Of meat, butchers, and butchery (3 of 3)

[Caveat lector fortis:  If you're a card-carrying member of the Christian Right, or if you feel your brand of patriotism is the only authorized brand, or if you have close ties to the military, or if you're otherwise annoyed by people who take unpopular opinions (why read this blog?), you might want to skip this post.]

This all began with commentary on the “Star Spangled Banner,” and it began on Facebook, not on WordPress.  I was just blowing off steam, but the steam blew too high, and in too many directions.  The meat analogies come today, at the end!

PART THREE

Again, from a FB post of mine:

I choose non-military and non-politically-involved ways to be a decent citizen and even to love our country and believe I have every logical and biblical right to do so.  It wasn’t my intent to get into the nexus of war and Christianity on Facebook, but I guess I could! … Let’s put this junk aside, OK?

My interlocutor:

Ok but ALOT of people have died and maimed for their country and this song is a rally point for them….  Peace brother!

Me:

Thanks for the peace wish. I feel a little better. I would ask you now simply to remember that my comment was about the song and the immature … okay, *disrespectful* … performance of it.  Although I do not value military service or sacrifice *for country* since those are not values I find in scripture, no disrespect for those who lost life was ever intended.  Any anthem can, and probably will, become a rallying point, as you say, but that says more about the rallyers and their desire to rally than about the content of the song.  I maintain that it was a bad idea to make that song the national anthem!

Further commentary:  the expression “rally point” set me off a bit, logically.  It’s not as though the fact — and I do, by the way, take military veterans’ identifying in solidarity with the national anthem as a fact — has anything to do with whether or not military service is inherently justifiable, or whether such activity is approved for the Christian.  How military veterans feel is simply how they feel, and how I feel is how I feel.  The a priori existence of differing feelings doesn’t make some of them correct and the others incorrect.  My summary would be this:  whatever “rallying” occurs in the hearts of military veterans gives a nod to human bandwagon mentality, i.e., to the group of rallyers who wanted to rally, and to their affiliative feelings in said rallies, and to their philosophies and values–rather than to the relative logic or illogic of military service.

Now, by way of contrasting the 1st stanza and this one:  I find the butchery of our national anthem annoying, but I find the “butcher-y” thoughts of the third stanza (previously essentially unknown to me) of the song absolutely grotesque and repulsive:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Allow me to paraphrase, and to sermonize, by repeating my Facebook commentary on the above words:

The whole third stanza, for crying out loud and bleeding on the ground, says “You Brits got what was coming to you, and your blood washed your filthy footsteps since we beat you, you suckers.”  I challenge you to defend that.  And then I challenge you to praise God, in the same breath, as the next words of the song do, for His supposedly deciding to raise a human nation up above another human nation through war over a supposedly just cause (a thought from the fourth stanza … and we must ask just in whose eyes?).   “Conquer we must” (also from the fourth stanza)?  How far away from “Manifest Destiny” (and massacres and genocides in our land and others across the globe) is that?  I am NO student of history, so I’m probably opening myself up to more verbal laceration here, but so be it.

Now, to soften things just a tad … I did backpedal a bit w/regard to the first, familiar stanza, while continuing to flow, not so sanguinely, in my general vein (artery?):

To call attention to watching over ramparts (whatever they are) to see gallantly streaming colors, I suppose, is fine.  And there’s probably more to the general solidarity–suggested by the perennial, steady waving of the flag–than I have realized.  I have never been inspired by the suggestion that glaring, red rockets and bombs are the events that define my country, and those lines distract me from what I now see is more the point of the first stanza—the query as to whether the flag is *still* waving over our land.  For me, and this is just me, the “flag was still there” line is pretty unifying, but I wonder whether most people can even hear that line apart from the preceding warlike imagery, which is especially divisive in the current decade or three.

Another Facebook person:

Move to North Korea for a while…. maybe when you get back, you’ll have a deeper appreciation of what YOUR soldiers in YOUR country have done for YOU……

My reply:

I don’t want to move to North Korea, or Libya, or Croatia, so I won’t.  I might like New Zealand or Switzerland or something else (having had the blessing of traveling abroad just a bit does expand one’s horizons, just as it makes one appreciate this country), but staying in the U.S. is OK by me.  It’s a messed-up country, but it’s my country, and most of what it offers is better than what I know about most other countries.

As I said earlier, I choose other ways to be a good citizen … but will never, as God gives me breath, pledge allegiance to a country over allegiance to God.  Those with personal ties to the military will naturally have heartstrings that get tugged by positive, or negative, thoughts and suggestions about the military.  Others without such ties may be influenced to have similar feelings.  From a secular perspective, this is all fine and good.  But these are preferences and choices and opinions, not absolutes.  Everyone has a right to an opinion, for now, and all of our opinions will ultimately be enlightened, in the next life.

I concluded by pointing out different ways I choose to love my country — including two American concert themes this fall, and loving travel experiences and sights in 48 states.

If I’m wrong on any or all of the above.  I’m simply wrong.  Obviously, I don’t think I am, but if I am, it won’t be hard to accept in the light of the face of God, to be seen after this world, with all its beauties and its terrors, passes away.  God’s will and His desires must continue to be the driving force for every believer.  We will get things out of kilter, and we will err.  Our responsibility is to be faithful to Him and His Kingship, as we have light and grace.

~ ~ ~

Now for the meat analogies promised in the slug for this lengthy mini-series!

The meat

The substance of our national anthem is questionable, at best.  I speak here, primarily, both of its (entire set of) lyrics, and its vocal range.  It is tainted meat to begin with, if not spoiled meat now.

The choice of butchers

Why must major events choose pop artists to sing a song they can’t sing well?  As my wife and a Colorado friend have pointed out in particular about the a cappella enterprise, it is not well served by people who can’t sing a) without amplification and reverb and such, and b) without loud bands backing them.  Sports events, convocations, etc., hear me:  if you insist on using the national anthem without accompaniment, you ought to choose a singer, or group of singers, or players, who can do the song justice without electronic aids.

The enterprise of butchery in perpetuity

I’ll often be the voice of anti-tradition.  My suspicion may not be true, but I suspect that a lot of the baseball players who line up on the base paths or sit in the dugouts during the national anthem are a) tired of it, and b) not in sympathy with some of the sentiments of the song.  Why not change the tradition?  Let’s hear something else, or nothing at all, for awhile.  While I’m at it, “God Bless America” is overused, too.  Let’s get back to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Way to go, Cardinals, by the way.  A great American baseball town, and a downright-nice story, given the whole wild-card, comeback story of the season and post-season this year!

Of meat, butchers, and butchery (2)

[Caveat lector fortis:  If you're a card-carrying member of the Christian Right, or if you feel your brand of patriotism is the only authorized brand, or if you have close ties to the military, or if you're otherwise annoyed by people who take unpopular opinions (why read this blog?), you might want to skip this post.]

This all began with commentary on the “Star Spangled Banner,” and it began on Facebook, not on WordPress.  I was just blowing off steam, but the steam blew too high, and in too many directions.  The meat analogies are to be saved for the end, by the way.

PART TWO (probably the most substantive of the three, and also the most succinct)

Back up a step.  My intent in the first rebuttal had been to give two reasons why I think it’s a stupid/bad national anthem:  1) it’s hard for most people to sing, and 2) it “senselessly glorifies war.”  Here’s my FB friend’s reply to that:

Go to your nearest Veterans Hospital the next time they have a music presentation, request the National Anthem be sung.  Then when finished stand up and say it’s a stupid song because it glorifies war and then see what happens to you.  You’ll see how America feels about it I’m sure…

So I’ll find out how “America” feels?  Really? One particular, war-mongering president rather preposterously used to presume he was speaking for all Americans when spouting opinions, and other presidents have done the same.  If this is my country (and it is), then to say “America” feels this way when I don’t is tantamount to saying, “Pack up and leave this country” … which is something I was once told to do by someone a lot closer to me than the above interlocutor, but that’s beside the point.  Anyway, here’s my next reply, after expressing regret that all this was rather public on Facebook:

What veterans in a veterans’ hospital might think of my statement or the national anthem is merely their opinion (not America’s as a whole).  Mine, too, was merely an opinion.  I don’t have to like the song, and you don’t have to like the fact that I don’t like it.  But neither do you have the right to call a brother an idiot.

My reply amounted to a rebuke, and its bold statement stems from my belief that Christian relationship transcends all others.  In other words, no matter what the friend thought of my opinion, and no matter how wrong I might have been, he was in the wrong for calling me an idiot.  This relates to my view on Christians and government, Christians and military, Christians and sports, Christians and entertainment, Christians and work … Christians and just about anything:  essentially, in whatever sphere you’re thinking and operating, the Christian element or aspect must supersede all others. If a (perceived) conflict arises between philosophies, it’s no trouble for me to ditch the other one in favor of what I see as the Christian one.  This is not to say that I enact these priorities perfectly.  Far from it.  But my human inability to be consistent does not change the reality.  On some level, no matter how much one might disagree with my particulars, any Christian worth his salt will have to agree here.  This über-significance of what one sees as God’s principles  could be said to may be seen to might be analyzed as principles that must win out.

Aside, but obviously related, if you think about it:  are you aware that there are believers out there who question the Lutheran notion of sola scriptura (only scripture)?  For centuries the Roman Catholic institution asserted its traditions and practices as superior to the Bible. Some examples:  prayer to “saints” and to Mary, the immaculate conception (which refers to the supposed sinlessness of Mary herself), indulgences, the authority of popes, and infant baptism.

If one finds human tradition to be on equal footing with scripture, lots of problems come into play; it’s a whole different ballgame!

Oh, and we will get to the anthem and baseball, but not for a bit yet.

To be continued …

Of meat, butchers, and butchery (1)

[Caveat lector fortis:  If you're a card-carrying member of the Christian Right, or if you feel your brand of patriotism is the only authorized brand, or if you have close ties to the military, or if you're otherwise annoyed by people who take unpopular opinions (why read this blog?), you might want to skip this post.]

This all began with commentary on the “Star Spangled Banner,” and it began on Facebook, not on WordPress.  I was just blowing off steam, but the steam blew too high, and in too many directions.  The meat analogies are to be saved for the end, by the way.

I gave far too much attention to the performance of the national anthem this past week, having spent some good hours with the World Series, and having been subjected to typically poor renditions of the anthem a few times.  It all started with what I thought was an innocent, entertaining Facebook status update on Monday night, after hearing Demi Lovato sing the national anthem:

Brian Casey … thinks the national anthem is a stupid song and isn’t sure why he gets upset when would-be singers butcher it at the World Series.

This touched off a near-firestorm of response from people I know, or sort of know, or used to know.  Most kind of agreed, or at least knew where I was coming from:

“It’s the American Idol mentality. They have to make the song their own. NOPE!! Just sing it.”

“Well, she did butcher it!!!”

“Stupid a capella!”

I got a few requisite “Like” clicks.  But a few were upset, and this quip came from an old friend:

You think our National Anthem is a stupid song? Sometimes you are an idiot, really.

My reply:

Gee.  You must be having a day–sorry to have ticked you off, but yeah, I do think it’s a stupid song.  It senselessly glorifies war and is vocally untenable; my opinion is that “America, the Beautiful” or would have made a better national anthem.

That reply was a big mistake.  The non-musicians started crying, “Flagrant moving violation! You’re just talking like a musician.” (You hear this kind of thing in church circles whenever you use some modicum of your expertise to try to improve something for the masses, no matter how careful you’ve been not to sound like a know-it-all.  The defensive idea that we can’t gain from hearing someone else speak out of his experience and knowledge hurts us all.)

I even got an opera-singer friend (I have more than one of those … odd variety, they … but they do exist!) to register that singing the “Banner” is really as easy as “Twinkle, Twinkle.”  To which I had to rebut:

Mark, we could talk about the fact that everyone puts an extra note in on the word “banner” and feels called on to improvise melodically and rhythmically in styles that are for me cliché and even embarrassing.  Or the range of an octave and a fifth (Canada’s anthem’s range is a 4^th more manageable, for instance), and the fact that so many people have no idea where to start our anthem, so that they can be heard with reasonable tone on “say” as well as on “free.”  Or the practice of “belting,”–or, as last night’s World Series singer (Chris Daughtry, apparently a quasi-celebrity in Missouri) did it, “chickening” by shorting out and crackling in a faux “stylism.”

You’re right, of course, that a trained singer typically does it well.  I would add that I’ve heard it sung with class and skill and artistry–and that a trained singer has more than an octave and a half of useful vocal range.  I’m moderately vocally trained, as you know, and have almost that much range, but most people don’t.  Maybe I’m off base on this, but I figure an anthem needs to be singable by “the people,” which is what makes something like “God Save the Queen” (is it the British anthem? I’m not even sure) a better choice, in my estimation.  Haven’t you heard enough soloists butcher our song to agree at least with the suggestion that it’s not in the “doable” range of the common person?  If not, maybe you haven’t heard enough of us non-vocalists recently!  :-)  Or, we can just disagree.

To be continued (the meat analogies are at the end) …

P.S.  Decided to take the plunge and read this, despite falling into one of the categories listed at the top?  Not sure what there is to be upset about yet?  Well, the musical stuff kinda stops here, and the controversial material begins tomorrow.