Only God Knows When

I listened to Carolyn Wonderland’s excellent album, Peace Meal, recently and while I thought the whole album was fantastic – strong songs throughout, powerful, passionate and bluesy vocals, some pretty nifty guitar work and a great band – one song stood out for me. Only God Knows When is a powerful song about peace. The first verse has the great line “violence is no solution when life ain’t like you planned”, which Carolyn tells us applies to individuals and nations alike. Despite the appetite for war we’ve seen over the past ten years in the US and Britain, “There’s a hollow victory in winning, when everybody pays the cost, With retaliations by the hour, lives and generations lost”.

Child soldier, DRC

One thinks of the indiscriminate violence against civilians and children in Fallujah in 2004, which resulted in thousands of deaths and untold suffering to many more; or the planet’s deadliest conflict since World War II in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has claimed the lives of an estimated 5.4m people, 50% of which have been children and has seen hundreds of thousands of women and girls raped; or the conflict that has raged in Dafur in the Sudan where two million people have died as a result of war, famine and disease and four million people have been displaced at least once (and often repeatedly) during the war.

Problem is, of course, everybody thinks they’re in the right and, often, that they’ve got God on their side. “Everybody thinks that they’re righteous, or they never even would have fought” – or as Eric Bibb put it in his song Got to do better, “Hatred’s a luxury, the price is too high”. Too often war is not the last resort and the cost is not properly counted – which is usually in the lives of innocent women and children.

Funny, isn’t it how quickly Christians have been, all too often, willing, or even keen, to support military actions. Particularly when you think that Jesus’ birth was announced by the shepherds as heralding “peace on earth”; when he said things like “love your enemies” and “blessed are those who make peace”; and when he offered no resistance to his torturers prior to his execution. Jesus’s good news proclamation was that the kingdom of God was arriving through his own life. This was the same good news that the biblical prophet Isaiah talked about, which was that the result of God coming to reign would be peace. (Isaiah 52.7).

The word “peace” occurs over 100 times in our New Testaments and at our peril we relegate this to some notion of “inner peace”. More often than not it’s about God wanting peace among God’s creatures. In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, he says (chapter 12) that Christians are never to take vengence, should live in harmony with one another, should bless those who persecute them, should serve and help their enemies, repay no one evil for evil and live peaceably with all. Not much wriggle room there then, is there? Peace was central to Jesus’s mission and that of the first Christians – it ought to be just as crucial for modern Jesus-followers.

As Willard Swartley says in his book “Covenant of Peace”, the “New Testament consistently not only supports nonviolence but also advocates proactive peacemaking, consisting of positive initiatives to overcome evil, employing peaceable means to make peace”.

Duke scholar Richard Hays challenges Christians about their commitment to peace, “one reason that the world finds the New Testament’s message of peacemaking and love of enemies incredible is that the church is so massively faithless…only when the church renounces the way of violence, will people see what the Gospel means…The meaning of the New Testament’s teaching on violence will become evident only in communities of Jesus’ followers who embody the costly way of peace”.

But perhaps the last word to Carolyn Wonderland. The final line of her song reminds us that we are all God’s children, there’s no difference,  “that we are all brothers, there never really was no “them””. Well said.

Lyrics of Only God Knows When

What I know of peace, it ain’t hard to understand

Whether it’s shared by nations or individuals that stand

Toe to toe with each other, an olive branch in hand

Because violence is no solution when life ain’t like you planned

Only God knows when, only God knows when

We’re gonna get ourselves together, come up with the perfect plan

Only God knows when

There’s a hollow victory in winning, when everybody pays the cost

With retaliations by the hour, lives and generations lost

Everybody thinks that they’re righteous, or they never even would have fought

Why don’t you ask yourself when you’re starving, my brother,

“Just how easily can I be bought?”

One morning you might wake up, find yourself in your enemy’s bed

I pray that you don’t slay them, have that weight upon your head

How will you explain to your father all your brother’s blood that’s been shed

When we realize that we are all brothers, there never really was no “them”

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out

“Nobody knows you when you’re down and out” was written by Jimmy Cox in 1923 during the Prohibition era in the US, and tells the story of a millionaire who loses all his money through having a “mighty fine time”, treating his friends to as much “bootleg whiskey, champagne and wine” as they all could drink. It’s a simple morality tale  – everybody wants to be your friend when you’ve money to spread around, but when you’re “down and out”  – “as for friends, you don’t have any”.

The song was first recorded and made popular by Bessie Smith in 1929 – just as the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the New York stock exchange lost four billion dollars, resulting in panic in the days that followed, the further collapse of markets, the failure of numerous banks and the loss of the life savings of many ordinary individuals. It was the start of the Great Depression. The success of the song shows how well it resonated with what was going on in society as a result of the disastrous economic crash. Everybody could imagine beginning “to fall so low”, losing all your friends and having “nowhere to go”.

Cox’s song was a huge success for Smith, but has been covered by virtually every blues artist of note in every decade ever since, including Leadbelly, Janis Joplin, the Allman Brothers, Derek and the Dominos, Rory Block, B B King and Big Joe Williams. And, of course, famously by Eric Clapton on his Unplugged album of 1992. Why has the song  endured for so long and been enjoyed by so many? Well, it’s just a great song – a good story, lyrics well put together and a good tune. But as well as that, the song’s enduring appeal is that we all know that the story of the song could very well be our story – there but for the grace of God go I. Especially in these days of our own economic collapse, if could be us “falling so low”.

The problem with such a fall is that “nobody knows you when you’re down & out”. You become invisible. You’re nobody, you’re seen as having no contribution to make. You don’t count. This is one of the problems for the world’s poor. In the large cities of developing countries, slum communities sit side by side with 5 star hotels. The wealthy go about their business, often completely ignorant of the daily struggle for survival that goes on in these communities. On a visit to San Francisco last November, I watched people carrying their branded shopping bags out of the up-market stores in the Union Square area, making their way obliviously around street people living rough on the streets, many of whom were mentally challenged. It really is true – nobody knows you when you’re down and out.

This is not, however, the way that Jesus lived. The poor, the sick and those considered social outsiders because of their state of mind, their disease or their position in society were all drawn to him. Those who were well had no need of a doctor, he once said – it’s those who are sick. His concern was for those whom others considered “the least”. And if someone was to follow him, then that was to be their concern as well – “as much as you did it to the least of these brothers & sisters of mine, you did it to me”. In fact, he said that this was to be the basis of the judgement at God’s great assize at the end of all things.

Curious how often Christians have let focusing on things like the rights and wrongs of theology or internal discussions about how this or that should be organized distract them from noticing the great mass of people who are down and out and acting in a way that truly reflects the spirit of Jesus. “I said it’s true now, there ain’t no doubt, nobody knows you, when you’re down and out”.  It should never be true for Jesus followers.

Eric Clapton: Nobody Knows You Unplugged

Once I lived the life of a millionaire,
Spent all my money, I just did not care.
Took all my friends out for a good time,
Bought bootleg whiskey, champagne and wine.

Then I began to fall so low,
Lost all my good friends, I did not have nowhere to go.
I get my hands on a dollar again,
I’m gonna hang on to it till that eagle grins.

Cause no, no, nobody knows you
When you’re down and out.
In your pocket, not one penny,
And as for friends, you don’t have any.

When you finally get back up on your feet again,
Everybody wants to be your old long-lost friend.
Said it’s mighty strange, without a doubt,
Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.

When you finally get back upon your feet again,
Everybody wants to be your good old long-lost friend.
Said it’s mighty strange,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you when you’re down and out