PRAY IT DOWN-A song [T, 6-19-18]

PRAY IT DOWN-A song [T, 6-19-18]

Michael Palencia, the world’s leading authority on Gabriel Garcia Gomez [My nurse, Megan Willis, who assists my gerontologist, The Notorious RIV [Raluca Iona Vucescu] says she liked One Hundred Years of Solitude more than Love in the Time of Cholera—Bloomington is the kind of place where nurses talk that way as they take your temperature.] and his wife, Elaine Fowler Palencia, the poet and short-story writer [I think I still like Small Caucasian Woman best from among her books.] came by to see us recently. We took them to The Tudor Room at the IU Union for lunch, because everyone should get to experience The Tudor Room at least once. As we chatted about the state of the world, and our own nation in particular, Michael said, “I wake up angry every morning.” I said, “Oh, so do I, and I don’t want to be that kind of person.”

So I wrote this song, “Pray It Down.” You can do it to your own tune, but I warn you, it does not work to either “Bill Grogan’s Goat” or “Have You Seen the Ghost of Tom?”

I went to God with my lament

Said my life is almost spent

The world and all its sorrow makes me frown

I am tired and I am worn

Last days should be praise, not be forlorn

Help me, please, help me lay this burden down

I want to lay this burden down

God said, It’s the burden of the spirit

You can’t ever lay it down

Still there’s no need to fear it

You can’t lay it but you can pray it

Pray it down, my brother, pray it down

[Just pray it down]

Pray it down, my brother, pray it down

When you face the world and all its wrong

Face it with a prayer, face it with a song

Pray it down, my sister, pray it down

You can’t lay it, you can’t slay it,

You can’t even just delay it

But you can pray it, brother

Pray it down

[Pray that burden down]

The problem with praying it down is that you become even more aware of how you must rise up after prayer and proclaim, “We shall overcome…” Now I wake up less angry, and more determined.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com