I write this looking out over Charlottesville from the top floor of the Omni Hotel, at the end of the Downtown Mall. And in the midst of the storms of politics, I thought I would take a few minutes to share something that matters to me, and perhaps might interest others. These will be lyrics of two songs from the Quaker singer/songwriter John McCutcheon, from his album The Greatest Story Never Told, which shares the title of one of the songs on it, although not one from which I will quote the lyrics.
Several of the songs on this album were inspired by the events of September 11, which makes the relevant in the midst of our current political storms. I will share the lyrics of these. The link above will give you the lyrics of all the songs on the album, including introductory remarks about each by McCutcheon.
My wife (Leaves on the Current) and I are on a brief excursion, partly to celebrate my birthday, which was Friday. That night we drove roundtrip to a delightful restaurant in Fredericksburg (Sammy T's). Yesterday we traveled from our home in Arlington to a farm near Charlottesville in Fluvanna County. It is owned by one of my classmates in the Political Leaders Program at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership of the University of Virginia. Chris does this every year, on a farm he bought near where he grew up. It was a lovely setting, with members of his extended family, his neighbors and friends, on this occasion celebrating his daughter's graduation from high school. We were actually listening to the McCutcheon album as we drove through the Virginia Piedmont, on winding roads, including going past Michie Tavern and the entrance to Monticello as we drove along Route 53 from South of Charlottesville. In a sense that seemed appropriate - the Sage of Monticello sought to understand the larger world, and in his writing to help others make greater sense of it.
McCutcheon is a gifted songwriter, with a wonderful sense of humor. The songs on the album include one inspired by a long wait at a "Barbershop", where we here:
The old men and the cops
And the little kids
Each coming in here
Like their Daddy did
Some are little different
Some are little strange
Something's just
Never seem to change
and another entitled "When I Grow Up" which ends with this verse:
When I grow up...
I wanna be an old fart
The kinda guy who hangs around hardware stores
Who always calls a waitress by her name
And knows all the latest scores
I wanna be eccentric
They'll say my ideas are a little bit skewed
To the pompous I'll be rude
And to the powerful a pain the butt
When I grow up
The title song, which was written as the result of a Christmas story McCutcheon wrote for his family, has this as the chorus:
Will they remember my name in the evenings
When the fire fades to embers and coals?
Recall the deeds I have done?
Will I be the one?
Or will my life be
The greatest story never told?
In listening to that I could not help but thing of the ordinary people about whom we so often do not know, and I thought also of Grey's Elegy.
Especially appropriate for me as (a) one who has wandered through a variety of religions seeking meaning, and (b) who has several times taught comparative religion, is another song entitled "The Children of Abraham." Despite the obnoxious words of people like Rod Parsley, most can recognize the common Abrahamic origins of the three great monotheistic religions whose roots are in the Middle East. Islam recognized its affinity to Judaism and Christianity by designating their adherents as people of the book who were entitled to maintain their religion (albeit not always with full liberty). Too often religion has been used - by adherents of almost all faith traditions - as an excuse to impose, discriminate, or even eradicate those of other traditions. This song is also appropriate for this trip: tonight we are having dinner in Staunton, Virginia, at a wonderful restaurant called Staunton Grocery, where I ate recently as part of my Political Leaders Program. The song was written in Staunton, at a time of year in which all three Abrahamic faiths have a major season: Ramadan for Islam, Advent for Christianity, and Hanukkah for Jews. It ends:
And in this year
This dark December
As we look onward
Let us remember
We share this history
We share this place
We share this moment
We ask for graceAll the children of Abraham
And he said, "We are but One"
And he said, "We are but One"
And we are Muslin
And we are Jew
And we are Christian
We are just me and youAll the children of Abraham
But it is two songs inspired by 9-11 that really catch my attention each time I listen to this album. The first was written in a hotel room overnight, and first performed at a music festival in Winfield Kansas, where McCutcheon had performed for twenty years. He had to drive to get their, turned on the TV in his room to see a prayer vigil in Manhattan, and as the credits rolled at the end of the broadcast had the camera focus on a sing hand-lettered with "Follow the Light Home to Me." He showed the song the next morning to Tom Chapin and Michael Mark, who performed it with him. It is a song of affirmation, and here are the lyrics:
We were 7 and 8
My sister and I
Lost in the woods
When lightening filled up the sky
As we ran through the ran
We knew where to head
To the light on the porch
"Come home!" like Mama saidChorus:
Follow the light
When you're lonely and lost
When out on the ocean
You are tumbled and tossed
Follow your heart
Wherever you may be
Follow the light on home to meOut on the sea
The waves heave and rise
Far from the shore
When a storm mounts the skies
We look for a sign
For some welcoming sight
A beacon from home
To guide us on this nightFollow the light
When you're lonely and lost
When out on the ocean
You are tumbled and tossed
Follow your heart
Wherever you may be
Follow the light on home to meBridge:
There's a hole in our skyline
There's a hole in our town
There's a hole in our hearts
The whole world around
How do we heal?
How do we see
The mercy that shines in you and me?
(We follow the light...)When the world feels so big
And we seem so small
And you wonder if life
Has any meaning left at all
When you're losing your heart
When you're losing the fight
Hold on to my hand
And we will follow the light
Perhaps the most powerful of the songs is a cry, in the name of God, in the voice of God, entitled "Not in My Name." It was written in October of 2001, and given how some still use words of religious warfare even as we heard them in that season as the Congress unfortunately moved towards AUMF and empowering the President for the still on-going conflict, we can take the time to reflect upon the words of this cry:
You see the plane in the distance
You see the flame in the sky
See the young ones running for cover
See the old ones wondering why
They tell us that the world is a dangerous place
We live in a terrible time
But in Hiroshima, New York or in Baghdad
It's the innocent who die for the crimeChorus
Not in my name
Not in my name
Not in my name
Not in my nameThe witnesses watch through the window
Their hearts locked in horror and pain
At the man lying strapped to a gurney
As the poison is pumped through his veins
And I'm wondering who are the prisoners
Who holds the lock and the key
Who holds the power over life, over death
When will we finally be free? ChorusBridge
We stray and we stumble in seeking the truth
And wonder why it's so hard to find
But an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
Leaves the whole world toothless and blindThrough the ages I have watched all your holy wars
Your jihads, your Crusades
I have been used as inspiration, I've been used as an excuse
For the murder and the misery you've made
I thought I made it clear in the Bible
In the Torah and in the Koran
What is it in my teaching about loving your enemies
That you people don't understand?Not in my name
Not in my name
Not in my name
Not in my name
What is it in my teaching about loving your enemies
That you people don't understand?
We cannot - in international affairs or in domestic politics - EVER rationalize our destructiveness or our hatred on the basis that we are doing God's work, lest, as the song says, we leave the whole world toothless and blind.
Our politics now are fierce. We have perhaps justifiable rage at certain words and actions, and not merely those within the Democratic party.
We also have a responsibility to heal the world - in Jewish terms what is called Tikkun Olam. We cannot fulfill that responsibility, one that is truly one for which we can claim a divine authorization, unless we first heal ourselves. As is put in Christian terminology:
Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
I will not see my classes again until Thursday. The day after the three-day holiday is graduation, and our school is closed. I will be at the Comcast Center as our seniors leave our care. I then get on a plane for Providence for an educational conference. Having 5 days without teaching responsibilities provides me with a chance to reflect, to think in different ways, to consider different things. Music and poetry and nature are for me the best ways of empowering me to be reflective. Listening to McCutcheon as I drove engendered a desire to share his words and insight more broadly. I hope you don't mind that I did so.
Peace.
Peace.