Today’s
news reports the dismay of high school students who sought help from the
Florida legislature after the mass shooting at their high school. The legislators refused to debate a ban on
automatic weapons, as they took time to pass a resolution to protect teenagers
from pornography. What’s their new motto: “Guns don’t f**k people, people f**k
people”?
Unfortunately
the right has no monopoly on misdirected concern, despite their worry about
gender neutral bathrooms, sharia law, and leaving teachers unarmed. The left too can get worked up about really
dumb stuff. Take this one: The author of
the wonderful hymn “Standing on the Side of Love” has changed its title to
“Answering the Call of Love” out of respect to the physically disabled, and
worse yet, his denomination has changed its own campaign to “Siding with Love,”
whatever that means.
Of course,
like most hastily thought out responses to any objection, the solution really
doesn’t work. How are the deaf or those
who cannot speak going to answer the call of love? And when will the sensitivity police get to
the rest of the hymnal and other songs?
Here are my suggestion for the first works needing purification:
For paraplegics and those using
wheelchairs:
·
“Lord of the Dance”
·
“I’ll Walk with God”
·
“The Lord is My Shepherd’ (though I walk through
the valley”)
·
“Just a Closer Walk with Thee”
·
“Standing the Need of Prayer”
·
“The Garden”
(“and he walks with me”)
·
“When the Saints Go Marching In” (also note “I
looked over Jordan”)
·
“Run Come See Jerusalem”
For the vision or hearing-impaired:
·
“When the Saints Go Marching In” (also note “I
looked over Jordan”)
·
“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”
·
“O Little Town of Bethlehem (“how still we see
thee lie”)
·
“Jesus we Look to Thee”
And
music isn’t the only problem. What was
Jesus thinking when he said “You have
eyes and do not see and
you have ears and you
do not hear,” or "But
blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear,” or "The
eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will
be full of light”? Or David when he sang
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”?
I
could go on – and I often do: The daily
Hebrew prayer that begins “Hear, O Israel,” the Star-Spangled banner, with its
grievous insult, “O say can you see,” and falsely uplifting songs like “Stand
By Me,” or the heartlessly blunt “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
Folks,
let’s stop nitpicking. I want all of us
to stand, walk, run, sing, shout, speak out, be watchful, and act in whatever
literal or metaphoric way we can against evil, war, violence, and cruelty, and
for goodness, peace, and love. And when
we’ve finished those tasks, we can return to vocabulary tests.
