the telegraph
Michael KiwanukaAny Day Will Do Fine
I've always sung along, Hey listen girl, whenever this song came on, but after watching the video I did a quick lyric check and discovered it's Hey listen God.
Changes the meaning of the song entirely, especially the phrases, I'll be changing my ways and Now your dues have been paid.
I've tried all my life to believe there is a god, any god, listening to my small prayers and too many grievances. Listening without eyerolling or exasperated sighs to the bargains I've struck. I'd like to think there is a god who didn't take it personally or hold a grudge when I turned my back on religion, refused to accept the violent or benevolent portrayals of diety, and finally fell silent after years of questions and no acceptable explainations from books, scholars, clergy, etc. The only answers I ever received were the standard, it is not up to us to judge and it's all part of a greater plan.
Nobody gets a free pass.
Free will, okay. Consequences for actions, yes. Forgiveness no matter the infraction, absolutely. Allowing atrocities when one can intervene, never. I will admit I spent far too much time rubbing a litany of grievances thin: explain the massacres of the Crusades, and then the entirety of the Middle Ages, the burnings and tortures of the Reformation, seriously explain the whole of the 20th Century and its genocides and rampant atrocities. I spent far too much time cutting sideways glances toward the sky.
The religious fundamentalism of the 21st Century has made me realize that perhaps we need too look to each other for support, rather than division. We all shelter under one sky. Does it really matter if we call our god by different names, not a bit.
When I was a child I was instructed that when the Prophet speaks, all questions cease. I credit this credo with turning me into an instant apostate and feminist, or at the very least a very chin jutted out critical thinker. I have to question. Then I can let it go.
I am still holding out hope that there is more than this, but like I've said before, I've settled on Einstein's Old One.
Perhaps that will do fine.
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