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For many Christians around the globe, today is celebrated as Good Friday, a holy day of prayer and reflection, a day of remembering the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Good Friday (though its name may seem like an oxymoron to some) is considered good because, while it is a day to be mindful of suffering and death, the story doesn’t end there. The story reaches its climax on Easter Sunday, three days from now, when Christians celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and triumph over death.

Good Friday, they call this day. However, this particular Good Friday, April 14, 2017, America dropped a bomb on Afghanistan for no apparent reason. Earlier this week we bombed Syria, supposedly to send a signal to its leader, Bashar al-Assad, that we would not stand idly by while he gassed his own people, as had apparently happened just days before that. Bombs in exchange for gassing. Bombs to send a message.

I cannot help but see a sad and somber parallel here. Death and madness all around us. Knee-jerk reactions. Unilateral destruction of human lives in an attempt to obliterate the dark forces of insurrection that we feel all around us, even if we can’t quite grasp who they are and where they are coming from. We bomb indiscriminately. We bomb at the bequest of one man who presently leads our country and has taken it upon himself to direct military action without securing the approval of Congress or the American people. We drop bombs, cut lives short, re-write freedoms, and create more refugees fleeing worn-torn corners of the world.

For many months now, I have been contemplating the lyrics to a song by singer-songwriter, Paul Simon, called “American Tune.” The song was written in the early 1970s but could very much have been written for today. It’s based on the melody of a beloved hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” that is sung in churches all across the world on Good Friday.

The lyrics to Paul Simon’s song (included below) speak of struggle and weariness, the passing away of freedom and liberty. The song conjures up images of broken dreams and the plight of millions of tired, weary refugees “yearning to breathe free,” as the familiar inscription reads on the Statue of Liberty. I think many of us are tired and weary and feeling the brokenness of dreams.

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Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
But I’m all right, I’m all right
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
or driven to its knees
But it’s all right, it’s all right
We’ve lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
we’re traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what went wrong

 

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And I dreamed I was dying
And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
and sing an American tune
But it’s all right, it’s all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest

Written by Paul Simon
© Universal Music Publishing Group

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I offer my version of American Tune here, with a nod in the interlude to another well-known tune by Simon & Garfunkel. That nod offers an answer, however inadequate, to the lyrics of the first tune. It is my hope, in this our age’s most uncertain hour, that we find a way to be a bridge for each other over the “troubled waters” of our time.

 

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