Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-18-19

Back around 1970 I was on the staff of New Guard Magazine, the monthly journal of Young Americans for Freedom, the national student organization founded by William F Buckley. At the height of the hippie culture and anti-war protests, we were, perhaps the original “resistance” movement against the political status quo.

YAF had 55,000 members across America, and more than 700 chapters in high schools, colleges, and in communities. I was state chairman for a while in DC and New Jersey, and, as I say, on the staff of their magazine, and editor of The Free Campus News Service, syndicating news and cartoons and opinions to college papers.

I cut more than a few eye teeth at YAF, but concurrent with these activities I was still a student at American University, and worked a part-time job in YAF’s mail room. Always look on the back of everyone’s business card.

Some of those “eye teeth” I cut were opportunities to meet and work with many of the leaders of our time. One seems unlikely today, and is an example of how much our nation has changed in one generation.

West Virginia Senator Robert C Byrd, Democrat, was a conservative. He wrote an article on tradition, conservative principles, and religion in America for New Guard. I was asked to illustrate it. I was a budding cartoonist, but this assignment I handled with realistic drawings. A patriot next to the flag; a student praying; etc.

Robert Byrd eventually became Majority Leader in the Senate (beating Ted Kennedy in the caucus) and when he died he was the longest-serving senator in American history.

In this period of his life he was a fierce defender of conservative values and the role of Christianity in our national life. He defended his own values, too; a country boy, he liked mountain music… and often played fiddle tunes and hoedown-music at festivals, rallies, and… well just about anywhere.

“Anywhere” included the Grand Ole Opry and the hit TV show Hee Haw. The music video to click below is one of his guest appearances on the CBS network show. More than his service in the Senate, more than his article that I illustrated, I ask you to watch Sen. Byrd, in his trademark red vest, playing and singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” the old Carter Family standard.

Watch and listen… and think about how much America has changed.

Today, a United States senator singing hillbilly music on a cornpone TV show? (More: CBS carrying a hillbilly-music show???)

Today, the Majority Leader of the U S Senate singing a gospel song on network TV? Can you imagine Chuck Schumer pickin’ and grinnin’?

Today, a politician of either party enthusiastically singing about Jesus, smiling and raising his arms in joy at every mention of the Savior’s name?

We all know that – somehow – we have arrived at a place where senators, not only local jerks, would threaten to sue TV networks or shut down TV stations for daring to mention the name of Jesus. A lot of senators spend their time and efforts working to legalize drugs and decriminalize criminals these days. Mentions of personal faith or faith-based policies, like defending the unborn, have to be done in carefully chosen places, speaking carefully selected words.

We sang the songs of childhood, Hymns of faith that made us strong…

I’m gonna sit down besides my Jesus When I lay my burdens down…

Will the circle be unbroken By and by, Lord, by and by?
There’s a better home a-waiting In the sky, Lord, in the sky.

The song has lived in several versions since it was written in 1907 by Ada R Habershon and Charles H Gabriel; the most familiar is a funeral theme by the Carter Family.

When you see the joyful and unembarrassed performance of this old time Gospel classic, on national television, by the Majority Leader of the United States Senate – not too many years ago, really – you might think it is, after all, kind of a funeral theme for America.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Meet Times, They are A-Changin’.

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Click: Will the Circle Be Unbroken

3-4-13

A friend of mine posted a note this week: “I just received a phone call from a friend asking for prayer for another friend whose daughter is likely caught in a human trafficking ring… We must know that it is around us! It can happen to any of our families. Please keep spreading the word and educating our kids and teens in preventive measures.”

My friend, Cheryl Hults Meakins, is doing great and necessary work, currently as Chair for Ministries of Compassion, Mercy, and Justice for the Women Ministries of the Evangelical Covenant Church’s Midwest Conference. Important work that inspires me when I hear of it. And so many others. I admire the work that people do to serve others.

… and then I stop and grieve, sometimes, because I realize that entire professions exist because the need is so great. Servant-hearts are at work because there is so much sorrow and heartache and pain and abuse and hurt and despair – so much hatred, so much sin – in our midst. Counselors and ministers do all they can, responding (in effect) to the laws of supply and demand. What a cursed world.

Human trafficking is not new. Neither is it rare in the world… nor in America. Abuse of all sorts is common. And it is an equal-opportunity offender, of children and the elderly, of women and men. Abuse at its base is a demand for power, manifested in hatred, and therefore is basically a spiritual fight. And that requires spirituals answers! Jobs and education cannot cure what the prince of darkness incubates. Only the love of Christ can cure what ails humankind.

It is then no surprise that good people, everywhere, suffer for their faith, more and more of them tortured and slaughtered. For Christians, in greater numbers now than at any time in history; more, proportionally, than in the time of Roman emperors.

I realize I am writing as if I think I am interrupting some program with breaking news. But I know the chances are that among those who read this, a vast number of you will be thinking: “I heard about ‘this’ down the street’; or “I have a relative who experienced ‘that’”; or… “I know about these things. They happened to me.”

It can seem like a cliché – or perhaps a hopeless sentiment – to ask whether we all can’t give up hating, for Lent.

But couldn’t we all try to give up indifference to hatred, even only occasionally?

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A link to resources and programs of Cheryl’s ministry can be found through her personal website www.MeakinsSpeak.com and at www.covchurch.org/what-we-do/mercy-justice. I commend the music video here linked, “Which Way To Pray,” sung by T. Graham Brown to a group of friends. Touching words about dirty little secrets in our midst. You know, I believe that sometimes we can have such open minds that our brains fall out. Not a good thing. However, the same is not true of our hearts! We can never be too open-hearted, too compassionate, too moved not to respond to the hurting amongst us.

Click: Which Way To Pray