Monday, October 24, 2022

"Broken World" by The Talleys covered by someone in Southwestern Virginia

This person did a more-than-credible job with this song, and their care for the song and what it says is real. This was recorded a couple of years ago, but I just found it on the Souls Harbor Pentecostal Holiness Church page. That church is located in far Southwestern Virginia. It's rural, mostly white, and majority women, and it's poor. This is a part of the country that struggles with unemployment, poverty, and substance abuse and lacks comprehensive social services.

I like this version of the song better than the original, though I do respect the work done by The Talleys. 

The song begins with a description of real-life problems that most of us face every day. We do indeed live in a broken world where "everything is upside down, wrong is right and right is wrong." Most of can identify with that line, although when we get down to the question we will disagree over what is upside down and what is right-side up and is wrong and what is right. It's easy to take this as code for just about everything on the Trump agenda, but I'll say that capitalism has turned the world upside down. People profit from doing that and keeping things turned around, and it will take a mighty movement of working-class people to set things right. 

There is hope in this song that everything will be set right soon when our Savior comes. The contradiction is that the song says that God created this broken world. Did God create a broken world? Is that true, or did the social order turn things upside down? God's judgement will certainly prevail, but God has a preferential option for the poor and the oppressed and women. God has judged, is judging, and will judge. Heaven and hell are present now. God wants our liberation, and wants us to want it.

Feel this song and think of those in your life who are struggling. Let's give one another reasons to hope and work for liberation and heal this broken world.     

 


 

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