To Be Or Not To Be
In our Hymnal 1940 and earlier we had a hymn “The World Is Very Evil” that was removed from our 1982 Hymnal, either by members of an Ecclesiastical Optimist Society or more likely by the arm-banded Political Correctness Police, or by some Episcopal Liar’s Club, all of whom might either maintain the opposite to the poem's sentiment, or feel that this is not something we want to hear, say or sing about ourselves. As in “if we close our eyes and stop up our ears and cover our mouth, it won’t be so.”
Also there would be some who, considering themselves theologically sophisticated, would see the hymn as heretically Gnostic. It isn’t Gnostic, though, it’s entirely scriptural as we come round yet one more time again in human history, to Genesis 6:5-6. Here may muse the ubiquitous, innocuous and obnoxious old man longing for the innocent days of youth, but it’s true. I have felt so fortunate to have been an American this time around, this lifetime. Not that I have been around before, or will again, I do not believe that. We get but one chance at life and I’ve lived and loved deeply in this one. But what I see corroborates John M. Neale and his translation of Bernard’s immense poem De Contemptu Mundi. We are descending into a future where I, glad of the twilight, would not wish to be. This hymn is only one part of Bernard's poem, it starts way back there and goes on and on and on, including the hymn (same tune) that begins “Jerusalem the Golden” as well as “The World Is Very Evil.”
"The World Is Very Evil"
by Bernard of Morlas/Cluny, 12th century
Translated by John M. Neale, 1818-1866
1. The world is very evil,
The times are waxing late;
Be sober and keep vigil,
The Judge is at the gate;
The Judge that comes in mercy,
The Judge that comes with might,
To terminate the evil,
To diadem the right.
The times are waxing late;
Be sober and keep vigil,
The Judge is at the gate;
The Judge that comes in mercy,
The Judge that comes with might,
To terminate the evil,
To diadem the right.
2. Arise, arise, good Christian,
Let right to wrong succeed;
Let penitential sorrow
To heav'nly gladness lead,
To light that hath no evening,
That knows no moon nor sun,
The light so new and golden,
The light that is but one.
Let right to wrong succeed;
Let penitential sorrow
To heav'nly gladness lead,
To light that hath no evening,
That knows no moon nor sun,
The light so new and golden,
The light that is but one.
3. O home of fadeless splendor,
Of flow'rs that bear no thorn,
Where they shall dwell as children
Who here as exiles mourn.
Midst pow'r that knows no limit,
Where knowledge has no bound,
The beatific vision
Shall glad the saints around.
Of flow'rs that bear no thorn,
Where they shall dwell as children
Who here as exiles mourn.
Midst pow'r that knows no limit,
Where knowledge has no bound,
The beatific vision
Shall glad the saints around.
4. Strive, man, to win that glory;
Toil, man, to gain that light;
Send hope before to grasp it
Till hope be lost in sight.
Exult, O dust and ashes,
The Lord shall be thy part;
His only, His forever,
Thou shalt be and thou art.
Toil, man, to gain that light;
Send hope before to grasp it
Till hope be lost in sight.
Exult, O dust and ashes,
The Lord shall be thy part;
His only, His forever,
Thou shalt be and thou art.
5. O sweet and blessed country,
The home of God's elect!O sweet and blessed country
That eager hearts expect!
Jesus, in mercy bring us
To that dear land of rest,
Who art, with God the Father
And Spirit, ever blest.
What’s eating at the old man this morning? Simply that Bernard is right. People shooting cops eating lunch in a pizza parlor. People shooting other people. Students shooting and stabbing other students. Terrorists murdering innocent men, women and children, shooting up airports. People carrying firearms into movie theaters and shopping malls. People committing homicide by blowing up others and themselves, and calling it suicidal sacrifice. A world so irretrievably evil that we bind ourselves obsessively with our rights and rank our rights above the rights of others, yet call ourselves “Christian.” We are not. People so filled with hatred that they threaten the family of Sgt Bergdahl, simple parents frantic for the life and wellbeing of their son. People of the seething lunatic fringe on Facebook, so filled with political certitude and racial hatred that they are blind to the unspeakable obscenities that they themselves have become, incapable of self-awareness. Voices complaining about the cost of helping illegal immigrant children from violent Latin American nations, the voices of wealthy greed, filling me not with anger or disgust but with pure revulsion. It is so very discouraging and depressing. I would never again. Never, never again. Offered a chance, I pass. Though if I find myself on the hill overlooking Grover's Corners I will accept the offer to live again one day of this life.
Though I could never again choose this road in life because that's not the way life works, I do feel fortunate and blessed to have been born and lived in America, in those few years when America seemed to be in the American Dream that our founders visualized for the nation. I have felt part of the American Dream, it was so very good. But if I had to start from here and now and choosing, I would choose other. Is there other, where people peacefully live and let live and enjoy the freedom of life and love and the beauty of creation? New Zealand, maybe, or Scandinavia? Iceland? IDK. Maybe Venus or Mars. Are we becoming too many rats in a cage, instinctively hating and killing each other? IDK.
If I were doing it all over, actually, I think I’d choose the other of America herself in an age between my father and grandfather. Or a remote America like the Wyoming of author Mark Spragg, away from people and all that humans are and do and think. Isolation in a kind of magical Old Time. Truth, if I had to start over again or be again, I’d have to do it that way, an earlier, golden America, because the idea of looking up at another flag or singing other than “The Star Spangled Banner” is so unthinkable that I’d rather not be at all, I could not bear to be other, because this is my own, my native land.
If I were doing it all over, actually, I think I’d choose the other of America herself in an age between my father and grandfather. Or a remote America like the Wyoming of author Mark Spragg, away from people and all that humans are and do and think. Isolation in a kind of magical Old Time. Truth, if I had to start over again or be again, I’d have to do it that way, an earlier, golden America, because the idea of looking up at another flag or singing other than “The Star Spangled Banner” is so unthinkable that I’d rather not be at all, I could not bear to be other, because this is my own, my native land.
TW