I drug my family to see (one of) my alma mater's men's glee club sing tonight. They were fantastic. They sang Christian songs, I nearly fell out of my chair.
One of the songs they sang was a poem by Charles Dickens that was set to music by Lee Dengler. Here are the words:
Things That Never Die
The pure, the bright, the beautiful that stirred our hearts in youth
The impulses to wordless prayer
The streams of love and truth
The longing after something lost
The spirit’s longing cry
The striving after better hopes
These things can never die
The timid hand stretched forth to aid
A brother in his need;
A kindly word in grief’s dark hour
That proves a friend indeed;
The plea for mercy softly breathed,
When justice threatens high
The sorrow of a contrite heart
These things shall never die
Let nothing pass, for every hand
Must find some work to do
Lose not a chance to waken love
Be firm and just and true
So shall a light that cannot fade
Beam on thee from on high
And angel voices say to thee “These things shall never die.”
I hope that you read that, did you notice a few of those things that, although they are not dead, are currently on critical life support?
We were studying Camelot in 4th grade literature this week. When knights performed deeds that were honorable, humble and righteous, they were found worthy to sit at the round table. The name of the knight would appear in gold letters on the chair.
If the knight was dishonest or did anything to no longer make him worthy to sit at the round table, his name would disappear from the chair.
Now, you know that I was thinking of about, oh, 535 chairs in Washington DC that need some of that magic gold ink, right?
But, we don't have any of that magic gold ink. We just have our brains, our eyes and ears. We have lots of television footage to capture lies and things that aren't noble.
And, we do have our pens and that election coming up. Let's scratch out some of those names in gold letters and let's get some new ones in there, ok?
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