Whither thou Goest

"Ruth and Naomi", by He Qi, China (c) 2001

After my wife's grandfather passed away recently, we wanted to make a video for her. We gathered up footage and created a DVD.

Her grandparent's favorite hymn was "Whither thou Goest" op.103c 1962 by Flor Peeters.

So, I decided to record a small intro loop for the menu portion of the DVD. I purposely made the composition loopable, because, I think we all know how people tend start a film and then let it sit on the menu while they get situated. A loop allows the menu music to repeat almost seamlessly.

"Whither thou Goest" is primarily used as a wedding song. But why?
It comes from the book of Ruth. But not from a wedding. It is a pledge. A lifelong pledge.

A wonderful woman named Naomi moved with her two sons and husband to a new country. Her sons married two local women in this new place.

And then tragedy happened. Naomi lost her husband, and both of her sons.

All she had left in the world were these two daughter in laws. So she decided to leave the new country and go back, a fraction of the woman that she once was. She asked her two daughters in law to leave her. One of them left.. but then something unexpected happened with the second.

The second daughter in law felt that there was something special about Naomi. And knew that beyond shadow of doubt, that she needed to stay with her. Her name was Ruth.

Rth 1:16 And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, [or] to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people [shall be] my people, and thy God my God.

Could you make this pledge to another person? Many of us already have.

Take another look at the picture above. Do you see Naomi and Ruth together? Do you see the other daughter in law turning away?

I know that my wife's Grandmother traveled with her husband through all of life's challenges. And someday.. will yet again, go where he has gone.

Whither thou Goest.Mp3 - Performed/Arranged by William Cushman (c)2005 - composed by Flor Peeters (1903-1986) public domain (2.3Mb / 1:38 duration).
To download directly to your computer, click this icon:

****I've also had several people ask me for the notation on this piece.. I'm not really good with computer notation and you really don't want to see my sloppy hand notation, so below is an "auto" notation that is built into Apple's Garageband Software that gets kind of close. Click here for a pdf file. The arrangement is copyright protected.

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-Bill