I don't know the song discussed, (although I was led to this thread by another discussion of a piece I know very well indeed, and what I thought was an absolutely bizarro thought for liturgical programming -- Va Pensiero, from Nabucco! Can you even imagine??!?!?&?#??)
But though the song is foreing (to me,) the truth is universal.
And tragically true.
You may be assured that I don't play "Colours of day" voluntarily. However, the Sunday School teachers, or Youth Leaders as they prefer to be known, choose the music for the monthly "Youth" mass. They say that children like "Colours of Day" and so we should play it for them. It is certainly true that under sevens like it. However, teenagers think it is stupid and beneath their dignity. Even worse, they often become ashamed of ever having sung it. It leads them to conclude that religion is for the simple minded and then they leave. [emphasis supplied]In one of the essays collected in The Whimsical Christian, Dorothy Sayers reminds us that we are all to become like little children -- and the one trait virtually all little children share is that the long to grow up!
How much better to present Christians with something they need to reach for, aspire to, delve into -- rather than something whose depths have been plumbed before one is toilet trained.
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