What Would You Do With A Drunken Sailor?
I share and play a fair amount of music, and for that reason it bears repeating that a beauteous harmony is neither a substitution for due diligence and thorough investigation, nor an excuse to forgo one's defensive spiritual alertness. I wish not to be party to some of the deviousness that many talented musicians, who I admire for narrowly defined skills, engage in. A melody should never be confused for an irreproachable beacon guiding toward safe harbor and, in our day of so much cruelty and deceit, be met wisely with suspicion. Music is an emotionally manipulative tool often used to sow confusion and carry lies past the reasonable mind and directly to the naive heart. In the hands of the aberrant, it is a sweet and intoxicating wine washing the astringent tinge of hemlock past the guarded lips of the innocent and into the soft pregnable belly.
Music is a gift from God, yet as the sirens' song which called Odysseus' sailors to crash into the hidden rocks of an inviting shore to be consumed by mermaiden monsters, or the Pied Piper of Hamelin whose flute led the village children away from their comfortable homes never to be seen or heard from again, our European mythologies repeatedly warn against being blindly guided astray by the sweet sound of serene music. The deceiver corrupts God's gifts to use against our better judgement, trapping our souls in eternal torment, so be wary of the sweet meat of the golden apple from the Tree of Knowledge and Woe; That bite may be the last. Better to block one's ears with beeswax or to be tied tightly halfway up a galley's mast where audible madness may pass unoffensively.
Serenity, a word that may find its origin in the Greek, xeros, meaning dry, arid, and hence cloudless referring to calm weather, can be associated with death, contrasted with the placid lakes and green meadows one might reflexively imagine. And so, songs preaching peace on earth, and any other lofty counternarratives not explicitly glorifying God and his righteous path, that lead one away from one's natural inclination to protect oneself and the people within one's charge, and with promises that seem too good to be true, should be regarded with cautious examination. Without scrutiny, one who lacks good judgement might find themselves being led down the garden path, so to speak. Those calm inland seas may hide jagged spears sharpened to sink ships, and those meadows where the sirens comb their beautifully long hair, horrifically covered in the bones and rotting remnants of the countlessly unwitting.
Consequently, the weapon wielded by the orator or songsmith is as sacred as it is terrifyingly powerful. Being the diviner of great verse and theme begs of one a great responsibility: The call to both guard and convey truth. It is within the bard's power to shepherd flocks toward the Kingdom, or to lose them in the darks and wilds beyond tranquil flowering fields and sheltered forests. And having occasionally plied a festive spirit strong and mighty, to lend courtesy to put him in the long boat till he's sober.
"He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good things in possession." - Proverbs 28:9-10
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