Sunday, May 27, 2007

Luddite or troglodyte . . . you decide


Sigh.

I popped over to the
Crunchy Con blog to see what was up in the world of the utterly unprogressive, and I found this lede to some screed or another of antimaterialist self-loathing:

Matthew finished the first grade on Friday. His school, Providence Christian School of Texas, held their end-of-year school program, which ended with all the children from the lower grades singing the hymns they'd learned that year. I had to get to work and couldn't stay for the entire program, but Julie said there were lots of un-dry eyes listening to those angelic young voices. Julie said these kids were singing with all their hearts, and they knew the words, because each month they study a hymn.
Hymns schmymns. If ever there was a sign of troglodytic antiprogressivism, some fundie academy coercing fundie tots from fundie families -- who no doubt live in fundie squalor -- into singing retrograde fundie hymnody must be pure phantasmagoric neon splendor.

Why didn't they just have little Johnny grab little Susie by the ponytail and drag her off to the Fred Flintstone residence, for Gaia's sake! Maybe Wilma could send out for Bronto Burgers as they all seek to turn back the clock on human self-realization as they pay homage to their hateful patriarchal construct of deity.

I AM A MODERN AMERICAN CATHOLIC. I believe in me. And we -- me -- don't need no stinkin' hymns.

Not when we have Marty Haugen and David Haas.

Here in this place, new light is streaming
Now is the darkness vanished away
See in this space our fears and our dreamings
Brought here to you in the light of this day
Listen, I can't see God -- whomever She might be -- but I can see Me, which Haugen so perceptively realizes in "Gather Us In." This is the modern world, and it is sick that these Texas fundies are teaching their children something as regressive as . . . hymns.

It's 2007, women have the vote and the right to choose, we're all self-actualized and it's time even for fundie kids to wake up and smell the mochacchino, Tondeleo.

We are the young our lives are a mystery
We are the old who yearn for you face
We have been sung throughout all of history
Called to be light to the whole human race
Now that's writing. A breath of fresh air when compared to bellicose Martin Luther hate speech ("A Mighty Fortress is Our God" . . . puh-leez) or ancient Pre-Vatican II cookie worship ("Pange Lingua Gloriosi" . . . yuck) or pious self-hating groveling to a tyrannical Patriarch ("Holy, Holy, Holy" . . . my ass). I mean, get this:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!
REALLY AND TRULY, thank Gaia for contemporary spirituality musicians like Marty Haugen!

Not in the dark of buildings confining
Not in some heaven, light-years away
here in this place the new light is shining
Now is the Kingdom, now is the day

Hey, you know what paradise is?
It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding, it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're going to make love with tonight
That's truth, that's love . . .

Oh, I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece
when I sipped champagne on a yacht
I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo
and showed them what I've got
I've been undressed by kings
and I've seen some things that a woman ain't s'pose to see
I've been to paradise but I've never been to me...

I THINK THAT'S THE GIST of the Haugen classic . . . or a song I heard on the "Super Hits of the '70s" FM station today. I forget.

But, hey! It's all good!

Whatever, that is, your construct of "good" happens to be in your reality. It is all about you, after all.

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