Without Limits: Singing the Congregation’s Song

Sponsored by Augsburg Fortress in honor of Jeannette Lindholm

For this sectional, I propose to feature and discuss selected hymns from my first collection of hymns, Love Astounding: Hymns of Jeannette M. Lindholm, published this past August with Augsburg Fortress. Drawing, in part, from scholarship in feminist rhetorical theory (including Foss and Griffin’s groundbreaking work on invitational rhetoric), I will focus my remarks on the kinds of poetic devices and rhetorical strategies I use deliberately to (1) create more open kinds of “spaces” in my hymns that invite individuals to bring their own responses to the hymns AND (2) offer possibilities for individuals to connect more deeply with the texts, traditions, beliefs, and hopes of their worshiping communities. Topics will include:

• the multivalent nature of language and the function(s) of allusion in the hymns
• how less can be more in a spare use of language
• the use and function(s) of questions in particular hymns
• the importance of establishing—and maintaining—critical connections between sound and sense in hymns (recalling Alexander Pope’s famous admonition, “the sound must seem an echo to the sense”)

During the sectional we will sing selected hymns.