Today’s Scripture Reading (June 22,
2016): Psalm 120 & 121
Someone to
Watch Over Me. The song is a jazz standard and it is included in the Great
American Songbook. Originally George Gershwin (who wrote the music) thought of
it as an up-tempo jazz piece. But George’s brother, Ira Gershwin who wrote the
lyrics, thought that the tune worked better as a ballad. The song was written in 1926, and after ninety years it is
hard to imagine the tune as anything else but a ballad.
There's a somebody
I'm longing to see
I hope that she turns out to be
Someone to watch over me
I'm a little lamb who's lost in a wood
I know I could always be good
To one who'll watch over me
I hope that she turns out to be
Someone to watch over me
I'm a little lamb who's lost in a wood
I know I could always be good
To one who'll watch over me
It was first recorded
in 1926 by Gertrude Lawrence. Less than a month later it was recorded again by both
George Olsen and George Gershwin. Since that time the song has been sung by
both women (Judy Garland [1944], Ella Fitzgerald [1959], Barbra Streisand
[1965], and Susan Boyle [2011] among many others) and men (Frank Sinatra
[1946], Willie Nelson [1978], Elton John [1994], and Rod Stewart [2003] and
again many others.) It seems that we are all looking for that special someone
to watch over us.
The psalmist reminds
us that God is watching. Not that he is watching in some kind of creepy Orwellian
way or that he is watching trying to catch us doing something wrong, but rather
that he watches us in the same comforting way that the song imagines. He is our
protector. He is there when we fall. aching to just be able to pick us back up
again. Somehow, in the midst of all of the noise that this world makes, it
seems so easy to lose sight of that one who wants nothing more than to be the
one who watches over us.
God watches over us.
He is our defender by day and protector by night. There is nowhere that we can
go where he has not already been. His presence with us is for our comfort. He
has always been the dependable one who watches over us.
Maybe we could
rephrase the last words of the Gershwin song into our prayer
Although I may not be the man some
girls think of as handsome
To my heart
He carries the key,
Won't you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh how I need
Someone to watch over me.
He carries the key,
Won't you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh how I need
Someone to watch over me.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm
126
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