The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is WRETCH
This word immediately brings to mind the famous hymn by John Newton, a sea captain engaged in the cruel slave trade before he was converted to Christianity and renounced his former evil doings.
However, from the context of the post I gather you could rather use WRETCH’S homonym, RETCH, which means to vomit. English does this to us. 😦
Christine's Collection 
That is an amazingly familiar quote. I think my mother used to say it.
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You mean she used to sing it, or just recite the poem? I could have posted the whole song, but this, the first verse, served my purpose. 🙂
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No, my mother never sang ANYTHING. But she was good at reciting. Usually at Christmas when she’d had a drink or two (the rest of the year she never touched it). And I only remember that verse. Didn’t know there was more. Probably cos she couldn’t remember it! 🙂
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There was an effort –may still be, I don’t know—to remove the word “wretch” and replace it with something kinder, like “soul.” The thinking was that people are essentially good, and no one is a wretch. If the change caught on, I’m unaware of it. We still sing it the way it was written, with the knowledge that the author did indeed consider himself to be wretched especially in terms of the slave trade.
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I haven’t heard of this effort, but I know there are others wanting to replace the words to different old hymns and make them more palatable to modern sensitivities.
One churchman in a major denomination was complaining about “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s vein…” He was totally missing the symbolism.
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Sometimes I just have to shake my head at our efforts to “dumb down” and soften the truths of sin, hell, salvation, and heaven.
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I have an old hymnal where I marked through male words and changed them to female or neutral. I like to sing them that way (although no one would ever hear me sing!)
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That sounds like a lot of work! Almost every song refers to God the Father and Jesus the Son. Or maybe you’ve only done this with some hymns?
And the many pronouns! With the song, ” A wonderful Saviour is Jesus, my Lord; He taketh my burden away,” do you sing “..she taketh my burden away,” or “it takeh my burden away”? Either one would sound sacrilegious to me, since many times in the Bible Jesus identifies himself as the son of man and refers to God as “Our Father.”
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I did not change the pronouns for deity, but brothers to sisters, etc.
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Oh, I see. I’m slow to catch on. 😉
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Amazing Grace, the most beautiful song ever written in my opinion. I will never forget hearing bagpipes playing that on Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia years ago.
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Yes, it is beautiful coming from “the pipes.” And otherwise.there are a lot of songs and hymns that, paired with the music that’s been written for them, are very heart-touching and powerful.
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