A Fundamentalist Danger to Modernity

I first published a version of this post almost eight years under the title A Fundamentalist is a Fundamentalist. It's time to share it again.

Karen Armstrong

If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. ~ Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness 

Several years ago I received an email that included a photograph of a sign that was, I believe, in front of a church. The sign made some rather nasty comments about The Qur’ān (Quran, Quraan, Koran, Koraan, Qoraan, Qoran or however you want to transliterate the Arabic), the Holy Book of Islam. I can only assume that whoever put that sign up had never read The Qur’ān—or if they had, they read those selected excerpts that I have seen distributed to “prove” something negative about Islam.

I also suspect that the one who created that sign was a Christian fundamentalist. Only a religious fundamentalist could feel so threatened by a faith different from their own. Of course, where fundamentalists are concerned, they feel most threatened by those followers of their own faith who are not threatened by the present age.

Click to Enlarge

When it comes to religious fundamentalism, I firmly believe that a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist! It doesn’t matter whether the fundamentalist is a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, or a Christian. The basic driving consideration of all fundamentalist is a fear of modernity—a fear that their beliefs are threatened, that their lifestyle may be obliterated.

a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist

I first came to this understanding when I read Karen Armstrong’s insightful book, The Battle for God. I think I have probably recommended Armstrong’s book to more people than any other book I have read, except for certain books of the Bible, such as the Gospel According to St. John. I’ve recommended The Battle for God to so many people because in it Armstrong discusses one of the most powerful and potentially destructive forces in our world today: religious fundamentalism.

She points out that fundamentalism has risen in every faith movement for the same reason: a fear of modernity. These fundamentalists perceive their way of life as being threatened—and often for compelling, historic reasons. Their “enemies” are not usually the practitioners of other faiths, but their co-religionists who they perceive as having been co-opted into the ways of the modern world. Like most conservatives, they long to return to what they believe was a simpler and less complicated time, that probably never existed outside their fantasy. As June Reizner’s song, Barry’s Boys, proclaimed:

Back to when the poor were poor and rich were rich, And you felt so damn secure just knowing which were which.

In an interview published on Powells.com, Karen Armstrong discusses how all fundamentalists are alarmed by their perception that their way of life is being annihilated:

Dave: But in regards to fundamentalism, as differently as it may have manifested in each religion, something all fundamentalists share is the fear of annihilation, the fear that their way of life will not survive. And it's a legitimate fear.

Armstrong: It's true. In the Muslim countries, that has been immensely true. In Judaism, fundamentalism took major leaps forward, first just after the Holocaust, then again after the 1973 war when Israel suddenly felt vulnerable again and felt its isolation in the Middle East. Then look at Muslims whose modernizers were aggressive and mowed you down in a mosque if you didn't wear modern dress; or took women's veils off in the street and ripped them to pieces in front of them with a bayonet; tortured mullahs; abolished Sufi orders and forced them underground This is experienced by the ordinary Muslim in the street as an assault against religion, and yet what are these modernizers supposed to do? They've got to modernize fast. They've got to secularize. Somehow we've got to see that this has been counterproductive.

What we know from the past is that when fundamentalists are attacked, whether they're Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, they become more extreme. Certainly that happened in this country at the time of the Scopes trial. The ridicule they faced at the hands of the secular press led fundamentalists to go from the left of the political spectrum to the right, where they've remained.

And so I feel comfortable in saying that a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist! And to deal with the fundamentalist forces behind what is being called “the War of Terrorism,” we had better be aware of the dynamics of fundamentalism or we shall certainly pay a very heavy price! And I commend to you The Battle for God; it is well worth the time you will spend reading it.

For further reading, I suggest:

If you find Nick's Bytes of some value,
please consider donating smidgen to the welfare 
of Nick and his Kitty Kids.

Once upon a time there was a young knight...

Once upon a time there was a young knight who had just graduated from dragon slaying school. He donned his new armor, picked up his shield, sword, and lance and mounted his beautiful warhorse. He then went looking for damsels to rescue and dragons to slay. 

He came over a hill and below him in the valley he saw a beautiful, young (almost naked) damsel, chained to a rock, with a fire-breathing dragon on the ground before her.

The knight was filled with compassion for this damsel in distress, pull down the visor on his helmet, and charged the dragon. Now, this dragon just happened to have been drinking a bit too much mead... 

so before long the knight was dismounted from his warhorse, and having laid down his shield, stood with one foot on the dragon’s neck and his huge sword raised above his head ready to decapitate the beast. 

Then, before he could strike, something hit the knight on the back of the head and he toppled to the ground. And there, standing over the knight holding his shield (with which she had just brained him) was the unchained damsel in distress. 

She put down shield and said to the dragon, “Look, Boopsie, if you can’t do better than this I’ll just have to get myself another dragon."

The lesson? As the drama triangle of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer plays itself to the end, each player ends up in a different role, as with the story above. In the beginning:

Dragon = Persecutor

Damsel = Victim

Knight = Rescuer

By the middle of the story (game) the roles have changed, so that:

Knight = Persecutor

Dragon = Victim

Damsel = Rescuer

By the end, the Knight has become the victim of the damsel. 

The moral: Rescuers usually end the game as Victims.

However, rescuers-become-victims can themselves be rescued, sometimes in unique ways (its in their karma):

Unfortunately this story has played out in my life many times. One could suggest—and they have—that that I refrain from taking on dragons. However, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “I cannot not preach the gospel.” Myself, I just cannot turn my back on people I perceive as being persecuted, even though at times it has cost me dearly, financially and emotionally. 

For more about the psychology/theology of the above, may I suggest:

Please Note: I have been forced to add Comment Moderation because of the high number of spam comments Nick's Bytes has been receiving.
I truly appreciate your comments; please leave me a message.

Light in the Darkness

 Christ of St. John of the Cross

Salvador Dali (1951)

Mark 15 (NRSV):

As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. 2 Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered him, "You say so." 3 Then the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 Pilate asked him again, "Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you." 5 But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed. 6 Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. 7 Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. 8 So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. 9 Then he answered them, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" 10 For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. 12 Pilate spoke to them again, "Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?" 13 They shouted back, "Crucify him!" 14 Pilate asked them, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Crucify him!" 15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. 16 Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters ); and they called together the whole cohort. 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. 18 And they began saluting him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" 19 They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20 After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. 21 They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. 22 Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. 25 It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." 27 And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 28 29 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!" 31 In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. 33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "Listen, he is calling for Elijah." 36 And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." 37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son!" 40 There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. 42 When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. 45 When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. 46 Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid.

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." ~ John 3. 19

REDUX: The Cat Tied to the Altar

I published this post on 29 June 2007:

 

This tale came into my repertoire of sermon stories more than twenty years ago, while I was still a student at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. It is from a book (sorry—I can’t remember which one) by a Jesuit priest named Father Anthony de Mello, who was, until his untimely death in 1987, the director of the Sadhana Institute of Pastoral Counseling near Poona, India. I met Father de Mello at a conference in St. Louis a year or two before he died.

I have used the story of The Cat Tied to the Altar both in sermons I have preached and in classes I have taught. Thus, I tell it in my words, which as not necessarily the words of Father de Mello. Of course, that is the way of the oral tradition from which we get most of our good tales.

Many centuries ago there lived a holy man who became famous for his wisdom and mystical teachings. Students and spiritual seekers gathered around him, forming a community of disciples. Eventually they built a monasterial center where the community lived, studied, and worshiped.

Part of the center was a sanctuary where the holy man led worship each day. His students and disciples would gather there and their master would stand before the central altar from which he led the liturgical ritual.

Now the holy man owned a cat to whom he was greatly attached—possibly in the manner I am attached to Alex. Unfortunately, the holy man’s cat, being a cat, was self-serving and, much as with Alex, beyond anyone’s control. Thus, when the community gathered for worship, the cat would meander around the sanctuary, greatly disturbing the mediation and spiritual disciplines of the worshipers.

The holy man did not know what to do, especially since he had no influence on his cat’s behavior—just as I have no influence on Alex’s behavior. He did not want to put the cat out of the sanctuary because, being a cat, he would wail and meow and screech and scratch, thus being even more disturbing of the mediation and spiritual disciplines of the worshipers.

Finally, mediating with all of the wisdom and sagely expertise he possessed, the holy man came upon a solution. Before the next gathering of the community for worship, the holy man attached a rope to the cat’s collar and tied it securely around one of the legs of the altar. At first the cat cried and tested the rope. However, finally he accepted his karma and, with his master standing beside the altar, the cat simply curled up and napped throughout the service, which is as normal for cats when they are bored as it is for people. This worked well and the holy man continued to lead worship services with his beloved cat napping beside him, tied to the altar.

Several years later the holy man died a peaceful death. And the community elected a new holy man to lead and teach them. Then the cat died. And the community found a new cat to tie to the altar. And through the centuries prayers were developed to pray to the cat tied to the altar. And thousands of the pages of theological books were written explaining the significance and sacred meaning of having a cat tied to the altar.

And that’s the way it is with all religions. The original import and purpose of an act or belief become lost and redefined through the generations. And what was clear and simple becomes complex; the cat tied to the altar becomes what the act never was: sacred, ritual, and, eventually, dogma.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear.

Holy Saturday & The Cat Tied to the Altar

suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    was crucified, dead, and buried;

~ The Apostles' Creed

In Christain tradition, today is known as Holy Saturday. The story is told each year in worship: Jesus died on Friday and rose from death on Sunday. In between there is Saturday. Nothing happened on Saturday, unless you consider the followers of Jesus fearing their own arrest and hiding out.

There is a traditional Holy Saturday worship service called the Paschal Vigil that begins around 11:00 p.m. and lasts past midnight into Easter Sunday. The first congregation that I pastored was theologically aware enough to celebrate this service; the last congregation wouldn't. The church council rationalized that no one (meaning them) would attend, so why waste electricity on it.

So, unless one is into celebrating the Paschal Vigil, in the liturgy of the church nothing happens today.

I was thinking about the last sentence this morning as a read Enemy of the Republic's last blog post, entitled Religious Holidays. In her response to my comment on the post, she wrote:

I was raised to celebrate every holiday, told to believe whatever it was supposed to represent and what I saw was that people like to cling to tradition, but they rarely think on what it means.

She is so right! So many folks go through the motions of a tradition without ever thinking of its meaning or what the tradition represents. Even more questionable, folks and religions create traditions by misinterpreting something and making it into something that it is not.

My train of thought led me to a story that I have told several times. And, since today is Holy Saturday and there ain't really nothing happening, I want to share that story with you.

Many centuries ago there lived a holy man who became famous for his wisdom and mystical teachings. Students and spiritual seekers gathered around him, forming a community of disciples. Eventually they built a monasterial center where the community lived, studied, and worshiped.

Part of the center was a sanctuary where the holy man led worship each day. His students and disciples would gather there and their master would stand before the central altar from which he led the liturgical ritual.

Now the holy man owned a cat to whom he was greatly attached—possibly in the manner I am attached to Alex. Unfortunately, the holy man’s cat, being a cat, was self-serving and, much as with Alex, beyond anyone’s control. Thus, when the community gathered for worship, the cat would meander around the sanctuary, greatly disturbing the mediation and spiritual disciplines of the worshipers.

The holy man did not know what to do, especially since he had no influence on his cat’s behavior—just as I have no influence on Alex’s behavior. He did not want to put the cat out of the sanctuary because, being a cat, he would wail and meow and screech and scratch, thus being even more disturbing of the mediation and spiritual disciplines of the worshipers.

Finally, mediating with all of the wisdom and sagely expertise he possessed, the holy man came upon a solution. Before the next gathering of the community for worship, the holy man attached a rope to the cat’s collar and tied it securely around one of the legs of the altar. At first the cat cried and tested the rope. However, finally he accepted his karma and, with his master standing beside the altar, the cat simply curled up and napped throughout the service, which is as normal for cats when they are bored as it is for people. This worked well and the holy man continued to lead worship services with his beloved cat napping beside him, tied to the altar.

Several years later the holy man died a peaceful death. And the community elected a new holy man to lead and teach them. Then the cat died. And the community found a new cat to tie to the altar. And through the centuries prayers were developed to pray to the cat tied to the altar. And thousands of the pages of theological books were written explaining the significance and sacred meaning of having a cat tied to the altar.

And that’s the way it is. The original import and purpose of an act or belief becomes lost and redefined through time. And what was clear and simple becomes complex; the cat tied to the altar becomes what the act never was: sacred, ritual, and, eventually, dogma.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear.

Have a blessed Holy Saturday.

Awakening Thoughts

Be a sinner and sin strongly... ~ Martin Luther, Protestant Reformer (1483-1546)

 

Last week I awakened from a nap with the words of a (rather well-know, I think) fundamentalist radio evangelist rocketing against my ear drums. I really don’t know how my radio became tuned to that station; when I fell asleep I was listening to classical music on one of Louisville’s public radio stations. Perhaps Alex, in his stalking an imaginary wildebeest (Alex has been watching a TV program about lions on the Serengeti), stepped on the radio remote and changed the station.

As my head began to clear from my uncouth awakening, I heard the gravel-voiced fundamentalist radio evangelist  pronounce the words sin and sinner at least a dozen times in perhaps sixty seconds. I didn’t catch the full context of his jeremiad, except maybe that the world and everyone in it was caught in sin and condemned to eternal damnation. Since he was near the conclusion of his discourse, I choked down my desires to scream Idiot! at the moron and to gag.

I listened to the end of the so-called evangelist’s diatribe against humanity and was amazed that he ended in the same way as I first heard him: the world and everyone in it was caught in sin and condemned to eternal damnation. He spoke no words of hope or grace or forgiveness. From his viewpoint there was nothing anyone could do except await and accept damnation. This dude made me feel sick!

Sick, not condemned! To utter such, uh, shit, has no place in my sense of Christianity. I would love to meet this fundamentalist radio evangelist and debate with him his theology, especially his Christology (if he has one).

Where sin is concerned, I much prefer the words of Mainline theologians, such as Martin Luther, who one wrote: Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ. Being who we are, we cannot not sin. (Sin comes from the sport of archery and means that one has missed the bull's eye, missed the goal). I know few of us who can claim never to have missed the bull's eye(s) of life. 

At least the gravel-voiced evangelist got that right: everone sins! However, sin in my view does not lead to automatic eternal damnation. Sure, we must accept the karma resulting from our actions, but even that is not automatic.

It is the nature of the God that I know and serve to be just, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and most of all, loving. That’s what I want to say to this fundamentalist radio evangelist. I fear that he would not understand what I am talking about, so perhaps I would tell him this story:

 

It is the moment of the Final Judgment (see below) and all of the souls who have ever existed are standing before the throne of God. Forward steps the archangel Gabriel, who reads to the gathering the Decalogue:

 “’I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  you shall have no other gods before me.’ 

"All who have worshiped other gods depart this place for eternal damnation.”

And 99.8% of the souls gathered disappeared.

Gabriel continues reading the other commandments. When the archangel has finished, where billions of souls had once gathered was standing only one little man, smiling. The silence was overwhelming.

At this point, Jesus leans over toward God and says, “You know, Dad, it’s going to be terribly lonely up here with just that one dude around.”

And, God commands, “All right! Everybody back!" 

And again all of the souls who have ever existed are standing before the throne of God, laughing and singing.

Except the one little man who had moments before been standing alone before the throne of God, who frowned and asked, "Why didn't someone tell me that this was going to happen?"

 

I wonder if that evangelist preacher dude would have any idea what that parable is saying? 

Matthew 25.31-46 (Revised Standard translation)

 "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.

Then the King will say to those at his right hand, `Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?'

And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'

Then he will say to those at his left hand, `Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

Then they also will answer, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?'

Then he will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.'

And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

 

Peace, my friends.

Naming the Evil, Part 2: Bloggers Can Make a Difference

Evil draws men together.

~Aristotle, Rhetoric

This is the second (and final) part of a blog post begun on September 22^nd.

On the Thursday following the weekend which we had chosen to preach the “naming” services, the county clergy association met to discuss the responses we had heard to words, “We live in an alcoholic, violent, and abusive community.” For the most part, those clergy who had preached a sermon on the subject reported no overt negative responses from their congregations. We observed a lot of affirmative nodding and words spoken to us by parishioners after the services such as “That has needed to be said for a very long time” and “We really do need to do something about the ________ around here.”

At St. John, I received uniformly positive verbal and non-verbal response. Even the two old Germans who frowned throughout the service always frown throughout a service. I believe that they, like my Uncle Otto who was born and grew up in Germany, has been taught that “if you smile in church, God will surely strike you dead.” Perhaps that was the manner used to control young German boys in church.

Following Sunday’s service, my wife, sons, and I drive the thirty or so miles to dine in Owensboro, Kentucky. There were always quite a few folks from our Indiana county dining there after worship services. I listened as I could and found quite a few folks discussing the sermons that had so recently heard preached. At a table near ours, two families that attended different churches had a conversation such as this:

Methodist: Pastor _________preached this really powerful sermon about the alcoholism and abuse in our community.

Catholic: That’s strange. Father______ had a homily on the same subject.

That evening, at home, I began receiving responses from non-parishioners. I had two telephone lines running into the parsonage: our private telephone number and the church’s number. About 10:00 p.m. I answered the church phone and received a verbal barrage of curses from a woman who sounded no only very drunk, but also, from the background noise, was in a bar. A second telephone call came about fifteen minutes later. This one had fewer curses, but I suspect, because of the background noise, came from the same bar.

When I went outside the next morning I found what I believe was another response to the sermon: the two street side tires of my car, which was parked on the street in front of the parsonage were flat. When I took them to be repaired it was found that both had been deeply cut.

Following those sermons, the community began coming together and working to make changes. One of the local policemen was replaced, not only because he routinely ignored the kids (some as young as 14) drinking outside the bard, but also because the city council learned that he was selling drugs to some of those same kids. The mayor of Cannelton, who was a member of my congregation, began action to reclaim the riverside of the flood wall from the motorcycle gang who had a large, old house by the river. It rather helped that the gang’s clubhouse caught on fired and the volunteer fire department couldn’t get close enough to it put out the fire because ammunition that was stored in the house kept exploding. I arranged for a presentation by a Louisville based program dealing with addicted adolescents to begin a program in the county. I also joined with the pastors of the American Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, and the United Methodist Church to develop youth programs to give the kids “something to do” as alternatives to drinking and drugs. We also form a local chapter of the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse in the county.

I have spent the past two blog posts telling you that story so I can tell you this:

On September 27^th 1,000s of bloggers from around the world are joining together in BlogCatalog's Blogging for a Great Cause Challenge to write blogs against abuse—any and all types of abuse. I am certain that some of the bloggers reading this blog plan to join in the effort. There may be other bloggers who plan not to post a blog against abuse either because they feel they don’t know what to write or that such a united blogging enterprise would have no effect.

Some of the clergy who joined in saying phrase “we live in an alcoholic, violent, and abusive community” had the same beliefs: they did not know what to preach or the believed it would do not good. But eventually they risked it, even if they did no more than say that phrase. And I witnessed the results of that Sunday, not just in the months following that Sunday, but in the next ten years in which I lived and pastored in that community.

In Aristotle’s quote above, the context indicates he is saying that evil draws people together to do evil. However, I believe that the opposition to evil can also draw people together. So, please, my dear bloggers, join with us on September 27^th in naming the evil—abuse—and, at the very least, lesson some of the power abuse has in our world.

ABOUT

Sunday Song

Joe Wise’s wonderful song, Lord, Teach Us to Pray, is the one that I have probably placed in liturgies I've written and sung as a solo, accompanied by my guitar, more often in worship services during my years of ministry than any other. With my mobility rather restricted today, I took my guitar out of its case and began playing and singing. Suddenly I found myself so drawn to the message and music of Lord, Teach Us to Pray that I must have played and sung it a dozen times in a row.

Joe Wise lived in Louisville for about 55 years, most of the time not too far from where I now live. He is a folk singer of my generation, song writer, artist (painter) and one of the first Catholic writers and singers of “contemporary” Christian music. He has earned four degrees in Philosophy, Theology, Education, and Counseling and Guidance. About 12 or so years ago he relocated to Arizona, where he now lives. I urge you to visit Joe at his web site and learn more about this most remarkable man.

During those dozen or so times I played and sang Lord, Teach Us to Pray, I recorded myself using the handy built in microphone on my notebook computer. I actually didn’t sound to bad after all these years of not playing and singing in public. So I thought about sharing the recording of me in this blog post; however, I can’t figure out how to do so!

Still, I want to share with you the message of this moving song, so here are the lyrics:

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Lyrics & Music

by

Joseph Wise

Refrain:

Lord, teach us to pray,

It's been a long and cold December kind of day,

with our hearts and hands all busy in our private little wars.

We stand and watch each other now from separate shores;

we lose the way.

I need to know today the way things should be in my head;

I need to know for once now the things that should be said.

I've got to learn to walk around as if I were not dead;

I've got to find a way to learn to live.

(Refrain)

I still get so distracted by the color of my skin;

I still get so upset now when I find that I don't win.

I meet so many strangers; I'm so slow to take them in

I've got to find a way to really live.

(Refrain)

I stand so safe and sterile as I watch someone fall flat;

I'm silent with a person who'd like to know just where I'm at.

With the aged and the lonely I can barely tip my hat;

I need to see the sin in "I don't care."

(Refrain)

I stand so smug and sure before the people I've out-guessed;

to let them all be who they are I still see as a test.

And when it all comes down to "must," I'm sure my way is best.

I've got to find what "room" means in my heart.

(Refrain)

I walk and fall, myself alone, can't tolerate a guide.

And when the camps split up I'm sure to put you on my side

and dare someone to challenge me and swear I will not hide.

I've got to find a better way to live.

(Refrain)

I mouth so many things, take so little time to weigh;

I've let it all slip by in the sweep of yesterday.

I can't believe you mean it all to grace me on my way;

I've got to find a way to really live.

Lord, teach us to pray.

We still believe that we can find a better way.

Teach us to pray.

We lose the way.

Teach us to pray.

You can listen to or down Joe singing at least a portion of Lord, Teach Us to Pray and some of his other songs here.