I was thinking today about my religious heritage, and it reminded me of a song. For the most part, my religious heritage is . . . well, nothing and everything! I grew up in the Roman Catholic tradition, and I remained loyal to that faith well into my 30’s. For various reasons, I became a “roam-in catholic” after that, roaming from religion to religion. I committed myself to the Episcopalians for a few years (not much of a commitment, I guess), sat with a Quaker congregation on and off for about a year, went to a Unitarian church for a few weeks, visited a few Buddhist groups, and for the past 3 years have been a part of a Zen sangha. Furthermore, my initial DNA ancestry results indicate that my paternal grandfather may have hailed from a Jewish family. If this evidence holds up, I may need to somehow honor the Jewish tradition in my old age.<\/p>\n
I’ve also read quite a bit about all of the major world faith systems, and include many of their sacred writings within my evening prayer routine. I even give atheism it’s due; I feel that faith and doubt are two sides of one coin; they are part of a yin-yang complementarity, like the quantum wave-particle dualism of light. Without a legitimate atheist shadow in our lives, we could never take God seriously. I think that God wants us to have our doubts, even though it causes a deep existential longing, a sometimes painful longing. No pain, no gain. <\/p>\n
But that aside, the song that came to mind today was “Universal Soldier<\/a>“, which was originally written and recorded in 1964 by Buffy Sainte Marie, a Canadian folk singer that I’m not otherwise familiar with. I remember “Universal Soldier” because I used to watch the Glen Campbell show back in the late 60’s and early 70s, and Glen frequently sang that number. The line from it<\/a> that I like goes like this:<\/p>\n He’s a Catholic, he’s a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain But the lyrics aren’t exactly a celebration of spiritual diversity; the next lines go:<\/p>\n And he knows he shouldn’t kill The interesting thing about this song is that it pins the blame for war on the actual low-level foot soldier. To wit,<\/p>\n But without him, how would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau? He’s the one who gives his body He’s the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame, Yes, this is a real anti-war song, as it blames it all on anyone who joins the military. Fast forward to today, to the “support our troops” attitude that pervades popular culture from the heartlands of the Midwest, Mountain states and South, to the quasi-socialist realms of Vermont, New York City, San Francisco and coastal Oregon. We argue over the need for military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe even Iran; but no one in his right mind would go on TV and say or sing that our never-ending involvement in war stems from the willingness of the young men and women to serve in our military. Even Bob Dylan, an icon from the anti-war 1960’s, made a Pepsi commercial<\/a> in 2009 using his song “Forever Young”, which features scenes of returning military men hugging their kids. <\/p>\n So you don’t hear “Universal Soldier” that much anymore, even though an odd act (such as First Aid Kit) does a cover of it<\/a> now and then, perhaps as an ironic curiosity. It’s interesting how public attitudes change. I could go on ruminating about the social, historical and political factors and demographic changes that may be reflected in all of this, but for now, I will just give you a link to Glen Campbell singing<\/a> this song. It’s still a nice tune, in my book, and it still reflects a commendable naivety and an utterly impractical idealism about the terribleness of war and what to do to stop it. So enjoy this tune for what it’s worth; however, the “Universal Soldier” spoken of is really NOT to blame, not any more or less than any and all of us who live in an imperfect world and contribute our own imperfections to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was thinking today about my religious heritage, and it reminded me of a song. For the most part, my religious heritage is . . . well, nothing and everything! I grew up in the Roman Catholic tradition, and I remained loyal to that faith well into my 30’s. For various reasons, I became a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3831"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3833,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions\/3833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nA Buddhist, and a Baptist and a Jew<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nBit he knows he always will
\nKill you for me, my friend, and me for you<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nWithout him Caesar would have stood alone<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nAs a weapon of the war,
\nAnd without him all this killing can’t go on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nHis orders come from far away no more,
\nThey come from here and there and you and me,
\nAnd brothers can’t you see,
\nThis is not the way we put the end to war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n