“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”
This refrain, repeated three times in Mack Wilber’s rendition of “Come Thou Fount” and originally penned by the 18th-century Christian, Robert Robinson, chokes me up every time I sing it.
In high school, my choir sang Mack Wilber’s “Come Thou Fount” at the old tabernacle on Temple Square. The acapella voices harmonized below the domed ceiling and vibrated my skin, giving me chills, and then the words, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love,” came from me and flooded out with the rest of the teenagers and string instruments and those words spoke to my soul. There was something about that sentence.
Recently, I sang these words again during a stake conference where my friend’s son gave his farewell talk. Again, these words choked me up and while the whole song is beautifully arranged, it’s these words that catch on my soul on the way out.
Why? What is it about this sentence that speaks to my emotions? “Come Thou Fount” is a song about breaking. It’s a song about being tamed and bound and imprisoned for God. “Fetter” and “bind” and “seal” are words of restraint – but the words that speak to my soul are “wander,” “feel,” “leave,” and “love.” Words of freedom.
Why? Why this sentence? After contemplating this question for the past few weeks, I wonder if it’s because this sentence exposes me for who I am. And it’s taken me a long, long time to accept that. From the time I was seventeen, these words have told me something true about myself: I’m prone to wander, I’m prone to feel like a wanderer, and I’m prone to leave the God I love.
Wanderers do not fit well into the theology of the LDS church.
I grew up with this idea that righteousness was achieved by holding to an imaginary iron rod while walking on a straight and narrow path next to deep ravines full of wandering and weeping and wailing humans with gnashing teeth – cling tightly! Step carefully! Always be afraid. This idea never sat well with me. It was dreadful imagining myself walking through life clinging to a rigid, cold, steal rod through mists of darkness while people I loved fell into the ravines.
But every once in a while, I’d wander away. I’d leave that imagery behind and wander. I’d stop listening to prophets and parents and teachers and I’d end up in houses where parents were drug addicts. In those houses, I witnessed children who I fell in love with and situations that informed my decision to become a foster parent, one who could love addicted parents and their children. I found myself learning from my friend’s gay brother who described a life I hadn’t ever considered before. I found myself at funerals of suicide victims, in courtrooms, and in places where wanderers, I discovered, were just like me.
I’m prone to wander away from the scriptures that raised me and taught me and comforted me. Oh, I feel it. I feel that wanderer inside me, pulling me away from the texts that only tell stories about certain people and ignore the rest. I feel it when the rigidity of conformity feels like fetters made by ancient men to control me and keep me from wandering. . . but my wanderings have uncovered precious wisdom, compassion, and experience for me.
While writing this piece, I noticed that the rest of the words in “Come Thou Fount” are alarmingly violent. In the song, the narrator begs God to seal, bind, and constrain them in imaginary fetters. The singer asks God to let “thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.” As if the wandering heart is the evil thing. Of course, this is not literal, just like the iron rod is not literal, but the imagery of iron cuffs clamping around my ankles, bruising my skin, and capturing my wandering heart, preventing me from running is frightening.
But then, there’s the refrain, like a declaration of freedom: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” The truth of this line for me shines through the rest. I am prone to wander through the world without the bindings of patriarchal imagery where I can imagine God as the blossoming clover that covers my path. I feel that wild, dancing woman inside me. And the last part of the phrase, “prone to leave the God I love,” is placed with reverence.
And as I sang these last words with my stake a couple weeks ago, I knew they were true too: I’ve left the god I love. I love this God of sealings and bindings and iron rods and narrow paths. I love this god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the God of my childhood, a Heavenly Father who loves me. But I left him.
And for the first time since I left, I cried for what I lost.
For more discussion about wandering, read Tirza’s poem, “When Wandering is Seeking.”
Photo by 🧔♂️ Michal Kmeť on Unsplash
16 Responses
This was beautiful.
At some point I misheard the lyrics as “Prone to Wander. Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the LAND I love.” This was when my husband was in the military and we’d hardly lived anywhere for over 2 years during. We were currently in a beautiful home on a base in Alabama and we knew he was only going to be stationed there for 18 months. It broke my heart to think about leaving.
But we did leave. We ended up living in four states over the next year. Alabama, Utah for six months, Wyoming for three, and then settling in our current state. Even then we moved from the first city to another one after two years. That last move was the final one. We’ve been in our current home for 5 years and have no plans to leave.
I figured out I’d misheard the lyrics, but I will sometimes sing my version. There’s been a lot of learning and growing in all that wandering. I’ve met amazing people, said goodbye to them, and then met more people. Even in my permanent home I’m often wandering between different volunteer groups and getting to know more people and learn more things about myself.
I think there is beauty in wandering. Whether it is from a land or a God.
What a beautiful comment from a fellow wanderer. Thank you. That is something I have learned in wandering, there is always loss as well as I move from one place (figuratively or literally) to another.
This is a very beautiful and relatable post. I love how you captured the emotions and thoughts of different points when you have sung this song. And how you explain the tensions and paradoxes of faith and spiritual progress and expansion. I love the message that wondering led you to a more compassionate and enlightened life– a life in service to those in the greatest need, like Jesus. I also love your description of and interpretation of the lyrics and how they relate to life in the Church and the thinking and expectations it endorses. The ending is powerful. I adored Heavenly Father as a child. I used the word a lot. Now I don’t use it, not because my faith ended, but because of my feminist awakening and realizing that patriarchy wasn’t healthy for my kids. I use the word God a lot. God the Father is still there, but its vague and mysterious, and I lean into all the not-knowing more than any knowing. This helps keep my faith alive. Thanks so much for an essay that articulated so much about your spirituality in a beautiful and remarkably succinct way.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful, generous response. The grief over my loss of my childhood Heavenly Father surprised me. It’s made more space for a God more like me . . . And then a God less comprehensible but it is still a loss. Good luck on your journey and thanks again for finding such beautiful things in this piece.
I’m so touched by this piece. I, too have a special place in my heart for this song since I sang it in A Capella in my high school. Thank you for your beautiful thoughts and your wandering, GOOD heart.
Thank you so much, Amy F. And yes, there is something tender about this song.
For all who wander are not lost.
Mmm. J. R. R. Tolkien?🤍
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
Tolkien
Ah. A beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing it here.🤍
While we’re sharing poetic links–it reminded me of this:
“Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow;
set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caUIXLxqiPU
Mmm. Love this and feel this deeply. Thank you for sharing. And since this is becoming a poem discourse, one of my favorites, by Mary Oliver, starts,
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.”
Which speaks to me in the same way . . . Striving to be “good” and repenting feels like being bound to a pasture.
I’ve always loved this song, but have had complex feeling towards it and your words have given it new meaning for me. My childhood God beliefs could only get me so far- I don’t know that I’ve taken the time/thought process to thank and grieve what it gave me. But I do think my anger was like a flame that has born something new and is still learning how to fly. I love your writing.
Thank you for your comment, Melissa. Numbness seems to be my usual go to emotion about all this. Grief occasionally comes. But I’m so scared of the anger . . . So I deeply admire your fire and your flying. Let that flame burn! Beautiful, magical things grow from the ashes.
I recommend “Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith” by Sarah Bessey.
“In the years since then, I’ve spent a lot of time out here in the wilderness. This big sky and wide-open space have become a second home to me, even when I feel alone. It’s here I discovered that the wilderness isn’t a problem to be solved, it is another altar of intimacy with God. I never would have imagined that would be true all those years ago.”