Monday, December 21, 2009

Postscript to the Keillor Matter

Sunday night, I went to a Presbyterian Church's Christmas party. We gathered around the piano and the choir director sat and played many of the well-worn holiday classics.

When he came to the UU-written "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" several people in the congregation dutifully sung the altered lyric "And Peace on Earth, goodwill toward all." The irony there is complete enough, but later that night, the minister and I (who are old friends) talked for a while and I told her about being a little kid standing in the pews with the ChaliceRelative, both of us singing the hymns but changing the male references to God to female ones. Keillor's fundamentalism about hymn texts wouldn't allow for such a thing, of course. But singing about God the Mother was that little kid's introduction to the idea that just because God was traditionally referred to in the masculine, it didn't have to be so.

Some traditions suck, you know. UUs get that. Presbyterians get that. Keillor does not.

CC

1 comment:

kimc said...

I read some of the controversy to Joyce (my partner) and she is now really annoyed about it and mad at GK. She keeps bringing it up out of the blue. See what you started? :-)