I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew

I vaguely remembered a song from my childhood in the 1960s. I recently looked it up. It is yet another expression of the frustration and sense of injustice that many people felt, and feel, about how the rich are oppressing the poor. The lyrics were written by Bobby Bare and performed by several singers including Johnny Cash and Tom T. Hall.

The first strange town I was ever in

The county was hanging a man
Nobody cared if he lived or died

And I just didn't understand.

So I washed my face in the morning dew, Bathed my soul in the sun,
Washed my face in the morning dew And kept on moving along.

The second strange town that I was in

They were laughin' at a poor crippled man
Begging for nickels and dimes on the street

And I just didn't understand.

So I washed my face in the morning dew, Bathed my soul in the sun,
Washed my face in the morning dew And kept on moving along.

The third strange town that I was in

Was settled peaceful and nice
The rich got richer and the poor got poorer

And to me it didn't seem right

So I washed my face in the morning dew, Bathed my soul in the sun,
Washed my face in the morning dew And kept on moving along.

Someday times are bound to change

It can't be very far
And each injustice I have seen

Will come before the bar.

So I washed my face in the morning dew, Bathed my soul in the sun,
Washed my face in the morning dew And kept on moving along.

These words seem to be a modern embodiment of the cries of the Old Testament prophets, from Amos to Isaiah to Jeremiah. When the Old Testament prophets saw the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, they did not say, “To me it just doesn’t seem right.” Instead they proclaimed that God hated this kind of oppression and that he would punish Israel and Judah for it by allowing military empires to conquer them. The prophets, like the singers, also believed that God would pass His judgment on the oppressors (the injustices would “come before the bar,” or judgment seat). And these “strange towns” are not so strange after all; they are the cities we all live in, and we see these injustices as being normal, not strange.

Are there any popular songs today that call for an end to oppression? I do not follow popular music. Feel free to post a comment about examples you may know about.

Unlearning War

The vision of the Peaceable Kingdom was a popular one among the Old Testament prophets. They probably all knew it, and two of them (or their followers) incorporated it into their writings: the first Isaiah (chapter 2) and Micah (chapter 4). The prophets envisioned a time when armies would stop fighting wars and instead raise food for their people: “Beat your swords into plowshares.” This image is just as powerful today as it was thousands of years ago, as depicted in a statue at the United Nations.

But this vision is not something that we can all of a sudden decide to do. We cannot go directly from a war mindset to an attitude of peace. We have to learn to think in a new way. Both Isaiah and Micah say, “Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.” Soldiers cannot create an effective agricultural economy by poking holes in the ground with their swords to plant seeds. It takes a wholesale economic restructuring, in which industry produces plowshares instead of swords, or better yet, recycles the now-useless implements of war into the equipment of peace.

Unfortunately, we can go the other way also. Because of our violent human nature, bequeathed to us by evolution, we can easily slip back into a mindset of war, without having to retrain our brains. The Old Testament prophet Joel did this (chapter 3), when he envisioned a time when people would beat their plowshares into swords.

America and Israel, again

The big news this week is about the Israelis using deadly force to attack a ship that was delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. We must grant that Israel did make some effort to prevent an armed confrontation. They offered to let the vessel unload its cargo in Israel, so that the Israelis could inspect it and then give the humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and the vessel refused. It seems apparent that the vessel was intended not just to deliver humanitarian aid but to provoke the Israelis and call world attention to the blockade of Gaza. But to most observers the Israeli commando raid was vastly disproportionate to the offense. One observer, quoted on radio, said that Israel has used military force as its main and sometimes exclusive venue of relations with its neighbors ever since the 1967 war, and quoted a Jewish proverb: To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

The Israeli government, though officially neutral on religion, clearly considers itself to be the continuation of God’s Kingdom as described in the Hebrew Bible, which we call the Old Testament. As I noted in an earlier entry, they seem to base their self-identity on the Biblical nation of Israel which conquered its neighbors by genocide. I suggest that they look at the rest of the Hebrew Bible—in particular, the prophets. I will use the prophet Amos as an example.

Amos’ prophecy is structured as a spiral of denunciations, starting with Damascus. “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment…” This wording implies the same thing as when a parent says to a child, “That’s enough!” which does not mean “That was exactly the right amount of disobedience,” but rather, “You have gone too far.” Next, Amos denounces Gaza, then Tyre, then Edom, then the Ammonites (the people, not the extinct mollusks), then Moab, making a circle around Judah, spiraling closer and closer. And then, with exactly the same literary construction, the prophet says, “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,” then says the same for Israel.

Even back during the days of ancient Israel and Judah, “Bible days,” as some would call them, “God’s kingdom” was called to the same standards and subjected to the same judgment as all other nations. This is clearly not American policy. America accepts Israeli acts that we would condemn if any other nation committed them. Israel listens too much to Joshua; they should listen more to Amos.