This video is full of the classic fundy salute style of hand-raising. (Can you count them all?)
Raising your hands in fundyland is ok as long as you only use one hand, don’t leave it up for too long, and don’t look like you’re enjoying it too much. Otherwise, it’s Charismatic.
The poem text reads as follows:
A Jewel or a Crown
“As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman
which is without discretion.”
Proverbs 11:22
“A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband:
but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.”
Proverbs 12:4
Young lady i say on your wedding day
which would you rather be found
it’s up to you, what will you do?
You’ll be either a jewel or a crown
Will your sweet valentine be an old nasty swine
as you adorn the tip of his snout?
to live in his wallow, will be a hard pill to swallow
But once married there’s no way out!
Why not instead, be the crown on his head
of the man God Chose for you?
Your marriage will be blessed, instead of a mess
When you finally say “I DO!”
But I know of course, the pressure and force
Those old hogs can place on your mind
So I won’t be surprised when some compromise
and on a pig’s snout they I find!
Young Lady I say on your wedding day
Which would you rather be found?
It’s Up to you what will you do?
You’ll be either a jewel or a crown.
David W. Handley
(Selected by the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF POETS for publication 2002)
It’s strange how the songs we sang back when can take on such different meanings after a departure from fundyland. If we sang the dirge-like straing of Lord I’m Coming Home once we probably sang it a thousand times. But now whenever I hear it, it sounds a bit like this:
I’ve wasted many precious years, (spent in legalism and judgment thinking I was better than others)
Now I’m coming home;
I now repent with bitter tears, (tears of regret over my ignorance and blindness to my fellow man)
Lord, I’m coming home.
I’m tired of sin and straying, Lord, (tired of pride. weary of hatred. exhausted with judgmentalism.)
Now I’m coming home;
I’ll trust Thy love, believe Thy word, (because now that I’m actually reading your words I’m surprised to learn that You love everyone.)
Lord, I’m coming home.
My soul is sick, my heart is sore, (sick when I look back at who I was. sore when I see those who still labor under that burden)
Now I’m coming home;
My strength renew, my home restore, (It’s s scary world out there beyond the walls of fundyland but now I look for a city made not with hands.)
Lord, I’m coming home.
My only hope, my only plea, (not me. not my rules. not my perfection. not my standards. not my cleverness.)
Now I’m coming home;
That Jesus died, and died for me, (Jesus? Funny how we always sang about him but never talked about him. He’s wonderful if you really get to know him.)
Lord, I’m coming home.
How very new and strange those old words seem now.
We haven’t had a Fundy Website Of The Week recently but today’s is a doozy. My favorite part about the “Church Planters Baptist Preservation Camp Meeting Web Site” is that they reject the other Baptist flag and the Baptist Standard have come up with their own that is (if possible) even uglier than those other two fiascoes.
Then they wrote a pledge to go with it. Seriously.
A couple of things struck me about this video. One was that the “special music” style they’re using here is the same one that HAC used to bash PCC for about a decade ago.
The second was the thought that we’ll no doubt see some of the faces of these graduates again in a few years when they pose for their first mugshots. Lord, have mercy.