While listening to the usual global horrors on the early news this morning (a Ukrainian plane crash in Iran, killing everyone onboard, natch, just following the Iranian attack on American bases in Iraq) I am also thinking of a line from one of those church songs that I just cannot stand. The song is titled "I Am the Light of the World" and there 's nothing really wrong with the words, but combined with the Anglican church camp style of music and privileged little white girl hand-clapping, I do find it kind of trite, saccharine and nauseating. There is one line, pardon the sickly sweet phrasing, please Gentle Reader, "to dance at a baby's new birth." Well, thanks for the sugar coated hyperbole, you guys, and after you've clapped four times with that dumb smile on your face, let's examine this a bit, please.
Now, let us consider that not everyone dances over the birth of a new baby. In fact, I have never heard of anyone dancing because a kid was born. Smiling, yes. Handing out Cuban phallic symbols that you can actually put in your mouth and stink up the universe upon lighting one, well, that's a masculine tradition. Doesn't say a thing about postpartum depression, or postpartum psychosis. Nor is the swelling human overpopulation on the planet being taken into consideration. And nothing in that compunctuous little statement says anything about the absolute stress and pressure many families are under to actually provide for their families. I really wonder if that song might have been written by an Anglican camp counselor with bipolar symptoms and was simply on a smores induced manic high one night after campfire.
That song, for me, has become one irritating earworm. I often sit on the worship committee at my parish church, and almost every time, someone picks that awful dumb little song. And worse, everyone seems to love it. Well, okay, but I don't have to sing it. And I don't.
But just one little detail here. It is that line from this annoying earworm, "to dance at a new baby's birth" that particularly won't leave me alone. Now, even though I like kids, I still draw the line at bratty behaviour in public places, like coffee shops, and I can often feel my blood pressure begin to spike when I see yet one more barmy millennial mommy or daddy shoving their uber stroller in through the cafe door and the strident screamings of their entitled little brat start filling the place.
But often I am pleasantly surprised, the kids are actually fun and kind of endearing, and sometimes they take an interest in my art and I have at times ended up holding impromptu art lessons with kids and their parents while sitting in a cafe with my sketchbook. And you know what, Gentle Reader? It's been a lot of fun! Though other times the kids have just been annoying little monsters with absolutely clueless parents, but they still seem more the exception than the rule.
So, why would we be told, or expected to want to dance at a new baby's birth? I would like to think that this a sign of hope we should be celebrating. Hoping that maybe this kid will grow up in a way that they will actually get it right and will do something in their lives to help change this world and actually move things forward for the rest of us. At the very least, once they are of working age they will also be paying taxes that will help look after our tired and sorry old asses once we are in the nursing home. Could be worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment