Wonen overal = Living Everywhere, 1973 - 1988

This is the song of a journey community, following the pattern of Jesus’ life and journeys. In the Middle East of his day, the peripatetic wisdom teacher opened up the path to be followed for a meaningful and fulfilling life. Once he had embarked on his public ministry, he seems to have had no home other than the road and his travel companions. Journeying through the countryside and villages of the region, he plucked his images from the hedgerows and patterns of village life familiar to his listeners, building on them to open deeper insights, everyday truths which elude the passing glance. The commonplace in Jesus' hands revealed the mystery of the Deity, always so near, and yet so unimaginably far away The Scriptures have described the relationship between God and Israel as a vineyard. These have always been associated with Jewish weddings. The wine harvest is wedding season, when the vats are full with the new pressing, likewise the olives, and the barns stocked as winter approaches. Oosterhuis wrote this as the journey between two people, seeking not only companionship but completion in each another, being tied to no other possessions than what each has to offer the other. Unsurprisingly, it continues to be sung as a wedding song. Happiness is the delight found in responding to the rhythms of nature, the cycle of day and night, the seasons of an ever-changing year, and the awareness which traveling together brings. As Camus once wrote, it is through traveling that we broaden our horizons. One might add that only through traveling do we deepen our self-awareness and sense of appreciation for what is new and for that which is long-familiar. The cycle of the moon and patterns of the starts, the daily rotation of dawn and the dusk, determine who we are. Teilhard de Chardin wrote of the hymn of each passing day, the heat of the day’s energies rising into the night as an evening offering (Psalm 141) of fulfilment of a perfect day. Such images have a deep spiritual resonance, as enshrined in this song. Suze Naanje's melody is as elementary as Three Blind Mice. The first two lines repeat the same pattern of descending intervals, a value of a descending sixth. This is mirrored in the third line by a climbing pattern of intervals, and the fourth recapitulates both, before leading to a descending third, a coda of blessing which reflects the opening Three Blind Mice imagery. Huijbers' accompaniment preserves the flow of the piece, which is open, as always, to improvisation. He also indicates that while it is to be sung cantabilissimo, it is also to be considered a lullaby, a pleasant sweet dreams on the journey of sleep and the hopes of life ahead. -- Tony Barr