Hard Times Come Again No More Mavis Staples

This blog was named after the Stephen Foster 1854 American folk song, "Difficult Times Come Once again No More":

Permit us pause in life'southward pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh! Hard times come up over again no more.
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Difficult Times, hard times, come up again no more than
Many days you accept lingered effectually my cabin door;
Oh! Difficult times come once more no more.

The vocal doesn't pray for no more difficult times merely for Christians, or just for Americans. It is a universal lament that every one of God's children has felt during i dark time or another. Tin't we hear these words coming from the mouths of today'due south victims of terrorism? From those Syrians who are persecuted, Muslim and Christian alike, by Daesh/ISIS and are now fleeing to our shores as refugees, crying out for a state of religious liberty like the English language pilgrims earlier them?

Via @PastorDan

I endeavour to be a man of deep faith, and have certainly led a very political life, but I generally attempt to keep those things off of this web log. If justice is my calling and my career, then music is my passion and my hobby. I similar to keep those 2 worlds separate so that the music can reach equally wide an audition every bit possible for its own sake.

I can't do that today. This is too of import. Function of "Americana" music is "America" – and all the values that that word claims to stand up for. Values similar love, justice, compassion, and hospitality. America should non and can not stand up for hatred, discrimination, nationalism, or rejection. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe gratis, the wretched pass up of your teeming shore. Transport these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the gilded door!" These are the values nosotros have e'er sung about, and what we must go along singing. What practise we want America to be is a question that all of united states of america answer every minute of every solar day, and demand to talk about in every infinite, even music blogs. Then I write today every bit an American, as a Christian, and also, subsequently in this postal service, equally a music fan, so if you only came for the music, delight printing on (or roll downwardly).

Donald Trump said this calendar week that Muslims in the U.Southward. "absolutely" have to annals in a database, and that we need more than but databases to manage them. He did not argue with comparisons to 3rd Reich Germany requiring its Jewish citizens to wear identifying symbols and tattoos. His bigoted broadside against religious freedom comes on the heels of Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz'southward comments that America should allow Christian refugees, only not Muslim refugees – never mind that Daesh/ISIS'due south primary victims are its fellow Muslims.

Jesus calls me to beloved anybody. Everyone means anybody, but especially Muslims, my brothers and sisters in the God of Abraham. These brothers and sisters face up far too much violence – abroad from ISIS, at home from bigotry – leaving them haemorrhage at the side of the road. Jesus says I demand to love my neighbor, to think of everyone as my neighbor, and to help the person bleeding by the side of the road. He used a Samaritan equally the example, because Jews in 30 AD looked at Samaritans the same way Trump, Cruz, and Bush look at Muslims today. Just, Jesus said, that'due south non what matters.

I love what the Rev. Daniel "@PastorDan" Schultz wrote on Twitter this calendar week well-nigh the refugees:

"You want to witness to the gifts of Christ? This is how yous do it. You intendance for the poor, the powerless, the strangers. Aye, even though there's some risk. *Because* there is some risk. Because to be a Christian is to open ourselves to vulnerability, in faux of Christ who fabricated himself vulnerable to us."

The photographer, Osman Sagirli, said the little Syrian girl thought his photographic camera was a gun, then she put her hands upwardly equally her mother had taught her.

Trump has led the presidential main polls for months. Cruz has shown he has the influence to shut downwards the federal authorities, and Bush is the son and brother of two past U.South. presidents. These men matter, a great deal. Don't think that the history books won't record their hatred and ignorance, or that the residuum of the world isn't taking find now – and don't think that those historians and global neighbors won't as well attribute that hatred and ignorance to united states of america if nosotros are not seen speaking out, loudly and vehemently. American Muslim citizens are also noticing, and we need to allow them know that we stand up by them. They need to feel that they are not lone or endangered during this dark time. If we don't light a candle in the darkness, who will?

Information technology is especially important for us country and Americana fans to speak out. The state music globe is overwhelmingly (though not exclusively) white and Christian. Americana may non be quite as heavily Christian, simply information technology is also a very white genre. Nosotros are the ones who are near likely to support politicians like Trump, Cruz, and Bush. We are the ones being defined by their words. We are besides the ones with the near power to become proficient neighbors to all of our brothers and sisters. Just only as our actions can be powerful, then is our inaction – we are the ones who tin can leave our Muslim friends feeling abased, ignored, and threatened. We demand to choose action over inaction, and stand with them in dearest.

Let'due south besides recall that in that location is a long, rich musical tradition of singing out our values of pity, love, and justice, specially in Americana, country, and folk. It wasn't just Foster. Woody Guthrie wrote the dust bowl ballads about struggling farmers and migrant workers. Pete Seeger sang about unions and off-white wages. Then much of roots music was shaped past slave spirituals, praising God and yearning for that most precious human correct, freedom. Later 9/11, many country stars emphasized the importance of standing together. And folk music was home to hundreds of civil rights and Vietnam State of war protest songs. (Many ask where today'southward protestation songs are. They notwithstanding be, simply they're not folk anymore – they are hip hop. But in a way, if folk music is the lyrical voice of a people, isn't hip hop the folk music of sure urban landscapes? I digress.)

Returning to the issue at hand, America is "i nation, under God" and "e pluribus unum" – out of many, one. We practise non treat Muslims differently than Christians. Nosotros are one people. And information technology'south not but a slogan – it'due south the police. Every bit our First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no constabulary respecting an establishment of organized religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." And earlier, in Commodity 6, paragraph 3, we read, "No religious test shall always be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Rejecting people of a faith dissimilar than our ain could not be more un-American. If we practice not correspond religious freedom for all, we practice not stand for religious freedom at all, and we do not sing our country songs of praise with pure or honest hearts.

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I cried for fifteen minutes when I saw this motion-picture show of little Aylan Kurdi in September, just iii years former. Photographer Nilufer Demir of the Dogan News Agency said her "blood froze."

We accept made these mistakes before. At the aforementioned time that Hitler was requiring the Jews to annals, we were turning them away, refusing to let in refugees because nosotros were afraid that German language spies would hide among their ranks. 1 of the would-be refugees denied entry was Anne Frank herself. We take fabricated these mistakes earlier. We cannot make them again.

And it'due south easy to love Muslims. Like George W. Bush-league told u.s., Islam is a faith of peace. Aye, information technology has its violent Scriptures, only and then does Christianity. Terrorists are to Islam what the KKK, Westboro Baptists, or Irish wars are to Christianity. Merely even if this were not true, nosotros are also chosen to love our enemies.

I don't have to cull values-based arguments – at that place is definitely a applied side to this issue. I could argue, and have elsewhere, that turning away refugees is exactly what ISIS wants u.s.a. to do (and they've said so in their propaganda to one another). I could argue in favor of the rigorous eighteen-month vetting procedure that refugees face. I could point to the overwhelmingly positive statistics that show refugees simply don't commit terrorism here. I could talk about how it doesn't make sense for a terrorist to come as a refugee – there are faster, easier ways to strike.

Simply values are what thing most. We show who nosotros are when times are difficult, not when they're piece of cake. This is when it's near important to stand past the values nosotros proclaim, and not shrink similar cowards in the face of fear. I think Joe Biden put information technology wonderfully yesterday in an off-the-cuff reply to a reporter'south question:

"One manner to make sure that the terrorists win is for usa to begin to change our value system. That'southward number one. Number 2, we have a real vetting arrangement for refugees coming into the land. Nosotros can assure Americans that they will be safe. For us to turn our back at present, for us to turn our back now on refugees is turning our back on who nosotros are. The just way terror wins is if they cause yous to change your value system. ISIS is no existential threat to the United states of America – simply stated, they are not. And nosotros are going to be working as hard as nosotros can to open up our artillery to refugees."

Shame on every member of the U.S. Business firm of Representatives, both Republican and Democrat, who voted against American values of compassion, hospitality, and justice yesterday – and shame on every ane of the states who stands idly by without proverb a word. Please, wait up how your member voted hither, then call Congress and ask for your representative at (202) 224-3121 to either thank or chastise them. And because this conversation needs to be loud and public, please share posts like this one, and also this one from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the one from in a higher place past Pastor Dan, this i, and this 1 on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or any else you use. It won't be easy – you might have friends or family unit who fight you for it. Merely that'due south why it matters. That'due south where love needs to be planted most.

"For the Lord your God is god… who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with nutrient and clothing. You shall also beloved the stranger, for you were strangers in the state of Egypt." Deuteronomy 10:18–19

"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and yous welcomed me." Matthew 25:35

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