On American currency, the words, “In God We Trust” is emblazoned. The Founding Fathers of the United States were anything but religious, many of them, including George Washington, agnostics or Deists. The Founding Fathers also deliberately set up the United States as a secular nation in which there is plurality of religion with no one religion controlling government precisely because of the oppression and slaughter of people by religion in Europe, Hence, the Founding Fathers insisted on setting up a society in which Church and State were permanently separated. All religions, whether they be Christian, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, New Age, Agnosticism, Atheism, Satanism are ALL equal in the laws of the United States. With the huge number of people, mostly young in age, fleeing organized religion in droves, the issue of religion may soon be very moot in the United States, and, the Founding Fathers would probably nod their heads in approval.
I find it ironic that the most rabid of those who pound their Bibles and decry the secularism of the United States, are also some of the greatest idolators in the United States. While they may worship in a church building on Sundays, the God they really worship is the gun. This is evident in all that they say and do. There are those who send out Christmas cards with their family pictured holding AR 15s, and other automatic weapons. What a travesty! The God that they really adore is not the Prince of Peace pictured as a baby lying in the manger. The God they really adore is the weapon they cradle in their arms meant to kill life. If they did more than just pound their Bibles, but actually opened up the Bibles to the Gospels, they would find that Jesus condemned the use of weapons and violence (read the Gospel accounts of the Passions in all four Gospels).
And so with the massacre of 19 school children and two educators at Robb Elementary in the State of Texas, we see once more the sacrifice of innocent life to the pagan god, the GUN. We love to condemn those religions that sacrificed children to a false god, e.g. Baal, but fail to see that the number of United States children sacrificed to the false god of Guns far exceeds the number of children sacrifice to the pagan gods in the ancient world.
Below are two songs I have composed as a response to gun violence in the United States: one composed following the slaughter of Philando Castile by Jeronimo Yanez of the St Anthony police department in July of 2016. Ironically, the next day, a shooter shot to death a great number of police of the Dallas police department. The second song was composed in response to the slaughter of high school children at Parkland High School, Florida in February, 2018.
THE FIRST SONG, Psalm Offering 1, Opus 7 (for the victims of gun violence)
This song is not a pretty song. The opening is harsh and discordant with loud cluster chords reflecting the violent death of an innocent person by gun shot. The loud discordant, upsetting opening segues into a sad, mournful melody reflecting the grief of Philando’s girlfriend and her daughter, who witnessed his violent murder by the police officer. This segues into a dramatic interchange between the loud harsh chords of the first part of the song with the mournful song of grief, with the mournful song dominating for the rest of the song. However, at the very end of the song, the cluster chords at the beginning of the song are very quietly come back.
The Second Song: Psalm Offering 3, Opus 9
This second song was composed in response to the slaughter of high school children at Parkland High School in Florida, in February 2018. Sadly, we know the story far too well. A lone gunman, armed with an AR 15 automatic weapon walks unimpeded into a school and begins to open fire on innocent lives, killing many children and adults before either 1) getting arrested, 2) getting shot to death by responding police, or 3) turning his own weapon on himself and killing himself.
This song, the longest in length (10 minutes), begins with a melody reflecting the sad walk of family to the gravesite of their child who was murdered by a gunman. This melody segues into a melody meant to represent the confusion and horror felt by the child in the midst of the gunfire that would eventually kill him/her. This segues back into the first melody of the family visiting the grave of their child. The song ends with a beautiful melody that begins softly and swells in violence reflecting the child’s peaceful rest in the arms of God.
Let us not just remember in our hearts and prayers, the lives of so many innocent people sacrificed in the United States to the false god of the Gun. Let us work for effective gun control, voting out of office those politicians taking bribes from the gun lobby and the NRA, and voting into office politicians who will pass legislation ending the worship of the Gun in the United States.
