I will never forget the first time I heard Spencer Bohren’s “In the Absence of the Sacred.” Honey and I had spent the week in New Orleans — working with the Chalmette church in a VBS once again — and were on our way back home to North Alabama. Honey asked me to find a Walgreens and the closest one to our current location was in Slidell. Once we got back into the car and were getting situated, a song came across the airwaves of 90.7 WWOZ. It was Spencer Bohren’s “In the Absence of the Sacred”. Before I got back on the road, I had to sit in the parking lot listening to the entire song, and then make a note of the name and artist once the DJ shared that information, because this was a song I didn't want to forget.
The song is….different, or as Honey says, weird. It’s a bit weird because interspersed between the typical verses of the song, the chorus is more a spoken word rendition of much of the Bill of Rights with a little Sermon on the Mount thrown in for good measure. It is weird, but the good kind of weird, because it serves to drive home the point of the song which is the hypocrisy of boasting that we are a Christian nation, while simultaneously abandoning the ways and words of Jesus and celebrating it in the process.
In my post the other day about James Talley’s song “In These Times” I described it as a Psalm or a prayer set to music, and in the same vein, Spencer Bohren’s “In the Absence of the Sacred” is an Old Testament prophet like Jeremiah set to music. As only a poet can, he captures the current state of our society and the cause, which are the same.
Spencer Bohren wrote and released this song in December of 2018, just six months before he died from cancer. Much like the ancient words of the prophets of old, whose commentary is as relevant today as the evening news, this song, though eight years old, could have been written this morning. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Democracy is offered up for sale
Where once our beacon light
Gave comfort through the night
Now truth, and love, and kindness rot in jail
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Money’s just a way of keeping score
And hungry children cry
No matter how we try
While wolves in congress race to slam the door
We are living in the absence of the sacred
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Where everything that makes us who we are
Get’s thrown under the bus
Along with most of us
Our constitutions burning in the fire
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Jackals roam the corridors of power
And the richest men alive
Will not be satisfied
Till they have everything that once was ours
We are living in the absence of the sacred
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Let not our precious government of the people, by the people, and for the people perish from the earth,
Love thy neighbor as thyself
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
Let freedom ring
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Our precious earth is dying on the vine
Anyone with eyes can tell
The seas are on the rise
And there’s no way back
Cause we have crossed the line
We are living in the absence of the sacred
The tv set is poisoning our minds
No one’s coming clean
The truth is like a dream
Call it propaganda
Or simply call it lies
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press or the right of the people to petition the government for redress of grievances,
All persons born and naturalized in the United States of America are citizens thereof and no law shall abridge their privileges or immunities
The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, sex, or previous condition of servitude
Let freedom ring
We are living in the absence of the sacred
Our forefathers are spinning in their grave
They gave their blood and toil
To sanctify the soil
In the land of the free and the home of the brave
We are living in the absence of the sacred
The sound of jackboots ringing all around
Our fathers fought and died
And to a man they tried
To keep these same ideas from gaining ground
We are living in the absence of the sacred
https://youtu.be/Q6zStmRAGbc?si=2kcNA5gkrRftVulQ
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