Independence Day

Watch the video on YouTube.  Read the lyrics.

This song is powerful and thought provoking, but to really appreciate it:  watch the video.  The lyric's pairing of a victim's solution to domestic abuse with the fairs and parades of Independence Day is provocative to say the least.  Add to that the video's overt religious imagery, and the result is a powerful mix of experience, social commentary, and faith. 

The song invites controversy and asks far more questions than it answers.  Starting with the lyric, there is the question of who, exactly, is celebrating revolution?  (The town, the mother, the daughter?)  The lyric purposely leaves it for the listener to decide what is right and wrong:  is the day of reckoning justified?  The victim's daughter, who voices the story of her mother where others looked away, defiantly turns conventional wisdom on its head:  the weak becoming strong to make the guilty pay, by fire if necessary.


Photo by Sebastian Ritter



One wonders if the daughter's defiance isn't of the dangerous man that was her father, but of the silent town:  folks who whispered, talked, and looked the other way.  Did the fire simply give them something new to gossip about:  the woman who killed her husband?  They can safely debate the day of reckoning, and thus ignore the choices they made that allowed abuse to continue.   The daughter is defiant of any hypocrisy that is willing to condemn her mother, but unwilling to condemn silence.

The video takes a controversial song and deepens the questions with religious imagery.  The video opens to the third verse of Amazing Grace.  This deliberate choice to skip the first two verses, coupled with the director's consistent highlight of McBride's cross earrings and necklace make the religious imagery impossible to ignore.  The religious imagery is there with intent and purpose.

The religious imagery shifts the entire focus of the song.  No longer is it a solely a question of whether the mother's actions were right or wrong.  The question remains, but the song shifts to being about safety, home, and grace.

The daughter has found grace in her mother's choice.  Whether the mother was right or wrong, the daughter is innocent of responsibility for the choice.  The daughter found grace and home through the danger, toil, and snares she would have known with a dangerous man for a father.  Did the mother know that it was only a matter of time before the daughter was next?  Did the mother know that whatever her daughter might face in the county home, it was preferable the future she faced in her father's house?  The resurrection image of rolling the stone away from the tomb becomes more than a powerful rhyme:  this daughter was given a new life.

The religious imagery turns the mother's motive from revenge and self-defence into self-sacrifice and protection.  The morality and questions about the mother's actions get harder to answer.  The mother is the only one who, however questionably, acted to protect an eight year old innocent.  The mother is the only one who was an agent of God's grace.

The one who is willing to whisper and talk about the moral choice of the mother, but unwilling to protect and defend the daughter is in the wrong.  Her mother brought her grace.  Her mother acted.  When time ran out, there was no one about.  If those who whisper and talk had simply been present, the story would have ended differently.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart demands that we offer love to those who need to know love most.  If the mother was wrong, then so are people of faith who refuse to act as agents of grace when it matters.  Faith that can condemn the mother, without working to offer her a place of shelter, is dead.  Faith provides shelter.  Grace comes through legislation.  Mandatory reporting rolls away the stone.  Stiff penalties for abusers bring victims safety, home, and the chance to know a life lived in grace and love.

THE NATIONAL DOMESTIC ABUSE HOTLINE: 
1.800.799.SAFE (7233)     1.800.787.3224 (TTY)

DISCLAIMER:  The author does not support victims of abuse taking the law into their own hands.  Neither does the author support people whispering and looking the other way.  If you are a victim:  call the domestic abuse hotline.  Find shelter and an advocate to give the guilty a day of reckoning.  Let freedom ring in court and make them pay!  If you are whispering or looking away:  do something.

Dancing In The Street

View the lyrics.  Watch the video on YouTube.  Read about Dancing In The Street on WikiPedia.

By Alexander Zabara

I wanted a lighter song this week, and I think I found it.  This is definitely a feel good song.  It is hard to listen without tapping one's feet, bopping one's head up and down, and swaying to the beat.  It is great to have a feel good song that can also inspire!

This song calls to mind numerous scripture passages, parables.  The Reign of God is like...   a mustard seed, wheat in a field of weeds, finding a pearl of great price, a large net thrown in the sea.  There are more examples, but you get the idea.  Jesus had a way of using something easily understood to talk about something more difficult to understand.

And trying to understand the Reign of God is central to our Christian faith.  We pray for it to come every time we join in the Lord's Prayer.  It is crucial to the Dehonian life as well:  one of our mottos is Your Kingdom Come:  just in case we might be tempted to forget the importance of that petition.  We try earnestly to take this call to heart in our parishes, our schools, wherever we minister. God's Reign not only inspires us, but those we work with as well.  Together, we seek to make cooperating with it our goal.  Here.  In specific places.  With specific people. 


I think the Gospel would have no qualms about using words like these lyrics as a way to get us to consider what the Reign of God is like.  How might the parable go?



The Kingdom of Heaven is like a dance to which everybody is invited.  Nobody has to dress up to accept the invitation:  they can come as they are.  The only thing required is that they get out onto the street and meet folks they do not know.  The beat that brings these strangers together will be one they have not heard before.  The days will be long, the sun will shine, the music will be everywhere, and every city will hear it.



If you get a chance to visit the Motor City, take in the tour of Hitsville:  the original recording studio and headquarters of Motown Records.  It is worth an hour and change of your time.  There, one learns the profound history that this song stands within...  



Want to sing about a chance for folks to meet?  Motown was founded to bring a diverse complexion to international airwaves.  Want to sing about a brand new beat?  Think about trying to integrate dancers at a time when buses, lunch counters, drinking fountains, schools, and colleges were segregated.  Want to sing about finding a girl for every guy?  Motown had a greater percentage of women VPs in the 60s than most labels do today.  Want to sing about what hope and faith look like?  Consider the social standing of Ms. Reeves and the Vandellas, in the 1960s, in the cities they sing about.  Then consider what they proclaim:  Swing.  Sway.  And let the records play!

The Reign of God is like...



The River

View the lyrics, watch the video on YouTube.

This is a heavy song.  The music itself, strong and steady, is a current that never relents.  In it, one can feel a mass of water that could carry away a car, a friend, a life.  The only break in the steady flow is at the chorus:  swift rapids that carry the listener around the bend and to the next verse.

I have yet to see an artist capture baptism in a way as honest, true, and raw.  We are quick to turn to the "nicer" side of baptism.  It is easy to do.  Water cleanses, nourishes, rains, and gives new life.  It is much tougher to look at the other side of Baptism.  This lyric does.  New life means the end of the old one.  Water is deluge, chaos.  To put it bluntly:  water drowns.

          I was baptized in that same water

          Gave my soul to Jesus

          How can such a peaceful place

          Be filled with so much pain?

These lyrics remind us that following Christ offers no peaceful refuge from life's pain.  Life's blessings can be swept away in ways that shake us, like a high school class that loses a friend, down to the core.  We lose people we love.  Cherished ways of doing things that we celebrate one moment, change in the next.  People and parts of our lives that we rely on get swept away overnight in life's current.

It should be different.  In shock, pain, and loss at the senselessness of it all, we wonder where God is.   We can wonder:  if baptism doesn't protect us from pain, then why bother?  It leads the lyricist to write, I swear I'll never go down there again.

My favorite quote of Fr. Dehon, the first Dehonian, begins, The Heart of Jesus is overflowing with compassion for all those who suffer...   The lyrics remind the listener of the real suffering that is part of life, part of baptism.  Baptism and Christ offer no rescue from suffering's current.  If anything, Baptism asks us to immerse ourselves and experience the suffering.  We are asked to step in and drown. 

There are no easy answers, but I find some measure of baptism's peace in the words of Dehon.  Maybe it is in the current that we find compassion, the true depth of love found in the Heart of Christ.  I know that Dehon experienced his share of suffering in life, and wanted others to embrace it in theirs.  He found that the Heart of Christ was there in the depths.  He found that it drew him closer to the suffering of others.

This song opens the listener to experience the drowning that is found in baptism.  As one of the baptized, and as a Dehonian, I find that experiencing the love in Christ's heart and taking it to others is a call to the river:

          That mean ole' river

          That beautiful river
          That damn ole' river.

Land Of The Second Chance

          Burning Fields, I bow my head and bend my back

          And I will kneel, I’ll give the angels thanks

          For bringing me here and guiding my hand

          In this land, The Land of the Second Chance

I've had this ballad on repeat for a few days now:  preparation for Labor Day as a day of faith.  The catchy tune and chorus draw one in.  The need to catch all the story calls for a replay:  the story of an Italian immigrant reflecting on the second chance at life he found as an Australian immigrant.

I wish I could link to the song directly, but it is by a little known independent Australian band:  The Ordinary Fear of God.  The video is available on the band's Myspace page.  You might recognize the voice if you listen as you read.  If you watch, you will certainly recognize the lead singer.  I've also included links to the band's album site for the lyrics, as well to the story behind the lyrics.

This lyric stands at the crossroads of faith and life.  Though the foundation beneath the lyric is never preached directly, it definitely provides support for each verse:  the dignity and value of work and the natural right to it.  Perfect fodder for Labor Day reflection.  The song is also about looking back on the sometimes drastic turns in one's history and giving thanks for the Hand that turns apparent endings into new beginnings.

As a Dehonian, there is something almost magnetic about wanting to hear the life story of someone whose labor harvested the sugar on the table, and later installed windows for a living.  (How often am I so busy looking through windows that I don't consider looking at them to consider the bent back, skills, and story of the person who put it there?)

As a decendent of immigrants, there is something about the lyric that reminds me of my ancestors.  Mario's tale of leaving a war-torn Italy, finding love in unexpected places, and winding road of employment is familiar.  I have a Great Grandmother who fell in love with my Great Grandfather while dating his brother.  There is the story of two brothers who traveled the country by train, bike, and foot.  Those early generations were day laborers, hired hands, cigar makers, professional photographers, lumber workers, and for the most part:  eventually farmers and ranchers.  My family is not unique.  Unless you are Native American, or of African decent:  then I would bet you have similar stories of your immigrant ancestors.

Immigration is a touchy issue today, globally.  Citizens from around the globe are not sure what to do with immigrant and migrant populations.  In the United States, we are not sure how to respond:  on one border, we are building a wall and sending soldiers to guard it.  On another, we have a beacon and the literally forged words:  "Give me your tired, your poor ... the refuse of your teeming shore ...  send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me."   As a man of faith, I believe that God's angels were guiding my immigrant ancestors through the twists and turns of life, love, and labor.  I can do nothing authentic but stand behind the conviction that this country is for those who need labor and a second chance:  open the doors.

This song inspires me to see the world as an immgrant, and bend my back and give thanks.  In my own background, people with names like Symonds, Tracy, Wiseman, Heslop, Lemke, Yusko, and Gilbert found a land of the second chance.  How can I do anything other than light the torch and open the shore for those with names like Nguyen, Martinez, Hussain, Milena, Kim, Garcia, Ahmed, and Liú?  I leave you with Mario's prayer of thanksgiving:

          A fortunate find for a lucky guy,
          The Land of the Second Chance!

Surround Me

One of my college theology professors taught that somewhere along the way we lost touch with lament as a prayer form.  Oh sure, we can complain and moan before God about how mistreated we may be from time to time.  Maybe we are having an altruistic day and can even complain about how others are mistreated.  But, how often do we raise our voice in lament, reading God the riot act?  We do have reason.  Consider what we hear in the news:  the treatment of immigrants and citizens like outsiders and slaves, children dying of violence on their own lawns, one's economic security vanishing with every ring of the closing bell.

Surround Me reclaims the biblical tradition of lament.  We are not sure of exactly what the singer needs rescuing from, but that allows each listener to make the words their own.  They are the words of each believer who finds themselves desperate, lost, and begging God for help.  Surround me is not a request for God's protection, it is a demand that God remain faithful to promises made and lamenting that the promises are not being kept.  Surround me now, don't let me run, I am on my knees!  (And from You, nothing but silence!)

The lyric hints pretty strongly that if God is not faithful, then the believer has no reason NOT to run away and leave God be. After all, is God not leaving them be? Today, we have moved so far from lament, the idea itself seems foreign, even irreligious.  Yet, the psalms are filled with pleas for help to an absent God, desperate reminders to God of past faithfulness, reminders that if God continues to be silent:  God is the one who is going to look unfaithful and uncaring.

Pain is real.  The anguished cry of a parent who has lost a child due to senseless violence.  The desperation of one who has labored hard for years but is losing their security and home.  The often silent scream of someone who finds themselves lost and adrift.  We can be too quick to turn to pious words of comfort that ignore real pain.  God has given word to be a God of justice, and to be faithful.  Yet, seas of injustice leave so many stranded, with no recourse but to demand that God do what God has promised to do. 

I believe in resurrection, and that God's silence only seems to be that.  But, I also wonder if we sometimes rush too quickly to resurrection.  Surround Me is a good reminder that we are in relationship with God, that we have a right (desperate need?) to demand that God be faithful.  Maybe the relationship cannot go forward and deepen unless we take lament to heart from time to time and demand that God do what God has promised to do.

Let It Be

The Queen of Heaven meets the Queen of soul!  When thinking of my first song to blog about, there wasn't a choice. Aretha Franklin’s rendition of the Beatle's Let It Be is a litany that washes over the listener like baptism.  Darkness in the world, broken-hearted people, and cloudy nights?  Just take a look at the headlines.   

This lyric isn't about saying "Let it all be and let God take care of it."  No.  It is an echo of Mary's own fiat.  Her mission was recieved in a world as troubling as ours.  She knew that it was not going to be an easy road if she said "yes".  She was troubled at the annunciation, and I don't think because an angel appeared in front of her.  (Which would trouble the best of us!)  She knew that bringing the messiah into the world would bring pain beyond that of childbirth.

These words have a special ring for me as a Brother:  they are one of the mottos of my congregation.  Let it be.  (We use the Latin, Ecce Ancilla.)  When I see someone who is homeless, or others in need, this song reminds me I am baptized in the Spirit that washed over Mary at the Annunciation.  Whatever may be my required response to human need:  let it be.  Sometimes, I'm asked to say "yes" without knowing the full measure of the commitment I am making or where the road will take me.  In such times, this song brings a measure of peace.  Through this lyric, Mary comes to me, and I can receive grace from her conviction to take a step forward.  A step of cooperation in her Son's work of redeeming this world and the people in it.  Another step forward as one of the baptized.

Listen to Aretha's version on You Tube.

Well, Here Goes!

Thomas Aquanis says that "grace builds on nature."  Who am I to argue?

One of my earliest memories is of a journal my aunt (and Godmother) kept of song lyrics.  Back in her day, there was no such thing as a quick google of one's favorite lyrics, and a right-click cut-and-paste.  Nope.  This was retro when retro was new:  a journal kept on looseleaf in a three-ring binder covered with flowers.  (She was a child of the 60's and 70's.)  Each lyric was written by hand, representing time spent listening to the song over and over again, just to be sure she got it right.  This wasn't a painstaking task, but an act of devotion.  She loved music.

Thus began my own devotion to music.  I like music of all genres, sometimes in languages I don't understand.  Sometimes, it may be the beat that gets my feet tapping.  Sometimes, the song may simply be fun.  At others, the song might remind me of a time with friends or family.  Maybe the lyric gives words to something I am not able to express well myself.  All of this is great, but it is not what this blog is about.

I'm a Roman Catholic Brother.  I'm a Dehonian.  That is, a member of the Priests of the Sacred Heart.  As a Catholic, and a Dehonian, I've found grace in my natural love for music.  (Hence, the opening reference to Aquanis.)  Many times the lyrics and music I love have become fodder for deeper faith, even if the song is not overtly religious.  (Often when the song is not overtly religious.)  As a minister, I've also made use of songs such as these in teaching and passing the faith on to other generations.  (Sometimes, I've had students roll their eyes when I bring out that folk music of the 60's and 70's that was my aunt's mainstay.)  At other times, a poingnant lyric from a song heard daily on the radio has led to meaningful discussion, and I hope some measure of deepend faith when the song was next heard on the radio, or their mp3 player.

And so, in this blog, I will introduce you to My Dehonian Playlist.  It is a real playlist.  These are songs I turn to when I want to re-energize my commitment as a religious Brother, as a person of faith.  These are songs that I find have inspired and challenged me to live well my particular slice of our great, wide faith.  Just like that handwritten journal gave expression to my aunt's favorite music, I hope for this blog to be a record of those songs that are worth my time and that serve as an inspiration to my faith.