Power and Powder
You may remember an old campfire song containing repeated vows that “I ain’t gonna grieve my Lord no more,” interspersed with a lengthy list of ways in which “you can’t get to Heaven.” One of those ways, which I have always remembered (perhaps because this is one case in which I strongly agree with the Lord) said:
“Oh you can’t get to Heaven in powder and paint,
‘Cause the Lord don’t like you as you ain’t.”
In 1945, when I was 11 years old, I saw a movie called Keep Your Powder Dry, starring Lana Turner. It was about some American women serving in the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, known as “WAACs.” I naturally assumed that, since it was all about women, the “Powder” in the title was the cosmetic kind, as referred to in that cautionary song.
Only years later did I learn that the movie’s title was a “play on words,” extracted from a famous old quotation which had nothing to do with cosmetics. The powder then being referred to was GUN-powder – which definitely needs to stay dry to be at all effective. The utterance was originally attributed to that military genius and religious fanatic Oliver Cromwell, the man who effectively ruled England from 1649 – when he more or less presided over the execution of King Charles I – until his own death in 1658. On one of his army’s campaigns in Ireland, as they were about to cross a river, Cromwell is supposed to have said to his men (each of whom, in those days, carried his own supply of gunpowder, and possibly his own Bible), “Put your trust in God – and keep your powder dry.”
Cromwell’s idea that, regardless of the strength of your faith, it doesn’t hurt to be well-armed, has, over the centuries, been expressed in many different ways. One such expression that has been variously attributed – but most people think was first said by Napoleon – is that “God’s on the side of the big battalions.” Josef Stalin is reputed to have turned this idea around in a conference with the French statesman Pierre Laval in 1935. When they were discussing European power politics, someone mentioned the pope, and Stalin asked sarcastically, “The pope – how many divisions has he got?”
But there is a more positive and still widely quoted version of the same doctrine, which stems from World War II – in fact, from the first day America became actively involved in that conflict. The incident behind it has acquired the status of a legend, according to which, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a certain chaplain who happened to be aboard the USS New Orleans, tried to encourage the men who were firing one of the ship’s guns. At some point, he is said to have cried out, “Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!” These words became enshrined in American folklore through a popular song of that name.
But for ideas and stories about the supremacy of faith over force, we can go back thousands of years. In the Old Testament we have Jericho, a strongly fortified city, the first to confront the Israelites under Joshua after they had crossed the Jordan River. According to the Biblical account, no ammunition was required. Following divine instructions, the besiegers spent a week marching around the city, blowing trumpets, and simply shouting loudly – and as a result, the walls fell down.
And there is indeed the all-embracing doctrine that “Faith can move mountains.”
In the New Testament’s Book of Mathew, we are told that “If ye have faith as small as a mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove – and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
In Islamic legend, however, the whole concept is seen a different way. Mohammed is asked to prove his own power by making Mount Safa come to him. Instead, the Prophet goes to the mountain, thereby proving his faith in submission to God.
There are, of course, innumerable stories about the power of faith, belief, or love, to perform apparently impossible acts. Among the best-known are well-documented accounts, for example, of a mother exerting super-human strength to lift a car and save her child pinned beneath it.
And, speaking of cars, my favorite verse from that old campfire song was the one that said:
Oh, you can’t get to Heaven in a Ford coupẻ
‘Cause the Lord’s got shares in Chevrolet.
