The eyes of the world have been on Egypt during these tumultuous days of protest. The magnitude of what is unfolding right now is immense, as several other nations have been moved to imitate Egypt, even as Egypt has followed Tunisia. Many in the U.S. have felt solidarity with their struggle. How do we acknowledge world events and bring them to prayer when we gather as a Christian community?
There are no doubt many different answers to that question. Here is one that involves music. Roger Stratton, director of music at Guardian Angels Church in Oakdale, Minnesota, shared with us the transcription he made of a Coptic (Egyptian Christian) hymn for peace, It will be sung at his parish this weekend, in solidarity with the protesters.
Roger is not a specialist in Coptic music, and welcomes corrections from those who may be more knowledgeable. He writes of his transcription that it is “a fairly westernized version based on a simplification in an American Coptic hymnbook.”
Pray for the people of Egypt.
I intend to keep the Egyptian people of all faiths in my prayers. Where I live, we have a large number of Copts. They have some very beautiful churches with a liturgy I enjoy attending every now and then.
The Coptic community in the Milwaukee area just built a reasonably grand structure a few years ago – http://www.wiscopts.net – haven’t visited personally, but there was a nice slideshow on the local paper’s website at its opening. If you want at least one idea of the style of this music, there’s an audio clip at http://wiscopts.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=52&Itemid=87