F. Richard Garland › Texts

The Reverend F. Richard Garland is a retired United Methodist pastor. He and his wife, Catherine Sprigg, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, live in North Kingstown, RI.

Dick was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and is a lifelong Methodist. A graduate of Garrett Theological Seminary, he interned in Chicago and then served churches in Indiana, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. He continues to preach on occasion, provide coverage in emergency pastoral situations, and write a monthly essay, "From Where I Sit" for the newsletter of the North Kingstown UMC. He has been a contributor to The Upper Room.

Dick is a lifelong hiker who still climbs in the mountains of New Hampshire. At home, he spends a great deal of time in his flower gardens. He has sung with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra and is a member of the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts.

Dick wrote his first hymn, a children's song, in a seminary music class with Austin C. Lovelace, and he has written poetry for many years. He began writing hymns for use in his churches about twenty years ago, but did not submit them for publication until 2006, after being encouraged to do so by a classmate and friend.

Many of his texts are inspired by the seasons of the church year, particularly Christmas and Easter, and by Scriptures from the Lectionary. In April of 2007, an appeal from a clergy colleague for a memorial hymn in response to the shootings at Virginia Tech University resulted in the creation of his hymn, In Grief and Aching Sorrow, set to the tune, Passion Chorale by J.S. Bach. Once, his pastor, frustrated in trying to find enough hymns to go with the Good Samaritan story in Luke 10:25-37, asked him to write a new hymn for a service. The result was his hymn, "When We Would Neighbor Be." On a dare from a colleague, he revealed a whimsical side by writing a hymn for Groundhog Day, "Praise the Lord for Woodland Creatures." His hymn, "I Have a Dream," was written to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the address by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He has written a series of texts based on the selections from the Letters to the Ephesians and to the Philippians found in the New Revised Common Lectionary.

F. Richard Garland