05/06/02
Choosing a Lyric Battle
Sometimes the brief news items that slide between graver matters and commercials have a disproportionate resonation in the mind. True, part of this is that small stories can be easier to relate to and stick out among long-running major news items. They can also illustrate both the end-points of larger movements in everyday life and the buds of human interaction from which global affairs ultimately grow. Therefore, these stories often represent valuable moments for discussion and education for those who catch them in the media as well as those who participate in them.
One such story involves the Skarin family of Woodbine, Iowa, which has called upon the ACLU to assist its efforts to prevent the twin children’s school choir from singing a musical rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer” at graduation. Even when I considered myself an atheist, this type of thinking struck me as irrational, and an atheist without rationality is a Homo Sapien with nothing. For those who don’t believe in any god, a song about a particular God isn’t much different than a song about any topic powerful enough to move musicians to compose.
This essay has been published in Just Thinking: Volume I, 10/29/01–10/21/02 and is available in Confidence Place: The Timshel Arts Store.
04/29/02 A Bright Future for Revolution, Part 2 (Media)
04/22/02 A Bright Future for Revolution, Part 1 (Art)
04/15/02 A Love-Lit Shelter Sets Me Free (Life)
10/29/01 through 04/08/02 Archives