Stop Singing

A conversation with Amos and Jeremiah and Jack.

As I stand in Church on Sunday, I cannot close my eyes in worship. The song dies on my lips, even though the band plays on. Daniel, Mark, and Michael pick and strum. John plays the keys. Chris beats his drums. I watch them, but I cannot join them. Over Daniel’s voice, I hear Amos cry:¹

I hate, I despise your festivals,
     and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain offerings,
     I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
     I will not look upon.

I have no sacrifice but the sacrifice of gathering and of praise, and you will reject it while justice still has no place in my people. I cannot sing of peace when there is no peace. So much blood is being spilled. I cannot declare your nearness when my people are so far from you.

I return home, shaken. I pick up my guitar and try to play, but Amos again shouts.²

Take away from me the noise of your songs;
     I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

‘Stop singing!’ I hear from you. And how can I sing? What could beautiful words do against reckless hate? Am I just filling the air, or providing empty distraction from the cries of a wounded people? Am I calling out peace, when there is no peace? But my God, I am a poet. Words and melody are all you have given me, so what else can I do?³

But let justice run down like waters,
     and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

I would do this, if I could. I once tried. You know that. I went to war against injustice in a far land, against governments who slaughtered their own people, who murdered in the street in broad daylight and called it good. I took up the sword and went to war. I found that I never brought them justice, only more war. And now things are as bad or worse. And now I find this very same war in my very own land, among my very own people.

They tell me to trade my bullets for words. Sharpen my pen as a sword. For how mighty is the pen to tear a kingdom down! I can still be a soldier. A warrior-poet. Wield the truth like a blade and lay waste to all who would stand against the downtrodden and the innocent! Yes! No singing but a battle cry to stir up others who could do what I could not!

This is what they tell me, but Amos speaks again that this was the sin of Edom. I know that this is the sin of my people.⁴

Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Edom,
     and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;
because he has pursued his brother with the sword
     and cast off all pity;
he maintained his anger perpetually.
     and kept his wrath forever.

My people took up the sword in the very beginning of our existence as a people, and we have never once put it down in all our long years as a nation. Even when there was no enemy without, we did not put it down but turned it on ourselves. This is what we do today. Forgive us, for we do not know another way. Have pity on the pitiful and the pitiless alike. My God, I can see your face reflected in the violent. I can see your face reflected in the victim. I cannot close my eyes to either.

Amos fumes in the corner, caught between love and rebuke for this rebellious people. I sit in silence with my guitar. I look at the blank paper and the lidded pen.

‘Stop singing!’ I hear you cry, but my God, I am a poet. What else can I do?

I turn and see Jeremiah sitting next to me. My heart stirs. ‘How long,’ I ask him, ‘will my land look like Babylon?’

Jeremiah shakes his head. He takes up my pen, which has begun to look like a blade. He turns it slowly and looks at it long, then bends it until it is no longer a sword but a plough. He shapes my pick, which might have been an arrowhead, into a shovelhead. I see my notebook standing open like a furrow. He finally opens his mouth to repeat an ancient word.⁵

‘Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce… seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.’

I look down at the guitar I’m holding. The strings and frets become a trellis upon which I hang my fingers. My friend Jack is sitting at my left hand. He’s playing his Mule, his own fingers trellised like mine. Fruit hangs from the tuners and bridge. He’s quietly singing.

‘I will feed the sick. I will farm for beauty.’

I begin to strum, and I begin to pray, and my prayer is a poem. My God, you made me a poet. Words and melody are all that I have. What else can I do? I am only a poet. What else can I do?

Sláinte

The Prophet Amos, engraving by Francesco Rosselli, 1480-1490.

1. Amos 5:21-22

2. Amos 5:23

3. Amos 5:24

4. Amos 2:11

5. Jeremiah 29:5, 7