Wayfaring Stranger

The movie, 1917, has moved me more than any film I've seen in years. It is an incredibly spiritual movie. Probably the most moving moment came when the hero--a young man who has been tasked with getting a message of vital importance to a unit up on the front lines--has almost literally gone through the fires of hell, weathering a night of incredible violence and  narrowly escaping with his life a number of times (amid scenery that put me in mind of the surreal final minutes of "Apocalypse Now"). At dawn, weary, exhausted, and sick with fear, he comes upon a company of soldiers--no officers—nearly all of them younger than 20 years or so old, at rest in a slightly misty forest. They are resting as still and silent as statues, but one can sense the doom that surrounds them. You know these men are destined to die if the protagonist can't deliver his message. It is at that moment that one of the men--a boy, really--stands up and sings "Wayfaring Stranger" in a heartbreakingly beautiful strong tenor voice. All is still, and there is no sound but the young man's voice as he sings the haunting words to this haunting melody. The scene is one of incredible sadness and grief. My heart broke for these young soldiers; children that young shouldn’t be so faced with their mortality.

I’ve thought about why this song should be featured in a movie about British soldiers in a British battle. “Wayfaring Stranger” is an American folk hymn, the first printed version of which did not appear until 1856. Some say that it bears some relationship with a Scottish song, but the two are about completely different subjects. I haven’t heard the Scottish song, so I have no idea how much, if any, melody the two songs share. In any event, the theme is a universal one, speaking not only to Christians dreaming of the better world that our faith teaches us awaits, but to all displaced people everywhere, who want nothing more than a place to call home and peace in which they can enjoy the fruits of their labor in the company of their loved ones.

“Wayfaring Stranger” has always been one of my favorite hymns, ever since I first heard it, believe it or not in a made-for-TV piece of schlock entitled, Then Came Bronson, back in the late 1960s, and it has been echoing through my head all week. It is utterly sad and expresses great longing, and it just strikes a chord in me. My own life has been marked by the same sort of longing. I have not adopted the theology it expresses—I do not expect that Heaven awaits—but I share its spirit as felt  in  its expression of longing for rest and peace.  Anyway, I composed a new verse for it. I hope you don't find in cheap and trite. I hate to share this kind of thing, because I know how banal I can sound, but I want to share it anyway.  It goes like this:

Soon all my tears will be behind me,

As I join with the blessed throng.

With all I've hurt and all who've hurt me,

I'll sing the everlasting song.

I'm going there to join the multitude

I passed along this path I've trod.

To all I've met, I'll show my gratitude,

As we go home to be with God.