[Vision2020] language we don't hear enough of

Tue Oct 12 11:15:36 PDT 2010

Point well taken, Keely.

Here is a song that exemplifies the point which Keely has made.

"One Tin Soldier" by Linda Wilmot

http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/One_Tin_Soldier.mp3

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses! Draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain people,
So they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

---------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

On Tue, October 12, 2010 10:47 am, keely emerinemix wrote:
>
> Good morning, Visionaires --
>
> I recently finished "Byzantium," a historical novel about a 10-century
> Irish monk's pilgrimage to Constantinople/Byzantium, and would recommend
> it highly; when my then-16-year-old eldest son read it, he said it changed
> his life.  It had a pretty profound effect on me as well.
>
> But toward the end of the book, something in it struck me, and I wanted to
> toss it out as an example of something other than the vicious, bigoted,
> ill-informed, shameful things said of Muslims by some Christians -- even
> some in my own extended family.  This is how author Stephen Lawhead
> described Islam, which, in the terminology of the day, employed terms like
> "Muhammedans" that we no longer use.  Nonetheless, it's an interesting
> departure from the ignorance and hate we see around us:
>
> ". . . This, then, began my first acquaintance with the Muhammedans, who,
> I promptly learned, were not pagans, as I had first supposed, but a people
> who worshiped the same God as Christians and Jews, and, like them, revered
> the Holy Word.  The knew somewhat of Jesu, but, like the Jews, did not
> hold him to be the Christ.  Nevertheless, they were extremely devout, and
> very exacting in their ways and lived according to a set of laws laid down
> in a book, the Qur'an, written by one called Muhammed, a mighty prophet
> indeed.  The chief tenet of their belief was, as I came to understand it,
> complete and utter submission to the will of God, a state they called
> islam."
>
> (Stephen R. Lawhead, Byzantium, Harper/Prism, 1996)
>
> Now, I am obviously not a Muslim.  And all Muslims are obviously not as
> devoted to Allah with the piety described by Lawhead -- just as many, many
> Christians, and at times myself, do not live in the piety, humility,
> devotion, and submission to God that ideally describes Christianity.
> However, there is nothing in my faith that requires, much less endorses,
> hate and fear as a tool for noting the differences in our approaches to
> God.
>
> I pray that I will achieve a state of islam in my worship of Jesus Christ
> as Savior and Lord, and I pray for peace to rule the hearts of all
> Christians and Muslims and Jews bent on violence and prejudice -- which is
> not a tenet of any faith.
>
> Keely
> www.keely-prevailingwinds.com
>
>
>  		 	   		  =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown