Give Me Wax for My Board, Even If I Cannot Surf for the Lord

Give Me Wax for My Board, Even If I Cannot Surf for the Lord September 27, 2016

Lone_Alaia_board_surfer_optChurch songs are many and varied. As a pastor’s kid, I sang them all and made even the sublime ridiculous with my piping little voice. The worst of the songs were the ones with infinite verses, tunes so flexible anyone could design new words, and everyone did,  especially at summer camp. A particular sin against the Faith that inspired Bach was “Give Me Oil for My Lamp.”

The original words were not Shakespeare, but at least had Biblical backing:

Give me oil for my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning

Give me oil for my lamp, I pray

Hallelujah!

Give me oil for my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning,

keep me burning until the break of day!

Sing Hosanna!

Sing Hosanna!

Sing Hosanna to the King of Kings

Come on and sing Hosanna

Sing Hosanna

Sing Hosanna to the King.

There are three rules of church music demonstrated by this song. First, no story is so serious and frightening (the ten virgins damned by their folly) that Church camp cannot have a good time with it. Second, no song that says “come on” as a command (the church camp equivalent of Selah) is a good song. Finally, the fact that the word “hosanna” sounds vaguely like “banana” will occur to some camper with a piping little voice.

I am persuaded by philosophy that no actual infinite exists, but there is a potential infinite number of verses for this song. We asked for “gas for our Ford to keep trucking for the Lord” and most creatively “umption for my gumption.”  A young person can never have too much umption especially for his gumption.

I don’t know either.

Yet my favorite version of the song was “give me wax for my board, keep me surfing for the Lord.” My affection for this verse makes little sense as West Virginia is landlocked and when we moved to Upstate New York one could not (despite a local song) “go surfing on the Barge Canal.” I think I liked it, because it sounded so Beach Boys (they still were a bit cool then) and California (when Reagan made California a dream land for young conservatives).

And the song stuck in my head. Every so often, I will start humming (God help me): “Give me wax for my board, keep me surfing for the Lord . . .” and I know what I mean. Without God giving us the grace, unless He grants the sustaining grace, we cannot survive. That was true and the banal music and lyrics did not stop it from being true, but there is (as usual) more.

It is (in the deepest sense) all God. We always give Him what He has given us, yet God chooses to let us choose. Like the good Dad who lets the kids help on a project he is actually doing, God lets us cooperate with His divine actions. He gives us spiritual gifts, but asks us that we sustain those gifts by prayer, study of His Words, and acts of charity toward our neighbor. Of course, every good act we choose to do is empowered by Him, so He gives us the wax for our board, but allows us to apply it.

But perhaps a wiser voice than the old camp song is needed.

Saint Maximos wisely said:

81.A lamp cannot be kept burning without oil; nor can the light of spiritual gifts continue to shine unless one inwardly sustains it with actions and thoughts consonant with it. For every spiritual gift requires a corresponding inner quality in the recipient to feed it spiritually as though with oil, thus preserving its presence.

Philokalia, Volume 2

God gives us the power to be a light for goodness and very lamp that burns within us. We feed that flame, though it is really God who enables our good choice. Give us oil for our lamps, keep us burning Lord, but let us do the deed that finds, strikes, and produces oil. Keep us burning for You.

 


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