Sacred Music Sunday: From Homes of Saints Glad Songs Arise

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I find most of the hymns in the hymnal about home and family to be narrow and reductive – only one kind of home is contemplated, and it isn’t mine. It’s a father employed in a white-collar job, a mother who is not employed, and a house full of smiling children. It’s not a single person who has to bring home the bacon and fry it up. It’s not the teenage convert whose parents don’t attend church. It’s not the part-member family. It’s not the group of roommates. It’s not the widow or the divorcee.

I love the hymn From Homes of Saints Glad Songs Arise because it avoids this trap. The whole song is about what goes on in a righteous home, and not once in the hymn is a reference to the number of people in the home, the relationship of those people, their gender, marital status, professions, or any other irrelevant factor.

Anyone can have a saintly home if they follow the example laid out in the hymn. In the home of a saint:

The Lord is King.Prayers ascend.The scriptures are loved.Hymns of praise are sung.

The smiling nuclear family on the cover of the Ensign can do this. But so can every other conceivable home and family arrangement. Because there’s no one way that the home of a saint looks.