June 2020
Complacency
01 June 2020 @ 19:24
My memories of standing with my hand over my heart reciting the Pledge of Allegiance have no starting point. It has just been a part of life in these United States. In elementary school I was still naive enough to take the words of the pledge at face value. As my knowledge of what went on in our country and in the world beyond my small town increased, I realized that the Pledge was an ideal to aspire to rather than something that already was. I became increasingly aware of the violation of civil rights for those of color and I worried about my friends of color. There was the increasing unrest in Southeast Asia and it seemed like no one really knew why. I struggled with protests against war that turned violent because I believed that you could only overcome hate by doing that which is the opposite and that ‘All You Need(ed) (Was) Love’. I started to see how political agendas and covert actions could pull us into conflict or start conflict rather than protect us from these arenas. Although I disagreed with our reasons for being in Viet Nam, I served in the USAF during those years, remaining stateside. I continued to recite those words to the pledge but with ever greater doubts. Would we ever rise above our hatred and distrust of those who are different from us. When would simply doing what is right and just become the norm? Then I thought I saw progress. In the past three decades I must say that I started to believe that we were coming around. It seemed that we were caring more about each other. I may have been a bit blinded by the caring community within the hospitals where I was spending my time.
In 2011 I traveled to Oświęcim, Poland (Auschwitz in German) and as I toured the Auschwitz and Birkenau I found myself asking how people outside of the camps could allow such a horrible beast to rise up in their midst without taking a stand for what is right. Sadly I am asking the same thing in my own country these days and the story is similar. News outlets discredited; the constitution of our land pushed aside for personal gain; conspiracy theories being promoted; there is the silence that accompanies events by white supremacy groups but then outrage over an NFL player taking a knee during the National Anthem in protest of violence against blacks by police. Now we hear the cry of ‘thugs’ concerning those protesting a policeman taking a knee on George Floyd’s neck resulting in his death. While I will never condone the violence that has transpired since, I can only say that we are seeing the results of years of injustices by the privileged few and in that I include myself and all who have remained silent thinking it would just work itself out. What bothers me the most is that this comes during a time when it seems that a large segment of the white evangelical church backs the current administration with so many saying that we have witnessed the return of Christmas, the return of God to our schools and the push for a pro-life agenda. The evidence found in the midst of that which is happening around us speaks otherwise. There is nothing pro-God or pro-life about any of this.
I wrote the song 'I Heard Tell’ in early 2018 following the march, in August 2017, of white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA with the President refusing to address the evil for what it was. People had so wrapped themselves, and continue to do so, in a flag which is now definitely not symbolic of a country that pledges ‘liberty and justice for all’. In the Rich Mullins song ‘Screen Door’ he sings “There's a difference, you know, between faith and playing make-believe. One will make you grow. The other one will make you sleep.” By all appearances it seems that a church that professes to follow a Savior who identified with the oppressed and marginalized has fallen asleep from too much make-believe. Rich, in his song ‘Creed’, also wrote “I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am.” This song, 'I Heard Tell’, comes out of what I believe and it’s what makes me what I am. I am not sure why I did not record it and put it out there after I wrote it. I can only be saddened by my own delay and silence.
In 2011 I traveled to Oświęcim, Poland (Auschwitz in German) and as I toured the Auschwitz and Birkenau I found myself asking how people outside of the camps could allow such a horrible beast to rise up in their midst without taking a stand for what is right. Sadly I am asking the same thing in my own country these days and the story is similar. News outlets discredited; the constitution of our land pushed aside for personal gain; conspiracy theories being promoted; there is the silence that accompanies events by white supremacy groups but then outrage over an NFL player taking a knee during the National Anthem in protest of violence against blacks by police. Now we hear the cry of ‘thugs’ concerning those protesting a policeman taking a knee on George Floyd’s neck resulting in his death. While I will never condone the violence that has transpired since, I can only say that we are seeing the results of years of injustices by the privileged few and in that I include myself and all who have remained silent thinking it would just work itself out. What bothers me the most is that this comes during a time when it seems that a large segment of the white evangelical church backs the current administration with so many saying that we have witnessed the return of Christmas, the return of God to our schools and the push for a pro-life agenda. The evidence found in the midst of that which is happening around us speaks otherwise. There is nothing pro-God or pro-life about any of this.
I wrote the song 'I Heard Tell’ in early 2018 following the march, in August 2017, of white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA with the President refusing to address the evil for what it was. People had so wrapped themselves, and continue to do so, in a flag which is now definitely not symbolic of a country that pledges ‘liberty and justice for all’. In the Rich Mullins song ‘Screen Door’ he sings “There's a difference, you know, between faith and playing make-believe. One will make you grow. The other one will make you sleep.” By all appearances it seems that a church that professes to follow a Savior who identified with the oppressed and marginalized has fallen asleep from too much make-believe. Rich, in his song ‘Creed’, also wrote “I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am.” This song, 'I Heard Tell’, comes out of what I believe and it’s what makes me what I am. I am not sure why I did not record it and put it out there after I wrote it. I can only be saddened by my own delay and silence.