Call me Al.....lah

A Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has said that God doesn't mind what people call him, and that people of all faiths (perhaps he means Abramic or theistic faiths) should call him Allah. This would foster inter-faith understanding and promote religious tolerance.

He certainly has a point. Surprisingly, and a bit dishearteningly, he met with a heavy weight of criticism: apparantly 92% of a surveyed 4,000 people thought he was wrong.

My wife's deceased father was a Zambian, an ordained minister with Christian Missions In Many Lands. In his prayers, he always referred to the Almighty as "Lesa", which is the Bemba word for God, a title that antedated the arrival of Christianity in Africa. I always thought it sounded better than God, at least it did when he said it. I wonder if Lesa prefers it, and inclines more readily to it than God, or Allah. Of course, this is purely a flippant, idle question. I have no idea what the answer may be.

Perhaps perversely, what also came to mind for me when I finished reading the Bishop Tiny Muskens story was the 1980s Paul Simon hit "Call me Al", itself an inspirational composition built on the Great Depression lament, "Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?" ("It was Al all the time...").

It's a great lyric, and worth posting here, I reckon (in case yoú've forgotten bits):

A man walks down the street He says why am I soft in the middle now Why am I soft in the middle The rest of my life is so hard I need a photo opportunity I want a shot at redemption Don’t want to end up a cartoon In a cartoon graveyard Bone-digger, bone-digger Dogs in the moonlight Far away my well-lit door Mr. Beerbelly, beerbelly Get these mutts away from me You know I don’t find this stuff Amusing anymore If you’ll be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty when you call me You can call me Al A man walks down the street He says why am I short of attention Got a short little span of attention And woe my nights are so long Where’s my wife and family What if I die here Who’ll be my role model Now that my role model is Gone gone He ducked back down the alley With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl All along along There were incidents and accidents There were hints and allegations If you’ll be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty when you call me You can call me Al Call me Al A man walks down the street It’s a street in a strange world Maybe it’s the third world Maybe it’s his first time around He doesn’t speak the language He holds no currency He is a foreign man He is surrounded by the sound The sound Cattle in the marketplace Scatterlings and orphanages He looks around around He sees angels in the architecture Spinning in infinity He says Amen and Hallelujah If you’ll be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty when you call me You can call me Al Call me Na na na na … If you’ll be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty when you call me You can call me Al Call me Al