Apropos of nothing – although since the Zimmerman jury has begun deliberations, this selection might be seen as a comment – today I am thinking on a certain 19th century hymn. Which my mother always disliked since a certain pastor liked to bring it out, incessantly with regard to particularly mid-20th century political concerns. Yes, I was raised religious, in one of the more flintily intellectual Protestant religious traditions, and today I believe this particular hymn to be especially relevant, in light of David’s post about Saint Alexander of Munich. There are choices one makes – sometimes momentous ones, on the spur of an instant, which turn out to be the choices which define your life … and now and again, your death.
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by for ever
‘Twixt that darkness and that light.