The sights and sounds of Christmas are far, far behind us and yet the question for me remains, "do you hear what I hear?" The joyous tintinnabulations of sleigh bells ringing, carols singing, and children playing no longer fills the moistened air (wet with our tears, that is). Indeed, it is this very cause that compels me to  write on this National Day of Prayer.

Isaiah, the eagle-eyed  Hebrew prophet of the 8th century bc, shatters the calm with his exclamatory exigence, "CRY LOUD AND SPARE NOT"! His three-fold, urgent appeal calls to bear: trumpets, trespasses, and transgressions.

Voices as loud as trumpets are needed to arrest the distracted, ever-wandering attention of the nation. The piquant sound of the fife will not suffice, the blaring blast of the trumpet must be summoned.

Idolatrous allegiance to any artificial,  man-made deity - whatever its ilk - cannot be tolerated, and if the nation enjoins in such internecine, self-destructive behavior there will be catastrophy and calamity ahead. So debauched and caught up in its revelry that the nation  has now even lowered itself into frequent child sacrifices with no nadir, no bottom, in sight..

In today's America, many of the followers of the Man of Peace have now  resorted to the glorification of violence and gore, particularly that which is spurred on by the unseemly, insatiable appetite in the display and use  of guns. Another shooting, another killing, another mass murder, another public space / restaurant / house of worship violated and sprayed with gunfire and  the collective conscience of the nation largely yawns.

Our schools are literally littered with the frames of our children's bullet-riddled little bodies, we briefly pause, shake our heads for a numbing moment and then mysteriously stroll on. Que sera sera.

How can a nation of so-called  god-fearing Christians (sic)  allow this type of endless slaughter and carnage to continue unabated? What force(s) is it that would cause the citadel on the hill  to lower its vision in the narthex of community and decency and offer our little lambs, our precious children, as modern-day sacrifices at the bloodlust altar of violence and vice?

O, beloved, do you hear what I hear? Ah me; a godless nation consumed with consumerism, avarice, greed, a people groping in great darkness and  decadence whose ultimate state, sadly, it must be said, will lead to nothing less than decay, destruction and death.

Modern day voices such as the late Rev. Harold Carter, Sr., asked the question, "America Where Are You Going?" (book, January 1994), The soulful crooner, Marvin Gaye, too, inquired "What's Going On?", must the voice be stilled in the earth before the people give hEARt to its sage utterings? 

On this National Day of Prayer I submit that what we need is a reinterpreted, if not altogether new, National Anthem. Not one merely speaking  of bombs bursting in air, but a unifying theme of song high above the trees with a voiced as big as the sea, for somewhere children shiver in the frightful cold, let us pray for peace, peace Everywhere for a child sleeping in the night needs this people, this wayward nation, to offer them goodness and light.

Cry Loud. LOUDER! For the babies cannot flourish, flower, nor be fulfilled in this deafening silence.