You are lying, Uncle John.

                                                         

"Uncle John"
By Tom Rapp

The wind winds the platform
Blows through your suit creases
You want us
To crucify the enemy for Jesus
With your chamber-of-commerce soul
You talk of war so bold
God is on our side, but
He's lost in your wallet-fold

And the widows a-sighing
The children a-crying
The screams of the dying
Say you are lying, Uncle John

You pull out your Sunday God
And hold him up so proud
And say he is with us
To the Applauding crowd
But the burn-blackened place
The shredded disfigured face
Don't say that God is Love
They say that you are Hate

And the widows a-sighing
The children a-crying
The screams of the dying
Say you are lying, Uncle John

You stand up on the platform
With the flag wrapped all around you
And tell us that the Bible says
To fight for it we're bound to
But the Red's for the blood we lose
The White's for the gauze they use
To cover burned-out blackened men
The rest is for the bodies numb and Blue

And the widows a-sighing
The children a-crying
The screams of the dying
Say you are lying, Uncle John

"Prince of Hell" a detail from the right panel of Hieronymous Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510).  Pearls Before Swine used a section of the triptych's right panel for the cover of their 1967 debut One Nation Underground.  Early copies of this record included a poster of the Bosch painting.  The above detail is not featured on the cover but provides an appropriate visual accompaniement for Uncle John, Tom Rapp's scathing indictment of war mongers and their "chamber of commerce souls."  Hell Yes!

The Mouth of Hell (1475), one of the miniature panels painted by Simon Marmion for a manuscript of Visio Tnugdali, a 12th-century religious text  that "tells of the proud and easygoing knight falling unconscious for three days, during which time an angel guides his soul through Heaven and Hell, experiencing some of the torments of the damned. The angel then charges Tnugdalus to well remember what he has seen and to report it to his fellow men. On recovering possession of his body, Tnugdalus converts to a pious life as a result of his experience."  In Hieronymus Bosch. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1973), author Walter S. Gibson notes the similarity of Bosch's "Prince of Hell"  to a "figure in the 12th century Irish religious text Vision of Tundale (Visio Tnugdali), who feeds on the souls of corrupt and lecherous clergy."  Speaking of corrupt and lecherous clergy, the Vatican recently condemned the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.   Identified areas of "concern" include LCRW's "radical feminism." LCRW also openly supports the Occupy Movement.  Perhaps the Vatican believes these "radical feminists" are thinking too independently and focusing too much on war and poverty. Does the Church  judge war and poverty as  having a diminished moral significance when compared with abortion and homosexuality?  Maybe a Vatican visit to the earthly "hell" of life in a warzone or abject poverty might lead them, like Tnugdali, toward the pious life.