We Amplify You God!

27 Feb 2010

Editorial

Those at the Amplify Creative Arts Camp put their talents at God’s disposal but shouldered responsibility to nurture those talents. This was an investment in both present and future.

Albert Orsborn, Salvation Army General from 1946 to 1954, penned some of the best-loved songs in the Army songbook. As a junior clerk, he summoned the courage to show his boss some of his early writing. ‘Take it away,’ he was told, ‘the deadliest maggot that can get into the brain of a young man is the delusion that he can write poetry.’

Two years later, aged 17, Orsborn won a War Cry songwriting competition. Salvationist Frederick de Lautour Booth-Tucker detected that Orsborn had ‘an ear for the music of words, and a sense of rhythm’, but observed that he was ‘ignorant of metrical forms and disdainful of the rules.’ Booth Tucker took the trouble to guide the young songwriter.

Orsborn describes the moment he placed his creative ambitions at God’s disposal: ‘I apprehended that I should write, not to please myself or alone for the love of art, but to serve God’s cause in The Salvation Army.’ He sought advice from British poet Alice Meynell, a Christian whose work was admired by writers such as Christina Rossetti and Oscar Wilde. Mrs Meynell was kind but direct in critiquing Orsborn’s work. ‘You seem to have facility, but you need to set your imagination more free,’ she said on one occasion, recommending a course of reading that included Shakespeare.

Strategic consecration: the Army is blessed by wise stewards of God-given talents.

Major Christina Tyson

Bible Verse

Psalm 19:14
‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.’

Nga Waiata 19:14
‘Kia manakohia nga kupu a toku mangai: me nga whakaaro o toku ngakau i tou aroaro, e Ihowa, e toku kamaka, e toku kaihoko.’