Outsing the Enemy

In the Lord of the Rings mythopoeia, Eru is the great divine being (God) who created the world through song. Before time began, he instructed the Ainur (angels) to sing a song together that would glorify him. But one of the Ainur named Melkor decided to sing his own tune, discordant to the one glorifying of Eru. Melkor was forbidden by Eru to sing his own song, but he has been trying to ever since. The enlightened beings of Middle Earth, then, look forward to the day when all is set to right once again and all beings sing Eru's song in harmony.

In our world, what is thought the right song is Melkor's prideful number. It is an act of holy subversion (thank you, Trevin Wax), then, to sing the song of Light into the pervasive darkness.

Not to mix my cultural touchstones here, but this clip, probably my favorite scene in my favorite movie, is a stirring illustration to me of what holy subversion is like. The occupier Nazis' Melkor-song is overcome by the oppressed Frenchmen's "La Marseillaise."

Stretch out your hand from on high;
rescue me and deliver me from the many waters,
from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
I will sing a new song to you, O God;
upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
who gives victory to kings,
who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.
Rescue me and deliver me
from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

-- Psalm 144:7-11

Let us outsing the enemy. Our song is truer and better.

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