A Really Early Morning A.V. Hymn

I can't help it.  It's just something I do.  Weird Al does it.  You might do it, too.

Make up your own words to a song.  I think I read a Mad Magazine sometime in 4th Grade.  It was my first A.V. (altered version) song.  Yeah.  I didn't get out much.

Mad Magazine took "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and brought it into the Cold War era with:

"Twinkle, twinkle little star/How I wonder who's you are/Adding to my other cares/Are you one of ours or one of theirs?"

Ever since then, I've been almost subconsciously changing songs.  The "Hallelujah Chorus" and "Desperado" are two of the standard go-to tunes.  Those and the "Gilligan's Island" theme.

(Wanna try something freaky?  Use the words from "Amazing Grace" and use the "Gilligan" song...weird, huh?)

I sat up in bed this morning, took a bearing on the horizon, and stood up.  And I heard it.

It was the chorus of "I'd Rather Have Jesus".

Huh.

I hadn't thought about or sung that song for a reeeeeally long time.  Decade(s) perhaps. But there it was, booming through my head like George Beverly Shea on steroids.

"Than-to-be-a-kiiiiing, of-a-vast-do-maaaain"

I navigated the hallway and sailed unsteadily into the Dining/Living/Family/Computer Room.

"Or-be-held-in-sin's-feng-swaaay."

I froze.  Wha.....

Feng shui?!   Where did that come from?  I took a step back and viewed the Dining/Living/Family/Computer Room.

Nope.  Definitely no feng shui here.  So where.....

I continued on into the kitchen.  My mind gnawed on this alternative ending while my hands went to autopilot and made The Elixir of Knowledge.

Feng shui.

The Elixir is now gurgling as I and the laptop google at the table.

Huh.

"A philosophical system of harmonizing everyone with the surrounding environment."

Okay.

I stare out the kitchen window at the apple tree.  Harmonizing with the surrounding environment.  And I'm getting nowhere.

Huh.

The gurgling ends with a thunderous silence that halts my pseudo intellectual excursion.  I get a cup from the cabinet and fill it.

Okay.

Now fully charged with the ingestion of 1/2 cup of The Elixir of Knowledge, things start to make sense... not much sense...but some.

Harmonizing with the surrounding environment.  Harmoniz...

Oh, wait.  That's why there's no harmony...I mean, harmony with the idea of feng shui.

According to The Book, I'm not supposed to harmonize with the environment.  I'm to change it.

I'm to be light and salt...which are not really harmonizing agents.

Light eradicates dark.  Salt stops putrification.

Light hurts eyes accustomed to dark.  Salt stings like a sonuvagun on an open cut.

"Or-be-held-in-sin's-feng-swaaay".

Yep.  Definitely not called to "harmonize with my environment".

The Elixir of Knowledge floats up a thought.

Yeah.  I concur.  We're called to sing a different Song.  It's a Song that doesn't harmonize well with the world's tunes.

And if The Song is changed to harmonize with the world's there's a danger of losing The Song altogether.

And losing The Song means losing The Singer as well.

I can try to sing a song, belting it out in a shower-stall monotone.  But it won't sound like the original.  Not even close.

As worship leader's are prone to say:  "Having the form of some lyrics but denying its tune."

Yeah.

No one sings "Fly Me To The Moon" better than "The Chairman of the Board"'

And no one sings The Song better than The Singer.

"Or-be-held-in-sin's-feng-swaaay"

Yeah.  I hear ya.