Blog 600 – 04.12.2017

Singing Works Just Fine For Me

What do you do to make the pain go away, the boredom, the monotony, the nagging ache that something is missing or wrong in your life? There is a haunting line in the book and the movie, The Shack, where Papa God, is talking about pain and She/He says that there is no way to avoid pain in life completely, no remedy that is lasting. But oh how we try to find a better longer lasting pain reliever. For some it is alcohol, others pot, or pills. As the old snake oils salesmen would say of their elixir, “It’s good for what ails you.” The current great opioid addiction problems sweeping our land comes from people believing there is a magic pill or needle that will make the pain go away for good. But Papa God is the only lasting remedy for pain in this or any other life. And all other temporary relief measures only lead to addiction, another problem to deal with.

I no longer consider myself a religious person. I am, I think, a spiritual person. I see much in most religions that commends itself but to me many people use religion like a crutch or a drug to prop themselves up or to ease their pain. Having been a former practicing Christian in a very narrow fundamentalist sect I am wary of all clubs that profess to have a corner on God or the “truth.” They usually mean that everyone else is off or wrong but them. Well, small comfort always being or thinking you are “right” is. I would rather be happy.

Simon and Farfunkel recorded a very popular song many years ago called Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Christians rushed to co-opt the lyrics to push their understanding that Jesus is the one and only bridge over troubled waters. But another Jew boy, Paul Simon, wrote the lyric of the song and I understand the line “Sail on silver girl, sail on by” is actually refering to a hypodermic needle injecting drugs for a temporary bridge over troubled waters. I find it interesting that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their Communist Manifesto published in 1848, long before the revolution in Russia in 1919 called religion the opium of the people. They were both by adulthood atheists. Atheism is also a kind of religion too, just one where man is God on his/her own.

James Taylor sings in the song Sweet Baby James:

“There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway,
A song that they sing when they take to the sea,
A song that they sing of their home in the sky.
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me.

Whatever you believe, and far be it from me to tell you what to think or to sell my take on religion as the only true and correct one, whatever you believe if it does not get you through the night without using alcohol, drugs, or heavy doses of dogma maybe you should consider easing back a bit on the dosage or trying something else. Before you run off saying Crazy Dave said religion is a drug, it was not me who said that but Karl Marx and Friedich Engels. Still as Papa says, “If the shoe fits wear it.” I am with Sweet Baby James, singing works just fine for me. I do not need to get plastered or high or believe Heaven is pie in the sky in the sweet by and by to be able to sleep at night but like Sweet Baby James singing to his moon light ladies, a lullaby will do me just fine. Sweet dreams, my darlings.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White