Friday 9 December 2022, revised 8 February 2023
[Music in my ears upon waking: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, Bob Dylan; and an hour later: “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”, Credence Clearwater Revival]
I took it as very serious when the Lord put two songs about rain in my ears, so I read through the lyrics of Dylan’s classic. Written in the summer of 1962, it was first performed live on September 22, exactly one month to the day before President John Kennedy appeared to the American people on national television to announce the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.
“A Hard Rain” is perhaps one of the most quintessential protest songs/poems ever penned, it is Dylan at his lyrical, poetic, prophetic best: crying out for justice and truth, and calling down lies, censorship, and tyranny.
Here are the last four lines from the last verse; even though it was never explicitly about Christian faith, one could substitute “sharing the Gospel” here, and it would ring loudly true today as when it was sung in 1962:
“…And I’ll tell it, and speak it, and think it, and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing…”
In ways that were never corroborated, Dylan’s song had always been linked to President Kennedy (“Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?”). Then the Lord, who has been talking to me for months about war, and a war-time footing, and the cost of war, led me on to read JFK’s complete address to the nation from October 22, 1962. He was 45 years old, facing perhaps the most existential threat of our times, leading a nation into what could have been armed conflict with the Soviet Union. The urgency of the situation, the demand for almost immediate action meant there was really no way to “negotiate” – there was only time to act. The evidence in his hands of a true “clear and present danger” led him to speak directly to the nation, to every American that would live or die together as a result of his actions.
This was not a time for subterfuge or theatrics, nor party politics or political correctness. Our nation was under direct threat, and it had to be stopped.
As you read through some of the direct quotes from JFK’s speech below the Lord is pressing on me quite firmly to substitute the words “bioweapon virus attack” and subsequent “vaccine attack” on our nation as the existential threat of our times. The parallels are too striking to be waved away and ignored.
“… Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril. [Nuclear weapons] are so destructive and [ballistic missiles] are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace…”[1]
“… But this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of [Communist missiles] … this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil–is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe…
“… The 1930’s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these [missiles] against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere”
With all that in mind, it is imperative that we come together as one people, one nation, to pray for leaders with the courage of 1962 to come forth and address our nation once again. Leaders that will address this nation with real, complete honesty and transparency, in selfless service to the people whom you serve.
What’s that you say? We don’t understand all the complexities, all the deals and agreements already made? We don’t understand the potential disruption caused by complete honesty and transparency? Try us, or get out of the way. Accept the cost and look us in the eye when you speak truth.
Do you or don’t you believe or understand or even acknowledge the war we are in right now? Do you know or understand or want to address the existential threats we are facing? Will you or won’t you acknowledge God as Lord of all creation? Or will you continue to spew cowardice and self-promotion and divisive politics?
It’s time now, or else a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
[1] Radio and television report to the American people on the Soviet arms build-up in Cuba, 22 October 1962, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPOF/041/JFKPOF-041-018