Our Bog Is Dood - by SHT Musik

My song Our Bog Is Dood is closely based on the poem of the same name by Stevie Smith.    She is one of my favorite poets.   She also wrote Not Waving But Drowning which I believe is her best-known work.  (My song and video for that one are here.)   I love what one YouTuber called Stevie´s "twisted, darkly comic style."   

  

Now about the poem, it seems pretty obvious when you read it  that "Our Bog is dood" is code for "our God is good".  Those who profess this are children, naive followers who do not question their religious beliefs but accept them blindly.   However, even between the true believers there is conflict because when it gets down to the exact details of what their God is like "They never could agree".   Religion, in the end, is an individual experience and Smith slyly illustrates this.   She also mentions intolerance for anyone who doesn´t bow down to the children´s God.   The children have their beliefs, saying   "And if you do not think it so / You shall be crucified".  ( For further thoughts on the teaching of religion see the end of this post.)   Of course the beauty of art is that you can interpret it any way that you want.     So, without further adieu, here is Our Bog Is Dood, the song and video, by SHT Musik.  

   

Our Bog Is Dood

Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood,

They lisped in accents mild,

But when I asked them to explain

They grew a little wild.

How do you know your Bog is dood

My darling little child?

We know because we wish it so

That is enough, they cried,

And straight within each infant eye

Stood up the flame of pride,

And if you do not think it so

You shall be crucified.

Then tell me, darling little ones,

What's dood, suppose Bog is?

Just what we think, the answer came,

Just what we think it is.

They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours

And we are wholly his.

But when they raised them up again

They had forgotten me

Each one upon each other glared

In pride and misery

For what was dood, and what their Bog

They never could agree.

Oh sweet it was to leave them then,

And sweeter not to see,

And sweetest of all to walk alone

Beside the encroaching sea,

The sea that soon should drown them all,

That never yet drowned me.

Our Bog Is Dood is from the SHT Musik album Song Poem SHT.

 

See the album on Bandcamp here.

Further reading:

Here is an article I came across while preparing this post which presents some interesting questions about the teaching of religion.  

Our Bog Is Dood
or What the Naraka Is Religious Diversity, Anyway?

Do we mean by diversity that we silently tolerate the private religious beliefs and practices of our colleagues and classmates? Does this amount to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy applied to atheists and other other-believers? Do we avoid talking about religious differences? Is religious difference the great taboo?

When we do address religious differences, do we recognize only those whose idea of God (or gods) differs from--but doesn't contradict--our own? Do we welcome under the umbrella Catholics and Baptists, Nazarenes and Mormons, Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists? Or do we also recognize the claims of agnostics and Gnostics, pantheists and polytheists, shamanists and Satanists, non-theists and atheists? In other words, are there some religions that don't qualify for our broadmindedness?

What kinds of biases are being passed along (or bypassed) in common parlance when we refer to something as "faith-based" or "spiritual" or "religious" when we really mean "Christian"? What, for example, is a "faith-based" initiative? What nuances or codes do we use to avoid discussing difficult religious questions? And by doing so, do we doom ourselves to a "faith" that is not only blind but also irrational and, worse, inarticulate?

How can we include relevant discussions of religion in the classroom without encouraging the chaos that comes of mere righteous assertion? What kind of discourse about religion is appropriate in a "religious" institution?

These are just some of the questions we might address in our discussion. To get us started, though, we might begin with a discussion of Stevie Smith's poem "Our Bog Is Dood" (1950).

• Led by: Dr. Richard Collins (English)
• Sponsor: Center for the Advancement of Teaching