We Shall Not Be Moved
I have a bizarre fascination with an old folk band from the 60’s called The Seekers.
I was born in 1972, so my era was dead center Wham!-BonJovi-MichaelJackson-Metallica. My friends with older siblings (and that kid who moved in from the big city) listened to Duran Duran. I got a little bit of Depeche Mode before graduation. Smashing Pumpkins still feels like “that new band” to me. When Garth Brooks got big, I didn’t understand why masses of teenage boys were suddenly turning into old men. So, that’s my era, meaning it makes very little sense that I love The Seekers so very much.
Nor does their aesthetic fit my personality. I like Seamus Heaney, and Russian novels, and Flannery O’Connor, and Graham Greene, and The Series of Unfortunate Events. Give it to me gritty and rugged. I think, and think, and overthink until I give myself headaches. I rage against the machine. In contrast, The Seekers made music that was unflinchingly simple, both melodically and thematically. Judith Durham’s wide open grin and bouncy optimism feel unabashedly childlike.
And yet, there’s such a balance to my navel-gazing and windmill charging self provided by songs like Georgy Girl (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eSVfLNCW4Fs). Get out of the hole. Try some stuff, Nerd. Stretch. Live a little.
Earlier today, I posted the Seekers cover of “We Shall Not Be Moved” ( https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Awug6zeMY ) as a sarcastic retort to a friend. Yet, after we had our laughs, I listened back through several times and thought about how much I love this old song.
“Just like a tree planted by the water, I shall not be moved.”
The idea comes from Jeremiah 17. A contrast between two types of people: those who trust in man and those who trust in God.
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”
It’s an old choice. It’s our present choice.
Why has this song has meant so much to activists throughout the years? Because there’s something fiercely beautiful about sinking down into a cause and simply refusing to budge.
There’s something even more beautiful about sinking down into a God whose strength can sustain any cause, who has a plan, whose sustenance will never dry up—digging your roots way down into his stream and resting in those deep waters all through a drought.
God, make me that kind of simple. God, make me that kind of stubborn.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Awug6zeMY
