tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post114818984372097632..comments2023-12-23T05:26:40.855-06:00Comments on Showers of Blessings: Dangerous SongsPaul Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1149363534132390792006-06-03T14:38:00.000-05:002006-06-03T14:38:00.000-05:00Yes. A complete spiritual revolution.Yes. A complete spiritual revolution.Paul Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1149360704508546682006-06-03T13:51:00.000-05:002006-06-03T13:51:00.000-05:00So, any ideas on how to go about changing the U.S....So, any ideas on how to go about changing the U.S. national anthem from the <I>Star Spangled Banner</I> to, say, <A HREF="http://www.lyricsfind.com/p/peter,-paul---mary/unknown-album/song-of-peace-(finlandia).php" REL="nofollow">A Song of Peace</A>?<BR/><BR/>Blessings,<BR/>Liz, <A HREF="http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">The Good Raised Up</A>Liz Opphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09802348848085930901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1149002829159596592006-05-30T10:27:00.000-05:002006-05-30T10:27:00.000-05:00I applaud your witness, Lorcan.As a professional, ...I applaud your witness, Lorcan.<BR/><BR/>As a professional, you probably know that Woody Guthrie was so exercised by GBA that he penned <I>This Land is Your Land</I> as a full-frontal attack on it. His first draft refrain, in fact, was "God Blessed this Land for You & Me." He must of thought better of it and shifted it to the more ambiguous, passive voice.Paul Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148666144876541412006-05-26T12:55:00.000-05:002006-05-26T12:55:00.000-05:00Oh my... I was playing at a retirement home, my mo...Oh my... I was playing at a retirement home, my mother in law had told everyone her son in law was a famouse folk singer... well, as much as I am known, I am known for songs which some might say are dangerous... but, there I was, on my best behavior, singing old traditional Irish songs... rather than the ones I write... and... a woman in her nineties askes me to sing God Bless America.<BR/>I explain as a Quaker, I don't outwardly pray, make oaths, and so, to sing God Bless America would not be in conformity with my faith as a Quaker.<BR/>She looked daggers at me and said... "Well you BETTER learn to sing it!"<BR/>The other elderly folks calmed her down and were very kind... but I always smile and think of her when I hear that song... the one I had better learn to sing!<BR/>Thine in the light<BR/>lor<BR/><BR/>PS for one or two of my dangerous songs, check out the thrid back Beppe Podcast, Joe (beppe) is in my links...Lorcanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12208822060675734892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148501952864233682006-05-24T15:19:00.000-05:002006-05-24T15:19:00.000-05:00Paul - I would have to heartily agree that if "Ame...Paul - I would have to heartily agree that if "America the Beautiful" is conservative, I have a serious internal conflict.<BR/><BR/>That is interseting, isnt' it?? Perhaps it's only that liberals are more grass-rootsy folks, power to the people and all. Conservatives are about power to the powerful, so the songs are handed down by the powerful, and not adopted by the (excuse me) proletariat in the same way (I think of a country song I heard too many times with the refrain of "we'll put a boot in your ass" - in response to 9/11 - it was a song popular with many regular folks, but it wasn't THEIR song. I doubt they sang it to their children at night, I hope not!)<BR/><BR/>I have never been a conservative, so I couldn't rightly tell you. What do conservatives sing to their kids at night? (my dad voted for reagan when I was 12, and had generally sung me songs about people dying gruesome deaths - like "anne boelyn" and "clementine") <BR/><BR/><BR/>I think that conservatives generally think they're doing something other than what I think they're doing - so their "rallying cries" might be something as simple as "home on the range" (or even the nonthreatening verses of "this land is your land") - rather than anything that explicitly says "go out and expoit your fellow human - yay!" - but maybe that's just me<BR/><BR/>Pamefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01439718927967964939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148273288866269172006-05-21T23:48:00.000-05:002006-05-21T23:48:00.000-05:00Sorry about the bad link to Wasn't that a time? Se...Sorry about the bad link to <A HREF="http://www.lyricstime.com/peter-paul-mary-wasn-t-that-a-time-lyrics.html" REL="nofollow">Wasn't that a time?</A> See if it works now.Paul Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148272700666117932006-05-21T23:38:00.000-05:002006-05-21T23:38:00.000-05:00Wow, Peggy. What a beautiful and horrifying story....Wow, Peggy. What a beautiful and horrifying story. What a wonderful place to sing a song of hope and faithful assurance. We <I>shall</I> overcome. . . . Indeed.<BR/><BR/>If loving to sing <I>America the Beautiful</I> is a sign of being a conservative American, sign me up. I refuse to believe that loving my country can be assigned partisian political adjectives.<BR/><BR/>The Lee Greenwood song Marshall mentions has been like a pebble in my shoe for years. Ever since September 11th, it was played in the Metrodome during the 7th Inning Stretch, after <I>Take me out to the ballgame</I>. My son and my friends always made it a point to sit down during that song as a small gesture to which no one ever said a word to us about. (This year, though, they've dropped it for Louis Armstrong's <I>It's a wonderful world</I>, which is a nice enough song, but I don't get what it has to do with baseball, unless it is with the passing of Kirby Puckett.) <BR/><BR/>And there's the blasphemous <I>God bless America</I> (written by Irving Berlin, in response to which Woody Guthrie wrote <I>This land is your land</I>.) But these are commercial, composed songs. They are pretend songs, cheap trickery consciously designed to create emotion responses of puffed chests and empty heads. (A few years ago, there was a Tim Robbins movie about a politically conservative Dylanesque folk singer who wrote songs like, <I>The times they are a changin' back.</I>)<BR/><BR/>These songs are dangerous like lead in your drinking water is dangerous; they are essentially designed put you to sleep, to create a temporary good feeling, but they don't give you any long-term sustanance like, say, <A HREF="http://www.lyricstime.com/peter-paul-mary-wasn-t-that-a-time-lyrics.html/" REL="nofollow">Wasn't that a time?</A> or <A HREF="http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/n/oncetoev.htm" REL="nofollow">Once to every soul and nation</A> or any of a thousand others that have real power because they tell the truth and call you to action. That's what makes singing dangerous.Paul Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148244102364157942006-05-21T15:41:00.000-05:002006-05-21T15:41:00.000-05:00Liz Opp asked if there are songs conservative Amer...Liz Opp asked if there are songs conservative Americans have that tout their beliefs. Indeed there are. I was walking through a tiny Iowa town a few days ago on my way to Virginia, and a church carillon started playing, "America the Beautiful".<BR/><BR/>I might also remind you of Lee Greenwood's song, "God Bless the USA", written in support of the Bushes' war.<BR/><BR/>And now that I've mentioned these two, I imagine many others will come to mind. How about "The Old Rugged Cross", for example?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148230307133692822006-05-21T11:51:00.000-05:002006-05-21T11:51:00.000-05:00Thanks for this witness, Paul and Peggy. I find m...Thanks for this witness, Paul and Peggy. <BR/><BR/>I find myself wondering if conservative Americans have songs that tout their beliefs... None come to mind, but I am not as well-versed as the two of you are/might be.<BR/><BR/>Blessings,<BR/>Liz, <A HREF="http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">The Good Raised Up</A>Liz Opphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09802348848085930901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14041973.post-1148226512935079812006-05-21T10:48:00.000-05:002006-05-21T10:48:00.000-05:00So there I was...teaching traumatology in Bujumbur...So there I was...<BR/>teaching traumatology in Bujumbura Burundi, Central Africa<BR/><BR/>I am driven out to the "suburb" of Kenosha to teaching 15 Trauma students. This is one of the areas that had the worst fighting in July and you can see bullet holes and bomb damage everywhere. We are in a compound owned by the Swedish Pentecostals, who rent the place out for meetings, I have been trying to explain all week why I think the concept of Swedish Pentecostals is funny, but no one has gotten it. The compound is large and has many flowering trees and shrubs and lawns, it is the prettiest place I have seen so far. There I am fed lunch (their cooks are really good) and then I teach all afternoon. <BR/><BR/>My traumatology students are amazing - they have come from great distances and at great sacrifice to study with me. In the first week we do the physiology of the brain, the brain under trauma, and create a Kirundi assessment tool for PTSD, which is IRIIUGI in Kirundi. Felicity has been my translator, and she has worked HARD. A couple of my students are trying English and I throw in all the French and Kiswahili that I can. We are creating a traumatology glossary in Kirundi - many of the terms I need to use have no equivalent - I have learned the face that Felicity makes when I give her a hard one. She signals for me to stop, and the students confer and when a consensus is reached about a newly coined phrase someone shouts Voila! and we have a new psychological term. They ask lots of questions - lots of hard questions. When I explain functional brain imagining machinery to them, which they understand just fine, Gideon asks "Teacher, why are all these great things discovered in America?" I feel convicted by the Spirit and decide to tell them the truth. I say to Felicity, “I am going to answer this truthfully, and I want you to translate EXACTLY what I say – ok?” She gives me a worried look – one I will see again, and says – “Be careful”. I answer, "It is not because we are smarter, we are not. or because we are better, we are not – these things come to us because we have more money to spend on research, and we have more money because we have stolen it from the developing nations, including Africa". Stunned silence. You should see the looks on their faces! I am not sure for a minute if I am going to be kissed or killed! Then one of them shouts "Our teacher tells us the truth! Teach us more!" <BR/><BR/>I was not prepared for the fact that my trauma and torture class students would be such recent victims. Ernest has a bandaged hand - he was tortured recently by his town leadership for learning English and talking to the wrong people; a suspicious behavior in his small town. They bent his thumb backwards and burned him between his fingers. Then what does Ernest the Brave do? He walks for miles, and rides the bus of 18 places many more miles to come to a class taught by an English speaking muzungu! Jerson has only one ear - he lost the left one to a machete. God please don’t let me disappoint these women and men.<BR/><BR/> Wednesday, after a long morning of brain physiology and learning about right and left brain functions - Felicity stops and says - "Peggy, have mercy on them - they say their left brains are full and they need to sing" This is great because it tells me that they understand the material. I have been working their left-brains very hard, and singing is just the right-brained balance to that! And so we stop and sing - long and loud, drumming on the tables and dancing. All their songs are Christian songs, my students are catholic and protestant. Jerson of One Ear, is a great song leader. They ask me to teach them a song - so I teach them "We shall overcome" and tell them a little about Dr. King and we marched around the room singing that "I do believe - deep in my heart - that Burundi will have peace one day"<BR/><BR/>Thursday there is a little bit of shooting outside of the teaching compound - I have to be told what it is - a 'thump' (hand grenade) and then a tat,tat,tat (automatic rifle fire). I just notice fifteen people get suddenly very still, and I watch their eyes glaze over – a classic trauma reaction. I ask if there is a problem, and my charge'd'affairs Daniela says that there is a little fighting going on, but not too close. We proceed. Later, on break, she tells me that the students quietly said to each other "Oh no, we have come here to die!"Peggy Senger Morrisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05193006027950622923noreply@blogger.com