Monthly Archives: March 2009

A peace song I actually like

After all my whining and complaining last week about why I hate peace songs, I now have a peace song that I quite like. This past Saturday, I went to a music conference and attended a workshop on children’s choirs led by Joanne Hammil, and she taught us a very simple, but effective, peace song. The words are a straightforward prayer or meditation: “May I be an instrument of peace.” The melody works as either a meditative chant to be sung over and over again, or as a round with up to eight voices. We sang it in our church choir on Monday, and I’ve been singing it at home, and I haven’t gotten sick of it yet. So here it is:

Sheet music for “May I Be an Instrument of Peace”
MIDI file of “May I Be an Instrument of Peace”

(Please remember that MIDI files sound dreadful, and you should not judge this song by that file — the MIDI file is just there if you want to learn the melody of the song.)

No satisfactory moral resolution

Bernard Madoff, the perpetrator of what has to be the biggest Ponzi-scheme fraud ever, is planning to plead guilty tomorrow to all criminal charges that have brought against him. Well, I’m no legal expert, so I have no idea what should be done to him from a legal standpoint. But I do feel competent to address some moral points that relate to Madoff’s guilty plea.

First, the scope of Madoff’s crime is so vast, with so many victims, extending over such a long time that I am not convinced that Madoff can be morally rehabilitated. Much of morality is a matter of habit, and the longer someone like Madoff indulges in the habit of immorality, the longer it will take to break that habit. Then too, perniciously evil habits like Madoff’s, which are grounded in simple greed (not desperation), and which are made in full knowledge that they are wrong, are habits that will be much harder to break. Because Madoff has become habituated to crime and habituated to enjoying the fruits of his crime, because he has engaged in his crimes for so long now, I doubt he can ever be trusted to live a moral life on his own.

Second, because Madoff can never be trusted to live on his own again, outside of prison, then he will be unable to make restitution to anyone whose money he stole. Madoff’s crime is one where restitution would make a difference in the lives of the victims (at least, in the lives of the majority of his victims who did not commit suicide). But we can’t ever trust him with any money-making scheme ever again — at least, we can’t trust him to earn another 65 billion dollars to pay his victims back.

The most we could hope for is an apology, but the chances of Madoff making any meaningful apology approach zero. Some people will take comfort in believing that Madoff will suffer some kind of torment and torture after death, but even if I believed in such punishment after death, I would not call that a satisfactory resolution to Madoff’s moral violations. Thus, I hold no hope for rehabilitation, restitution, apology, or punishment after death.

Unfortunately, this is one of those moral situations for which there is no satisfactory resolution. Fortunately, my religious faith does not expect nice neat satisfactory resolution of every moral violation. From my religious frame of reference the best moral response to Madoff’s evil actions is — not to dwell on rehabilitation, restitution, apology, or punishment — but to strengthen the social moral systems that help prevent such actions: — speak out against greed; refuse to let anyone believe that we deserve something for nothing; tell your children why Madoff is evil.

“And only four kids came…”

Maggi Peirce gave a talk today at the church about how she and some others started a folk music coffee house in New Bedford in 1967. They had programming every Friday and Saturday evening, to provide a safe place for teenagers during that era of youth unrest. After starting off with a bang in May, 1967, they began having increasing difficulty finding adult volunteers, until things reached a crisis point in July. Here’s how Maggi told the story this afternoon:

“Every time that I would ask for people to help, they sort of faded like snow off a ditch. And then there was one famous night where I had to take care of Friday night. And I turned up, and wonderful Joe Cardoza. We loved Joe Cardoza. He always did the door. He was our doorkeeper, and he was from Pilgrim Church [the UCC church here in New Bedford]. The salt of the earth! And there was another woman there called Florrie; and then Ellen; they worked in the kitchen.

“And when this happened, I arrived on the Friday, but nobody else did. Joe was on the door. And there wasn’t even any coffee that night. And only four kids came. And one of them was P—— and he was from Fairhaven. And he said to me — he had a guitar with him; he didn’t play very well [laughter] — and he said, ‘Is nothing happening tonight?’

“And I said, ‘There is always something happening at Tryworks.’

“And he looked at me, and he said, ‘You know, Maggi, this is sort of typical of New Bedford. Everything starts with a big article in the newspaper, and a big hoopla.’ He said, ‘Remember that first night in May, when we opened?’ And this was about July [1967]. He said, ‘Everybody starts with a terrific hope, and everybody’s going to help, and then it all fizzles out within six weeks.’

“And I said, ‘P——, I promise you. Tryworks will not fizzle out in six weeks.’  ”

Well, to make a long story short, Maggi kept that promise. Tryworks coffee house did not fizzle out in six weeks. Maggi became the first director of Tryworks coffeehouse and ran it for twenty years. After she stepped down, it continued for another fifteen years, and when it finally closed for good in 2003 it was the longest-running folk music coffee house in the United States. More importantly, in those thirty-five years Tryworks made a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of young people.

I guess the moral of the story is this: If only four kids show up for your youth program, don’t give up.

Spring watch

When I went out to put garbage in the compost bin this afternoon, it was snowing: big fat fluffy white flakes blowing and swirling around our building.

Yesterday I heard my first Northern Cardinal of the year. And my car had the first bird droppings of the year splattered all over the hood, probably from the House Finch that was sitting up in the tree above the car and singing his heart out.

[aphorism]

After reading a novel by Trollope:

When we discover our idols have feet of clay, there’s an unfortunate tendency to despise the idols, instead of asking ourselves why we bothered to create idols in the first place.

Spring watch

It was such a shock when the snow hit on Monday. It was heavy, nasty stuff, too: not really snow, but a mix of sleet, snow, and freezing rain, and back-breaking to have to shovel. The next morning, everyone seemed to be driving more aggressively than usual, in part because the roads were badly plowed. Then it got cold and everything froze and it felt like we were back in wintertime.

But today the sun came out and the air warmed up. I managed to take a walk down along the waterfront late in the afternoon, and places where Carol and I could not walk yesterday because of the snow now had no snow at all. My mood lightened appreciably, too: I was more cheerful than I had any right to be.

More on North Unitarian Church in New Bedford, Mass.

North Unitarian Church in New Bedford began as a mission to the immigrant communities in the North End of New Bedford in 1894, had a separate institutional existence as a church 1917-1923, returned to its status as a settlement house, reorganized as a separate church in 1944, and finally consolidated with First Unitarian c. 1971. I’ve just put together a page on North Unitarian’s history, summarizing my research to date.

Sources on North Unitarian Church | Unity Home begins with a concise summary of major institutional events. From there, you can drown in excerpts from far too many primary and secondary sources. You have been warned.

Why I hate peace songs

The Civil Rights movement had the best political songs ever. But the peace movement has generally had boring songs. I blame it on Woody Guthrie. When he was with the Almanac Singers, he wrote a bunch of songs calling for peace. The chorus of one such song went like this:

Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace.
I can hear the bugle sounding,
Roaming around my land, my city and my town;
Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace….

Fourteen interminable repetitions of the word “peace.” It isn’t one of Guthrie’s best songs.

And ever since then, folk singers think that the best way to write a song about peace is to copy Guthrie, and us the word “peace” over and over again. Sy Miller and Jill Jackson do it in their song “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” Joanne Hammil does it in her otherwise lovely song “Circle the Earth with Peace.” [I changed my mind about Joanne Hammil: see below.] Lui Collins does it in her song “Peace on Earth.” Jim Scott does it in his song “Taking a Step for Peace.” These are all songwriters whom I generally like, but these particular songs just don’t cut it.

(Songwriters and singers, please take note: singing the word “peace” over and over again does not inspire me to work for peace; instead, it just bores me and annoys me. Singers and songwriters, please take further note: a good political song either tells a story, or it calls for action; but simply repeating a word over and over again does not make for a good song.)

Compare the above songs, if you will, to the Gang of Four’s “I Love a Man in Uniform,” a peace song in which a narrator tells why becoming a soldier is so compelling. This is a song which actually deepens our understanding of the way the military exploits people:

The good life was so elusive,
Handouts, they got me down;
I had to regain my self-respect
So I got into camouflage.
The girls, they love to see you shoot…

Problem is, “I Love a Man in a Uniform” is kinda hard to sing without that funky bass and rhythm guitar and those hip backup singers.

And that seems to be the pattern for peace songs. On the one hand, you have singable songs with inane lyrics. On the other hand, you have great songs that aren’t singable by ordinary people.

And if I can’t sing, I don’t wanna be a part of your peace movement.

Crossposted.

Update 7 March 2009: I was in a workshop today led by Joanne Hammil, and she had us sing “Circle the Earth with Peace.” She wrote this song for use with kindergarteners and the primary grades, and there are fun hand motions that go with it, that really add to it. Now I am a fan of this song, and would gladly teach it to a children’s choir or an intergenerational ensemble. As always, context is very important for music.

An eco-universalist prayer

Yesterday’s post has the story of how the great Universalist Hosea Ballou did a preaching tour of the New Bedford region in May, 1820 — including an anecdote of how Rev. Le Baron of Mattapoisett unsuccessfully tried to keep Ballou from preaching. Never one to miss out on provoking a good controversy, Ballou wrote a letter to Le Baron the next day, which apparently had some kind of wider distribution. This letter is probably the first Universalist tract ever written in the New Bedford area.

Ballou’s letter contains one almost poetic passage, which could almost be a proto-eco-universalist prayer. I added snippets from elsewhere in the letter to make conclusion for it, and here it is:

 

     Does not the sun shine universally,
     and the moon likewise?

     Do not the clouds give rain to all,
     and the fruits of the earth grow
     for the benefit of all?

     Is not the vital air for the life of all;
     and are not all equally entitled to the waters?

     All people, every person,
     and the whole world are universal.
     This testimony, I believe, is Universalism.

 

For those of you who love to watch early 19th C. Universalists picking fights, I’ve included the full text of the letter below. Continue reading →