A good two-plus years since the tsunami of 2004, this hymn has emerged (if you really want to call it a hymn). Point good: the tune PASSION CHORALE is a treasured classic. Point bad: terrible text. I have nothing against social justice (except for the convenient misinterpretation by the ACLU and similar ilk) but to destroy hymnody with it is just ridiculous, and I pray for the victims and their families of such a tragedy, but I hope this doesn't hit any Catholic hymnals, missalettes, music issues, or the like anytime soon.
At least the Navy Hymn (Eternal Father, strong to save) is a petition and not a whiny little rant like O God, that great tsunami.
Hat tip to the Curt Jester.
Peace,
BMP
4 comments:
Something amuses me and makes me feel important about the fact that it's linked from CJ from my boss from me.
I wouldn't even call it "social justice". It's just depressing and the noble tune just makes it even more depressing. If it ended with like a verse about how Jesus makes it all better or the reason behind disasters, that would be better. Instead, the last line is just supposed to make sure you don't even think "well at least I live in the middle of Kansas!"
Prediction: this will be at an NPM convention in 20 years as "the next great hymn!!!"
I just had a thought: the good thing about those OCP throwaway "hymnals"? That you don't just throw away one crappy song, you can throw out a whole book of them, and do it every year!
And the next year those same crappy songs keep coming back. Few new songs get added, even fewer are any good.
BMP
When a hymn has a verse about floating sewage...well, you know it truly IS cr*p.
Guys, gals....calm down, take a breath, have a martini.
This "text" is not a hymn by anyone's reasoned definition. What it may be is someone's misplaced egotism that found its way to some equally O-So-EARNEST church website. It has no measurable effect (particularly upon the welfare of tsunami victims) other than the massaging of the "poet's" sympathy face, which must always look like a teary-eyed little child in an Edmund Keane painting.
Also, why bother using "it" to side-step into the pro forma bashing of NPM and OCP? They're quite capable of displaying their own inefficiency and deficiencies on their own.
It's a new year, we need NEW schticks!
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