(Please reflect on the scripture passages and read the commentary before listening to the music.)
PSALM OFFERING 6 OPUS 7
For the victims of racial violence.
Those who were my enemies without cause have hunted me like a bird; they flung me alive into a pit and hurled stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, “I am lost.” I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help, but give me relief!” You came near when I called on you; you said, “Do not fear!” You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause. You have seen all their malice, all their plots against me. You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me. The whispers and murmurs of my assailants are against me all day long. Whether they sit or rise—see, I am the object of their taunt-songs. Pay them back for their deeds, O Lord, according to the work of their hands! Give them anguish of heart; your curse be on them! Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the Lord’s heavens. (Lamentations 3: 52-66)
Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. (1 John 3: 14b-16)
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3: 28)
Racial violence is prevalent throughout the world. People have been enslaving and killing those from other cultures, languages, and skin color from the time of recorded history.
Our nation bears the sin of the enslavement of African immigrants and native Americans. Systemic genocide of the native Americans by plague, displacement, or violence is also a part of the history of our nation. There was the notorious Tuskegee Study by the U.S. Public Health Service, in which from 1932 to 1972, Alabaman African American men were unknowingly subjected to medical experimentation to study the effects of untreated syphilis. There was the forced incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans in American concentration camps during World War II.
Of course, America is not alone. The killing of Australian Aborigines was greatly encouraged by the Australian government, as was the Apartheid of South Africa, the genocide of the Rwandans, and the infamous genocide of the Nazis, to name just a few, has been a scourge and a curse upon humanity.
With the enactment of the Civil Rights laws in the 1960’s, I, among many Americans, thought that the racial hatred of white people in our nation toward our own citizens of color had finally been eradicated. It has become increasingly clear from the gun laws enacted in some States, and throughout the presidential campaign of 2016 that racial hatred and violence was not eradicated but has been simmering beneath our nation like a volcano preparing to erupt. Violence perpetrated upon American citizens of color in our nation has only increased. An insidious series of laws in many States impede and prevent American citizens of color from exercising their constitutional right to vote. White supremacists are rising up attacking and killing American citizens of color. New forms of Jim Crow law has been unleashed within our nation. With the acquittal of Officer Yanez of the death of Philando Castille, it is very apparent that racial prejudice tragically remains a vivid part of present American culture.
This Psalm Offering is a prayer for all victims of racial violence in our world.
ABOUT THE MUSIC: This Psalm Offering is written in G mixolydian mode. Rather than use conventional meter forms such as, 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4 time, it is written in 5/4. 5/4 meter feels like an unsteady waltz to the ear. There is a sense of imbalance, something akin to the sin of racism. The mixolydian mode sounds like a major scale but it isn’t, lending more a sense of imbalance to the music. While it sounds “sort of right” it just isn’t. The song is in 3 part, ABA form, with the A melody repeated initially in the beginning. It moves rigorously to the B melody, in E phrygian mode, a rhythmic ostinato of four beats of 8th note triplets followed by one beat of 16th notes. After some development of the B melody, the A melody returns in G mixolydian mode. The B melody returns briefly with a quasi Coda, at which the A melody returns in a grand way to the final Coda.
(c) 2017 by BRUTH Music Publishing Company.
Scriptural Text by Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A.. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. © 2010 by Oxford University Press Inc. All rights reserved.
