True Grit

My post this week is tied to a film I'm behind the curve in discovering:  True Grit.    God's Gonna Cut You Down (lyrics) and Leaning On The Everlasting Arms (lyrics) are the songs whose lyrics frame this film, the former through the film's website, the latter as the credits roll.  God's Gonna... can be played at the right.  Leaning can be heard on YouTube.

          The wicked flee when none pursueth... 


So begins the film with a half quote of Proverbs 28:1.  So begins the story of Mattie Ross and her pursuit of justice for her innocently slain father.  Mattie Ross stands for all those who seek justice and right relationship, indeed:  for all of us.  Sometimes our desire for justice becomes so strong, we pursue it as if we were God.  As Maggie does.  If the wicked flee, then we pursue.  With determination and grit we give notice to those who cheat, lie, steal, oppress, and victimize that sooner or later, God will cut you down.  Of course, by God we mean us.  God sometimes takes too long. God appears too willing to let the wicked prosper.  Some find that the lyrics of God's Gonna Cut You Down give a literal echo to their pursuit of justice.  Others might find the lyrics distasteful, a limping metaphor at best.  Both seek justice and a restoration of right relationship:  here and now.



Mattie Ross - Production Still

Author Unknown

The lyrics framing True Grit are challenging.  When Mattie finally reaches the end of her pursuit of justice:  she is knocked off her feet into a pit and bitten by a snake.  (A biblical image if there ever was one!)  It is easy to apply this toward the violent pursuit of justice.  The hangings and multiple shootings in the film suggest this.  (View a commentary here.)  But, could it be that the very pursuit of justice and the good returns us to Eden?  That the pursuit of justice and right relationship is by itself biting off more from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil than we can chew?

   

The full quote from Proverbs is:  The wicked flee when none pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.  This is not a call to pursue the wicked and enforce justice.  It is a piece of wisdom saying that the wicked are forever looking over their shoulder, even when there is nothing there, but that the just can stand before God and others confident and sure. 



Leaning On The Everlasting Arms

True Grit Production Still - Author Unknown

True Grit suggests that no one can stand firm when good and evil are concerned.  No one can make a claim to be righteous.  Every character in this film finds themselves pulled down, dismounted, or knocked off their feet.  Every character falls, even in the very pursuit of justice.  The only innocent "character", the only one who finds Eden's fruit to be a treat, is Maggie's horse:  prone in the end, sacrificed to restore her to life.

The final lyrics framing this film are filled with mystery.  Leaning on the everlasting arms is all that even the righteous can hope for.  This is a challenging message for one whose vocation seeks justice and peace.  I do not find this vocation challenged, but the message is that God's peace is only found when we are carried, wounded.  Are we all Maggie?  Could it be that the best justice we can hope to find is when we are wounded, and in need of healing and redemption?  In need of mercy?

I consider the Sacred Heart.  The only one of us who could rightly claim innocence in the pursuit of goodness, justice, and right relationship found himself wounded.  How can it be different for those of us who, like Maggie, are children of Eve?



Firework II: The Video

Ever play the game of "If Only?"  I bet you know how it goes.  If only I were thin, then I would be lovable.  If only I had hair and was a normal kid, then I would be lovable.  If only I did what my neighbors and friends thought was cool, then I would be lovable.  If only I were straight?  If only I could change this one thing about myself...

From a decidedly secular source, we hear a response to this question that is surprisingly, radically Christian.  (Watch the video here, be inspired by the lyrics.)  This song and video is inspiring to me, not just because it has a good beat and is empowering, but because it is so profoundly Dehonian.  There is something here to reflect on in prayer.  (And, as a Catholic, I was surprised to see such a profound statement of the value of all human life from such a mainstream source:  did anyone else notice the fireworks coming from the unborn child?)

4th of July - 2010 - Photo By Author

The question is not "If only?"  For Fr. Dehon the starting place in our relationship to God was his love for us.  As we are.  And that is just the start.  There is no need to change who we are to receive God's love.  Stay with that.  It is hard for us to hear.  We are so used to people who try to change a little bit here, or a little bit there in an attempt to help us fit in, to make us lovable.  It is worth writing and reading a second time.  There is no need to change who we are to receive God's love.

The question is not whether God loves us as we are.  The question is:  how do we respond to God's love and be the person, the firework, that we were meant to be?  As a Dehonian, it is my life's calling to learn how to do that, to witness to that, or, to use the language we Dehonians use:  to make my life an offering to reflect the great richness of love contained in the Heart of Christ.

I'm reminded of a woman I knew who was overweight and thought she was ugly.  Because of this, she had a tough time accepting the fact she was going to be a beautiful bride.  She resigned herself to being a "Plus Bride".  (!)  Who decided that a such a "special" adjective is needed, anyway?  (Not God, that's for sure.)  Of course, the message is clear:  lovable brides are not plus sized.  Well, she got over it and rocked the reception!  My favorite moment was when she took to the dance floor with her new husband as a song began to boom, both hands joyfully raised in the air.  Talk about booming and even brighter than the moon!  (Even the moon was sick and pale with grief...)  I enjoyed simply basking in the light of her witness to the beautiful person and firework God had made. 

Moments such as that, and videos such as Firework, are excellent reminders that every person is original and not to be replaced.  Both invite us to consider the fundamental dignity of the human person.  (For more on this:  see previous post.)

There are two things about the video which give me pause, which I guess is another way of saying that they give me something to think and pray about.

First of all, and most importantly, I noticed the boy shoving an adult man twice his size to protect his mother and sister from violence.  That is an inspiring scene for a video, but in reality it is very dangerous.  Anyone in a similar situation who sees this video:  let it inspire you to find a way to intervene that doesn't put yourself at risk of getting hurt.  There are adults you can trust.  Seek out a trusted teacher, minister, nurse, or doctor.  Simply to talk to them takes great courage.  They know that and will find a way to help you that keeps you as safe as possible.

Two other scenes provoked a great deal of discussion among my friends and colleages.  For me, the scenes are related to each other:  the young woman joining her friends in the pool, and the two young men kissing on the dance floor.  For both the woman and young men I'm worried that the potential for finding their firework might get lost in conformity. 

I saw the young woman as being confident enough in herself not to care what others think.  She chose not to conform by ignoring what her peers might think and jumping in the pool.  I think that is good and holy.  In a related way, I acknowledge those women who choose not to conform by refusing to be objectified.  A woman I work with put it this way:  "So, what, I'm only liberated and free if I show my body to everybody?"  In the end, I think it is the mark of good art when contrasting points of view are surfaced. 

In a like manner, the two young men kissing prompted much disscussion, and I've spent some time reflecting about that scene.  Nobody should conform by hiding or denying the person God created them to be.  This video captures that well.  There are too many young men and women who commit suicide because they are constantly told there is something wrong with them, that something is broken, that are are loveable if only. 

The danger is a society that tells them that a dance floor hook up will satisfy their need to love and be loved.  I can't help it.  I was raised in South Dakota, with what many would call old fashioned values.  Heck, I'm a Catholic.  It doesn't matter if it is two men, two women, or a woman and a man:  bodies are to be reverenced and belong to a person who deserves dignity, not being treated like a piece of meat.  Too often, that is what the dance floor becomes:  the proverbial "meat market."  And, it doesn't matter who the couple is, the true firework of sex is the result, just as is shown so well in the video:  a baby about to be born, sparks everywhere, lighting up the room, and saying to the world:  I am here, I am a firework of God.

Regarding both scenes of the video, I am reminded of the words of a priest I once heard:  God created us, and God doesn't create junk.  So, let's not reduce a person to their junk.  In fact:  it isn't junk, and has a purpose:  to produce the firework of life.

Firework I: The Lyric



Blue Fireworks by Neurovelho



First, I was inspired by the lyrics to this song.  Then, I noticed it climb Billboard to the number one position.  Finally, Firework got me thinking about French history, the Catechism, Fr. Dehon, and the Sacred Heart.  No, really.

The first job of Fr. Dehon was at St. Quentin.  Not the prison, but the town in northern France.  At the time, roughly 140 years ago, the town was in the throws of the industrial revolution, textile factories.  The work day:  12 hours (minimum), seven days a week.  (Children would get a break, and only have to work half a shift.  They got to start full-time at about age 15, and they often did;  their family needed the cash.  Pensions, worker's comp, health insurance:  nope, nada, uh-uh.  If you were crushed by the textile machines, the factory didn't even offer to help bury your body.  Don't even start to think about equal pay for equal work.  Life was pretty dismal.  On the plus side, there were plenty of bars and brothels in town to provide, uhm, distractions of all sorts.  Conditions were pretty much the same throughout the industrialized Western world.

What on earth does this have to do with going boom, boom, boom, like a firework or the firework-like heavy base beat to this song?  Right about this time, Pope Leo 13 had enough of how workers were being treated, and decided the Church should break its silence.  (By the way:  the Church was silent and very worried that any talk of worker's and/or human rights would appear similar to some words by a guy named Marx.)  Anyway, Pope Leo asked Fr. Dehon, personally, to preach his encyclicals (fancy word for letter) about the rights of workers.  Their words were a boom that caught attention.

Basically, the Church began to hear the screams and preach that people were not meant to drift through the wind like a discarded plastic bag.  Their lives shouldn't be a house of cards, human lives should not get buried six feet under the needs of the marketplace.  Their needs and interests are important.  Their families and relationships are important.  Their commitments to neighbor, community, and God are important. 

Why?  For the first time in response to industrialization, she began to articulate principles of justice and speak out.  People, each individual man, woman, and child, are not things.  A person is someone.  People are capable of knowing and loving themselves and freely entering into relationship with others, and into relationship with God.  The dignity and worth of the human person isn't in some generic qualities we all have, it is in the unique qualities each person has as a creation of God.  We have some something unique to offer that nobody else can.  Though these principals are certainly not exclusive to Catholics, I'm paraphrasing Number 357 of the Catholic Catechism here, not the lyrics to the song.  It can be difficult to tell the difference.

Fr. Dehon's devotion to the Sacred Heart picked up on that last part.  Simply put, God wants us to live in a world where we can respond by being that unique person, by offering our unique self back to God and to neighbor.  That person, that response, is meant to light up the sky.  That is the firework the Creator intended and loves to see.

Or, in better words:

           ...there's still a chance for you...
          'Cause there's a spark in you.
          'Cause baby, you're a firework
          Come on, show 'em what you're worth.

(Next Tuesday:  Firework II.)

Country Strong

          Cause I'm country strong
          Hard to break:  like the ground I grew up on.

I haven't had a chance to see the movie.  I will see it, for two reasons.  I enjoy almost every genre, but being from Dakota country:  country music is the music of my people.  Secondly, I'm often entertained when actors I enjoy suddenly display a talent I never knew they possessed.  Gweneth Paltrow, somewhere, found field cred!  She sings country music with all the heart, soul, and earthiness of someone born and raised with the Opry.  But, this blog isn't about singing the praises of country music and rural life.  (Though there are such praises to sing.)  This blog is about the crossroads of music, lyrics, and fatih.  

Read the lyric.  Hear the beginning of the song on the playlist on the right.  Watch Gweneth.

Photo by Georg Slickers

What is powerful about the above lyric isn't what is said, so much as what is happening in its creation:  reflection, imagination, experience, and implications.  This sounds like prayer to me.  The singer finds herself in a situation where she feels like she is breaking, and makes an imaginative leap.  Break.  I'm breaking.  Farm land is broken for planting.  Farm land is hard to break.  I'm like that land.  Life might be tough, but I'm tough to break.

This is prayer at its creative, imaginative, metaphoric best!  To link what is going on in our heart and soul to what we see, smell, hear, touch, and taste.  If you think it may be a bit faddish to get tips for prayer from the example of country song lyrics:  the imaginative leap the singer takes is similar to another we know well.  When Jesus was having his last meal with friends, he looked down at the food, took the bread, blessed it, and broke it.  This bread is my body, broken for you.

What is going on with you right now?  Do you soar like an eagle?  Skip like a rock?  Move with the wind?  Do you burn like fire?  Are you stretched like a rubbar band?  Broken like glass?  A content kitten full of cream? 

Country Strong is a call to spend some time making imaginative connections.  A call to spend time in prayer.

Metaphores be with you!

Hanukkah Blessings



Source:  www.kochivibe.com

Artist Unknown



To enjoy this wonderful song:  gaze to the right and click "play".  Read the lyrics. 



For years, this catchy song has held pride of place in my Christmas Playlist.  Always in the top three of songs to play, it speaks of ancient traditions in ways fresh and new.  I like that.

 

I also like to celebrate Christmas by tipping my hat to the faith and traditions that Jesus would have been celebrating this time of year.  Jesus would have been remembering how, thanks to God, one day's worth of lamp oil kept the temple alight for eight days.  Striking, isn't it, how easily the lyrics of this song relate to Christmas?  God lifting us out of darkness.  Light and peace coming to a world that often finds itself in darkness and anxiety.  Freedom from slavery, from sin.  Taking darkness and casting joy.  God exceeding our plans and expectations.

These lyrics strike me in a different way each year.  This year, I'm questioning the temptation to let Christmas be December 25.  Come the 26th, it is too easy to let "normal" life resume.  Night after night, one by one, the candles are set alight.  Maybe joy and light are like that.  Maybe light, freedom, and peace require more than frenzied weeks of preparation for one night and day.  (After all, it is the twelve days of christmas, isn't it?)

 

I don't know about you, but I feel called to continue enjoying the lights of Christmas.  I'm perfectly willing to let the jingle bells, TV shows, and the noise of Christmas pass.  After one day, I've had my fill.  But, let the lights linger.  Nature supplies dark evenings that allow me to reflect on an ornamented tree that is a sign of God's activity in the world, bringing light to darkness.  There is an invitation in our very orbit about the sun to turn off our overhead electric lightbulb suns, let nature's darkness be, and let the natural light of candles cast their light. 

God is at work in the darkness around us.  God turns the fear and darkness in our lives into mystery, and -with time- illumination and joy.  Reflecting on such things takes more than a day.  It takes repition. 



Twelve days of Christmas?  Then it isn't even half over! 

I hope you have only begun to see the light!

Silent Night

For a refresher, you can find the lyrics to Silent Night here.   To listen, look to the right and click "play".

Have you ever have a Christmas song that ...just ...gets ...on ...your ...nerves?  That one carol that rubs you the wrong way?  A Christmas song that even Stevie Nicks can't fix?  I usually reflect on songs I have a postive response to, but sometimes it is worth reflecting on lyrics that provoke a strong negative reaction.  Silent Night is my yearly dose of fingernails on a chalkboard.

The lyric is just so much wishful thinking!  Like a mirage, it is an image of what we wish the birth of Jesus was like:  a lush image that, ultimately, is not rooted in the reality of incarnation.  Calm and bright?  Tender and mild?  Heavenly peace?  Silent radiant beams of glory?

Give me a break!  First of all, I was raised in farm and ranch country.  Mangers and stables are NOT silent and peaceful.  Sheep are neither clean nor quiet.  If Jesus' first bed looked like our popular, rustic, and ultimately romantic images:  well, let's just say that stable hay is a less than sanitary choice of bedding for a newborn. Secondly, the lives of too many people look like the reality of what stables are.  I think of the lives I've met as a Priest of the Sacred Heart:  at risk children, immigrants, victims of abuse, those struggling to find a place in society, workers concerned for their economic future.



Battle Of Shanghai Baby - Retouched

Photo By Bellhalla;  Original by Office Of Emergency Management

   

I can't help but believe that Christ's incarnation was more, well, carnal.  That is the word we use:  incarnation.   We are talking about taking on flesh, of choosing a life that, all too often for far too many, means suffering.  Pain.   

Was the night of Christ's birth a silent night?  Did Mary smile down upon a peacefully sleeping baby?  We wish that for newborns, but that image is not incarnate.  

I ask you:  what is the reaction of babies who find themselves in the last place one would choose for a child?  And, I believe that Fr. Leo Dehon would ask us all:  if this a season of light and redemption, what is our response to a world too often filled with darkness, cries, and screams?

Thank You For Loving Me

Read the lyrics.  Watch the video on YouTube.  Listen by clicking "play" on the playlist to the right.

Every once in awhile, even celibates contemplate marriage.  At least this one does. (Especially when a great picture of a married couple arrives in my email.)  Marriage reveals something of the mystery of Christ's love for us.  Well, not quite.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say marriages:  marriages are that window into Christ's love.  I'm not talking about some abstract ideal.  What reveals divine Love is actual marriages.  The marriages of family, friends, the couple at the next table, in the next pew.  You get my drift.

What makes this song by Bon Jovi stand out is that it isn't about the usual youthful fare that mistakes desire, longing, or fire for love.  The love in Thank You... is centered on commitment and action.  Sure, there is an element of passion in seeing a new sky in blue eyes and having one's dreams and world collapse in the gaze.  (It is a bit scary to think that this might reveal something of God's love:  that God might want us that completely.)

Photo by Mary Lou Griffith

What makes this song stand out is that the passion is an undercurrent for a deeper, more lasting commitment.  In this lyric, love is an action:  it reveals what is hidden, it resuscitates, is for better and worse, it rescues, risks, and gives wings.  Of course, the video centers on a young couple, but it doesn't stay there.  It simply can't.  This kind of love is best revealed through the wisdom and experience that only time offers.  The young couple's hope is fully found in the commitment of the mature couple.  (And, isn't the group of nuns that the bride passes on the way to the wedding an interesting visual choice?  Are they merely a prop on Roman streets, or is the video suggesting that this sort of love is, in its own way, found in the commitment of celibates to their life of service to others?)

Maybe when we next see a mature couple dancing together, sharing laughter, eye's locked together, we are getting a glimpse of Divine Love.  (As a Dehonian, I would call it a glimpse of the love contained for us in the Sacred Heart of Christ.)  At such times, there is no choice other than to say to God:  "Thank you for loving me..."

Just A Dream



Read the lyrics.  Watch the video on YouTube.  To listen:  look to the right and "play" away...



Cover Art:  Just A Dream



I know that this blog is supposed to be about the intersection of faith and lyrics.  But, I can't help but mention that the first thing I thought when seeing the video for this song was William Shakespeare.  (In my defense:  sometimes I am tempted to think Shakespeare's words are divinely inspiried.) 

Nelly's lyric of a man who lost his love due to failure to commit, combined with the images in the video, instantly reminded me of lyrics from a much older song in Much Ado About Nothing.

         

          Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; 
              Men were deceivers ever;
          One foot in sea and one on shore,
              To one thing constant never;

          Then sigh not so, But let them go,
              And be you blithe and bonny;
          Converting all your sounds of woe
              Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

From National Portrait Gallery

London, England

...nice earring, Shakespeare!

What is it about men...   well, I don't want to be sexist.  What is it about men and women that make us afraid to commit?  Though I am a celibate:  I understand the lyrics Nelly sings.  The Church gave me six years to make my profession of final vows.  Though I could have professed after three years:  I took all six. 

Sometimes, as the lyrics of this song suggest, we spend so much time dreaming about what could be we fail to see the life and people right in front of us.  Nelly realizes that he should have put it down, got that ring, and made a commitment.  He realizes that life in the clubs, single and free, is not as happy as the missed chance he had for a wife would have been. 

What is the happiness that God intends for us?  Do we hold off on commitment until "it" happens, whether that be the "perfect" job, career, spouse, or situation?  Shakespeare expresses it as keeping one foot in sea and the other on shore.  Is that elusive "it" we are waiting for, as Nelly suggests, just a dream?  What if happiness isn't "it", but is being aware of and seeing what is in front of us, and saying "yes...", "I do...", or (in my less frequent case) "I profess..."   Nelly tells us that happiness is found with commitment.  When we do commit, our eyes are opened and we realize that all else is only a dream.

 

I'll Be Missing You

Read the lyrics.  To listen on MyDehonianPlayist:  just look to the right and play.

This week I had a chance to attend a workshop on the coming translations that will be used at Mass.  These translations got me thinking about our images of God.  I noticed that many of the original Latin texts express a relationship to a God who is distant, wholly other, greater, over, and above.  We approach this God in great humility.  We are not only servants, we are slaves, and God is Master.  We do not look God in the eye.  This is a God who deigns to give us attention.

This is a legitimate image of God and has its place in our prayer life.  God's thoughts are so beyond our thoughts, God's ways are so beyond our ways, and perspective is so beyond our perspective that it is the height of arrogance for us to assume any relationship other than to be supplicative.

By Arthur@NYCArthur.com



Yet, I couldn't help but have this song by P. Diddy play in my mind.  I remember a funeral for a teen in Fort Thompson, South Dakota.  His death was sudden, unexpected, and tragic.  A winter auto accident.  His friends and siblings -heartbroken, vulnerable- played this song at the graveside.  Huddled together against the cold around their sound system, it was the lyrics of this song that gave final expression to their pain and brokenness. 

The lyrics, though not addressed directly to God, are certainly in God's presence.  They talk about a God who is the God of life, who hears our prayers, who is concerned about relationship and bonds that break, who responds to heartbreak, who is present for every step, every night, every move we make.

There are times we need to come before God in the most humble of terms.  Yet, as a Dehonian, I must admit that image fails to speak as poignantly as the time some Fort Thompson teens stood before a God who was listening to P. Diddy, as he gave words to their vulnerability and faith when they could do no more than huddle against the cold, together in God's presence. 

Pray For You

Read the lyrics.  Be entertained by the video.  To listen on MyDehonianPlayist:  just look to the right and press play.

From www.jaronatlrtl.com

I had a great discussion about this entertaining song's lyrics over pizza yesterday!  The verse sets us up for pious and nice thoughts, and the chorus delivers with prayers that jar the listener like a flowerpot from above.  A visit to church and a sermon about praying for one's enemies brings the singer to pray that their brakes go out on a downhill trip, among other things.  All with organ music waxing holy in the background.

Hypocritical?  Maybe not.

I am reminded of a traditional Jewish... well... blessing... I guess.  Relying on Yiddish's unique combination of wit and wisdom, this sort of prayer would go something like, May your engine stall while you are flying high, God Forbid!  Begin with words that express one's baser -but honest- desire.  End by placing the desire in God's hands.  (To learn more, check out page 214 of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Yiddish.)  I don't think the similarity between the song and the blessing is by accident.  Jaron David Lowenstein, singer and co-author of the song, was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home.  Chances are, he grew up knowing this rather unique sort of blessing.

What if there is wisdom in this song?  As a Dehonian, my belief is in a God who is profoundly interested in relationship.  God is interested in our Sunday best.  God is also interested in our Monday morning rush-hour worst.  Honesty.  Who we really are.  For better and for worse.  At our best, we can be incredibly generous and self-sacraficing.  But, I don't think I am the only one who occasionally wishes that someone's path is crossed by a rapidly falling flower pot.

What if there is some value in expressing our worst desires in prayer?  God forbid!  Such a prayer keeps us honest with ourselves, honest with God.  At the same time, such prayer also tempers that desire by placing the matter in God's hands:  "I would like the brakes on their car to go out, but your will, not mine, be done."

I know that sometimes I try to stifle and stuff my worst desires for others.  When I do, they usually find a way out.  Usually in ways that end up being destructive of relationships.  In ways that end in regret for my actions and words.  In ways that require forgiveness and consequences. 

Of course, the Gospel calls not just that we pray for enemies, but that we actually love them.  Maybe a few honestly expressed words, between God and I, followed by putting the matter in the hands of Providence will start me down this "high road", as the song calls it.  Love is the desired end, but to be honest before God, it isn't always the starting point.

          He said you cant go hating others who have done wrong to you.
          Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn.
          Let the good Lord do His job and you just pray for them.

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.