Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug

Subject: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug Hymn
From: Haruo
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 06:08 PM

The past couple days I went to a Baptist Men's Conference at Camp Burton (on an island not far from Seattle). It was a very interesting time, with a fascinating speaker (Bob Swann, Minister of Mission at First Baptist of Vancouver, BC) and lots of good old gospel-hymn singing (Pass Me Not type stuff) around the piano. Late Friday night (after midnight) my friend Marc and I wandered down to the beach to talk about whether Custer was a scumbag and whatnot, and we sat on bench, and a little potato bug was traveling along the back of the bench. (The potato bug, in NW US usage, is what is also called a "sow bug" [or "sal bug"] or a "wood louse"==a little crustacean that looks like the star of "Honey I Shrunk the Armadillo"; they like to get under rocks and logs and roof shingles and just hide out in the dark. They are not the same as the insect, formally known as the "Colorado potato beetle", that is also nicknamed "potato bug".)

The next morning, during the half hour before breakfast, we were supposed to "go off to a quiet place, by ones or twos, and read Psalm 42. Think of something you have seen in nature that could give you a psalm or a song about a similar longing for God. Discuss your thoughts at breakfast."

Unbidden there came to me, to O TANNENBAUM

THE POTATO BUG HYMN

(Leland Bryant Ross)

Potato Bug, Potato Bug,
you seek the dark where God is found,
Potato Bug, Potato Bug,
the dark where God's love's all around.
Like you I long to rest my eyes,
to gave in awe at darkened skies;
I yearn to crawl beneath the Rock,
the Rock of my salvation!

Anybody know any other good hymns on insects?

I imagine the immediate prompting for the Potato Bug Hymn came from the Primitive Baptist "Hail, ye sighing sons of sorrow", Goble no.104, which I had recently read in The Sound of the Dove; it contains the hilarious lines (beginning of 3rd stanza):

Lo! I hear the air resounding

With expiring insects' cries;
Ah! their moans to me how wounding,

Emblems of my age and sighs...

Blessings,
Liland

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 06:18 PM

Marvelous!! I love it, and I bet Praise will too. We tend to forget that God, whatever we call H/She/It can be found in the lowliest places. What did the other fellows think of it?

If there is not, there should be a song about the only kosher insect--the grasshopper with the Hebrew character (chaim?) on it.

Think what someone with talent could do with spiders and webs--(technically they aren't insects, but........)

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 06:22 PM

And I thought I wrote some weird stuff under the influence of religion!!

How about something on the lines of:

O little pile of cockroaches,
How much we see thee squirm.
We think you are abominable
Like wise, the lowly worm.
But all the creepy crawlies,
Were made by God above,
So help us to appreciate
Those things You also love.

Spent a day last week at London Zoo, their display 'Web of Life' is phenomenal - more bugs than live in a s*itty stick..... I like the dung beetles best. I appear to have bugs on the brain..... ho hum....

LTS

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 06:28 PM

God loves creepy crawlies as much as anybody, and more than me!! LOL!! Oh NO--now I am starting to think of new creepy crawly lyrics--HELP!!

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 06:28 PM

Well.....not quite related, only sorta'......There was a Great Lakes Captain of some fame who eventually went down in a severe storm who was best known by his nickname. His name was Theodore Burke and as a child he had a hard time pronouncing his common name, Teddy Burke. It always came out as "Tatey Bug".........and that's how he was known for all time.......Tatey Bug Burke.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 06:36 PM

Thank heaven I only came out as Lifferbiff... no front teeth was the explaination....

LTS

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 08:01 PM

Well, along those lines, my daddy called me "Cockroach" when I was little because of the way I skittered around.......perhaps not a good omen, huh? (I must confess, I do have a perhaps greater than normal fondness for cockroaches even if they are dirty, nasty bugs. Never met any Palmetto Bugs and don't want to either. Even cockroaches are preferrable to slugs of any sort.)

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 08:06 PM

One from Ogden Nash:

God in His wisdom made the fly,
And then forgot to tell us why.

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 08:16 PM

And then there is Barry McGuire's second biggest hit, Bullfrogs and Butterflies, both been born again!

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Hotspur
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 08:21 PM

I don't suppose "All Things Dull and Ugly" from Monty Python would really count, would it, since it's sarcasm?

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Metchosin
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 08:34 PM

well to some Itsy Bitsy Spider is a song of faith.

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 08:36 PM

I thought of that earlier, Mets, and really, isn't it? Just keep trying...........

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: raredance
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 09:42 PM

"Eensie-Weensie Spider" in the DT might qualify (not to be confused with "Itsy Bitsy Spider")

rich r

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: sian, west wales
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 07:44 AM

Just what keeps that little ol' ant
Tryin' to climb that rubber tree plant?
Doesn't he know and ant can't
Climb a rubber tree plant?

But he's got .... (all together now...)

sian

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 08:09 AM

Got anything for a Dung Beetle?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Haruo
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 11:17 AM

I am happy to report that I have now been asked to give a Children's Sermon on Potato Bugs sometime soon.

Liland

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 11:42 AM

I do love it. And the resulting chat and ideas.

All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir.

How Can I Keep From Stinging? Hahahaaaaaaah! Someone start the words, we can make a song together! Hahaaa!!! Stinging!

Blues bug gospel, lessee... Born [Again Buggy] in Chicago?

Ummm... it's Monday... last week as a hired brain at Red Cross... bugs... lessee... hymns and bugs...

Oh yes, of course--

On the wings of a snow white moth
He sez He's no more wroth
When drawn to the light... (dumble dee dah dee dah)
Do we burn or take flight (dum dee dee dee dum)

Yup. Do it Saturday night real soon. OKdokey?

~S~

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 11:43 AM

Sorry. That blues one should be Rehatched in Chicago.

Polka on, pals.

~S~

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Haruo
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 01:19 PM

Thanks, Praise.

Don't think I saw anybody mention "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home"; Peter Paul & Mary used to sing a version of it, and there's a different version in the DT (more recent; it refers to the telly). 'Course, where I come from they're ladybugs.

Sorcha, I agree there should be hymns about kosher insects; I think what you're calling a grasshopper is what the Christian Scriptures call a locust, part of the diet of John the Baptist. As a Baptist I have long thought we should eat more insects at our potlucks. (Gimme dat ol' time cuisine!) (Of course, I'm the one who in another thread was extolling geoduck sushi, which I'm afraid is treyf.)

Liland

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 02:15 PM

Still nothin' on Dung Beetles huh? Oh well....lessee here..............

With Dung Beetles I'll take communion
With a sense of Christian union
Though their diet's ripe and fumin'
Its still good enough for me.

Gimmee that ol' time religion..............

Spaw

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: paddymac
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 04:14 PM

I just had to browse this thread 'cause I love the title. My curiosity has been rewarded in many ways, but especially by 'Spaw's contirbution of the "Official Million-and-Oneth" verse to "Old Time Religion". Now for the "Million-and-Senond":

Out of all Creator's beasties, My favorites are the leasties, From the labors of the yeasties, God makes booze for you and me.

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 04:49 PM

L'chaim!

What about that one about bury me under the green beans or something? Help me out-- I know I heard sumpin' like that... we could use it for a folkie funeral.... it's very spiritual, must be, if I recall it at all... from the wackos at the Libertyville School of Folk Music an hour north of Chicago. Someone...

Sleep. And MORE BEER. MUST HAVE BEER.

~S~

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 07:23 PM

Thank you paddy....and thanks for yours!!! OTR has really taken a beatin' over the years hasn't it?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Haruo
Date: 27 Oct 12 - 12:04 PM

The worms play pinochle on your snout...

What are the words to the sacred version of St. James' Infirmary?

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Oct 12 - 08:30 PM

We may recall that the biologist J. B. S. Haldane, asked if his studies had led him to infer anything about the Creator, is said to have replied, "He seems to have had an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 01:12 AM

Bill Holm, a poet from Minneota, Minnesota, a small town on the prairie, wrote a book called "Boxelder Bug Variations: A Meditation on an Idea in Language and Music." You can see several pages of it at Amazon.com.

In summer, boxelder bugs live in great numbers on boxelder trees, and in fall, they they seek warm places to overwinter. So if you have a boxelder tree near your house, you will likely find hundreds of boxelder bugs crawling up the sunny side of your house and squeezing into the cracks around your doors or window sashes, where they also tend to get squashed. They smell awful when squashed. Other than the annoyance factor, they are rather harmless.

Here's one of Bill's poems:


THE BOXELDER BUG PRAYS

I want so little
For so little time,
A south window,
A wall to climb,
The smell of coffee,
A radio knob,
Nothing to eat,
Nothing to rob,
Not love, not power,
Not even a penny.
Forgive me only
For being so many.

Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug
From: Haruo
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 02:27 AM

And then there's the whole Lushootseed-instigated "Lady Louse" genre, some of which is in verse.