawn,
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.

Rumi

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Greed

O you greedy men and women of this material-worshipping world,
tie up some rope of spirituality around your legs,
so you don't lose yourself in this money-obsessed world.

Rumi

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One Friend

Many clouds do race to hide Thee –
Of friends and wealth and fame –
And yet through mist of tears I see
Appear Thy Golden Name.
Each time my father, mother, friends
Do loudly claim they did me tend,
I wake from sleep to sweetly hear
That Thou alone didst help me here.

Paramahansa Yogananda

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Remember

Can you hear the faint voice
calling you to your true life's goal?
Can you hear it whisper:
Choose your destiny.

It is I who guides your soul to a better life
I love you more than you can know
Remember who is helping you
through this life and forever more.

Jerry Gerber

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When Death Does Come

When death does come
As it surely will,
I hope my heart is filled
With light and love,
And my senses calm and still

This mystery of being
Cannot be denied,
My body will surrender
To stardust far and wide,
And my soul to the God inside.

Jerry Gerber

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It's Always Worse At Night

It's always worse at night
when fears of loss harass my soul
Though daylight brings renewal and hope
at night the demons roll

The path I chose to conscious life
is often hard to see
delusion and anxiety
can sabotage the best in me (Help me God)

This world is unmindful of the soul
trauma and much drama dim the light
though I am no stranger to uncertainty
it's always worse at night.

Jerry Gerber

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Thank You Spirit

Thank you Spirit for the life you've given us
and thank you for the blessings of friendship and love.

May your Will be done. And may your light be found
On worlds now and to come.

Thank you Heavenly Father of our Souls, who granted personhood upon us,
May Light and Life one day reign on Earth.

Jerry Gerber

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