Hymn Text Competition

Our Lady of Perpetual Irresponsibility, an American Catholic Community in the liberal Presbyterian tradition, is seeking new hymn texts to celebrate its 7th semi-annual experimental-worship conference, tentatively titled “Forward Together At Last: Walking Hand in Hand with Foot and Mouth.”

Hymn texts should explore the scriptural connection between genetically modified oat products and the devastating increase in preventable livestock maladies. Texts which frame the political and theological issues of GMOP in a specifically post-feminist cultural space of sub-Christian liminality will be given special consideration.

Texts should avoid archaic linguistic constructs, such as verb-pronoun agreement, apostrophatic contractions, and semi-gendered gerund clauses. Additionally, only unpublished texts written in 7676D will be considered.

By entering this competition, you are assigning the rights to the entered text, and all other texts written by you, to the board of trustees of Our Lady of Perpetual Irresponsibility ACC*P, Inc.

A non-refundable entry fee of $75 is required. Checks may be made out to OLPIACCP.

First place: $75 prize and inclusion in the disposable leaflets printed for the concluding liturgiscope of the conference.

15 Replies to “Hymn Text Competition”

  1. Perhaps getting off-topic — but here is my new hymn:

    Hymn for the Year of Faith

    O God, who are prevenient, consubstantial, and ineffable,
    Humbly grant, we pray, that some men will come to know of your most prevenient preveniency,

    In a similar way, we pray, may some men come to know of your most consubtustantial constubstantialilty,

    In a similiarly similar way, we humbly beseech that you will vouchsafe that many men will come to know know of your ineffable ineffability,

    May some men come to know of your precious and holy oblation of hypostatic hypostasis …

  2. Let me go ahead and copyright a few rhymes now:
    bovine/wine
    womanhood/common good
    the sending/earth-rending
    Don Quixote/ falsely-oatey

    If anyone uses these rhymes please send me money. Thank you.

  3. Hmm, this hymn doesn't rhyme, and I can't make out the meter. But the theology is excellent!

  4. Lord, You are ineffable,
    By your Holy Spirit,
    G.M. food's inedlble,
    And over the limit.

  5. By our boycott of Monsanto
    earth is justified again
    Sing we songs in Esperanto
    On the hills and in the plain.
    "Trample all the earth, subdue it,"
    No! We touch it tenderly!
    Wisdom gaia songs embue it.
    Ever shall our singing be!

  6. Johannes Petrus has an aversion to NETTLETON, always thinks it's Dufner's text. So, let's try a little something closer to home, from Wales, HYFRYDOL, and see if this satisfies the panel. You can bill my entry fee.

    Lord, how feebly flawed we fumble
    Fond we crave thy milk divine
    That which nurtures oats to circle
    Finds no hearth in things bovine
    Deign their methane to ne'er, e'er profane
    Life, our breath, our sweet here below
    May our off'ring bring us Thy nursing
    Foretaste of thy grace bestowed.

  7. I may have troched my iambs (feed my iambs, tend my sheep….)
    5- "Deign their methane ne'er to profane." should suffice.

    And yes, I am a very disturbed person….

  8. Too much verb-pronoun agreement.
    Also, while semi-feminist (+1), I think "Thy nursing" could be construed as a semi-gendered gerund (-1).

  9. I think it's just punctuated incorrectly.

    REF:
    O God Who are prevenient,
    Consubstantial,
    And ineffable,
    Grant that some men will come to know:

    Of Your most prevenient
    Preveniency,
    We pray humbly;

    REF:
    O God Who are prevenient,
    Consubstantial,
    And ineffable,
    Grant that some men will come to know:

    Of Your most consubstantial
    Consubstantiality —
    We pray similarly;

    REF:
    O God Who are prevenient,
    Consubstantial
    And ineffable,
    Grant that some men will come to know:

    Of your ineffable
    Ineffability —
    We beseech untellably;

    REF:
    O God Who are prevenient,
    Consubstantial,
    And ineffable,
    Grant that some men will come to know:

    Of your oblation holy
    Of hypostatic hypostasis —
    O Lord, amaze us!

  10. What? You've never been attended by a male nurse. I knew it was rigged! Dagnabit.

  11. That's why it's only SEMI gendered, which if you'll read the rules, was the exact exclusion.

    Also, while I try not to find too much entertainment in my own satire (as I don't really need to add Pride to my existing Sloth and Gluttony), can I just say:
    For some reason I'm particularly proud of coining the word "liturgiscope," and believe it should be immediately adopted and thereafter appropriated as positive by the people perpretating such nonsense.

  12. Here's some semi-serious parody for those still in a Haugen-daze:
    Gather us, When?

    1. Here in this place, daylight is streaming
    Darkness is banished, the blinds will not shut.
    Feel in this space the warmth of the spirit:
    The fans overheated; the AC’s kaput.

    Refrain
    Gather us when the child support funds come
    Gather us when tuition checks clear
    Catholic schools will teach of God’s kingdom
    Give us a C-note and we’ll persevere.

    2. We are the old who hated the TAKS test
    We are the young, all full of ideals
    We won’t accept instruction that lacks zest
    Nor personnel who are not full of zeal.

    Refrain
    Gather us when we pray in the classroom
    Gather us when right conduct we preach
    Keep us in faith when all around breeds gloom
    Help us more students with God’s word to reach

  13. And the rest:

    3. Maybe someday our kids will get vouchers
    Someday, perhaps, our ships will come in
    Till then we’ll try to not become grouchers,
    Buy some more duct tape and bulk safety pins.

    Refrain
    Gather us when our causes seem futile
    Gather us when our broken hearts ache
    For we know well, when life seem most brutal
    Christ, His own people can never forsake.

    W. Pat Cunningham 2007-8

Comments are closed.