Nina Simone's, 'Sinnerman' has been used in numerous essays and movies because as Dr. Sexson said it is one of the most beautiful songs which incorporates the scriptures. As I looked at the lyrics it reminds me of Paradise Lost and how Adam and Eve do not move on in the world until they have repented for the sins which have caused humanity to fall. Simone's song is broken into two halves. The first in which the narrator is begging God for mercy but is told to, "go to the devil, all along dem day." Basically to learn from what sins he has committed and then he will be let back into the light. God is never that simple though and soon he asks, "Child, where are you? When you should be prayin'." Why must God be so confusing? Why can't he just make up his mind and tell us what he wants. The narrator admits he can not live without God and he needs God by his side to live an acceptable life in the end.
The instant I heard "Sinnerman" it made me think of Gigi Ruff's part in Futureproof a film by Absinthe Films. The way they use this song makes me think. A, it was just because it truly is a great song with a simple beat to make an edit to or B, it is showing us how we are always living in God's paradise. It is what we personally believe paradise is and it will appear. I personally find the ocean and mountains to be the closest places on earth to paradise. It is in these places I am able to lose my thoughts in the water molecules, schlip slopping on top of my surf board, and I don't even notice the wave which is about to pummel me into the sand or hiking in the back country and suddenly realizing I am 100 feet past the shoot I intended to drop into. These are also the times I am closest to God, as we converse about what I should be doing differently in my life, and it is these times which I plead for God to help me through whatever troubles I may be combatting at that certain moment in my life.
As I finished a book today for one of my history classes the writer spoke of pilots (during WWII in Korea) who dropped bombs on the cities and the children would run into the fields of rice to hide since the bombs were never dropped on crops. This reminded me of an essay I read during high-school where a pilot pretends to be God and drops a few bombs in the fields to show what he could HAVE done if he had wanted to. The pilot soon learns he killed every child who lived in the village and the peasants cry out to their Lord, why have you done this to the future? or something along those lines...this reminds me of how we must accept what happens in our lives because everything is meant for a reason. We should never try to play God because nothing good can come of it except our punishment which we teach us...not to play God.
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