Timothy Hay

I'm not entirely sure how it fits in the song, but here is an article talking about a Sister Margaret getting arrested at the Pentagon: http://dccatholicworker.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/eight-arrested-at-pentagon-and-one-at-white-house-in-good-friday-actions-catholic-workers-among-them/

Although the post is dated 4/11 some other articles I found indicate this took place in 2007. Here it is with pictures: http://www.jonahhouse.org/pentagonfarm.htm

I'm not a Christian, hell I'm not even sure if I belive in God or not, but for some reason I find that I can't stop myself from singing along with the end of this song whenever I hear it.

Sr. Margaret is a radical nun living in North Philadelphia as a part of an addiction recovery community she founded twenty years ago (newjerusalemnow.org). Aaron's been around NJN for years and has traveled with NJN to participate in some of these Faith & Resistance retreats that Jonah House puts on every few months.

I'm thinking that the Timothy hay is an allusion to the meaningless, mundane, bland and trivial nature of our time here and the feeling that there must be something better elsewhere. The part that intrigues me most is the part about the rats by the tracks.

Oh and it's: "while the Holland Lops in the Karakung Glades..."

I followed the links that Jhorra left and found this http://www.jonahhouse.org/FRDec07Pen.htm if you read the article attached it mentions Aaron's name and Margaret McKenna among the few arrested. I assume that this is what he is talking about in his mentioning it in song.

sorry tworivulets you have some information wrong. number one "lucifer" is not a synonymous name for satan. it's actually sort of a "wives tale" that we heard in sunday school that lucifer was once a beautiful worship leader in heaven that fell. that poor exegesis actually comes from verses that are written about an actual king from ancient times. if you look up the verses in context it is clear that it is not about satan.

What's also important to emphasize is that God doesn't have a physical appearance (excluding Jesus). So it wouldn't be right to describe God as he physically is, because he just isn't physical, he's incorporeal. The bible makes it clear that he is spirit, and that only Jesus is the image of the invisible God. What's also interesting is that God warns us to not make images or conjure up images of Him because that would just depreciate God and represent what He isn't. (John 4:24, Exodus 20:4, 1 Timothy 1:17)

So rather I think Aaron would be speaking of God as beautiful in the sense that He is excellent, wonderful, fantastic, very pleasing and so forth.

I think this song is a lot more literal and simple than many initially stated.

I want to first point out how Aaron Weiss views this world. In "All the Clever Words on Pages" by Paul Harrison (a friend of Aaron Weiss), Paul states how Aaron doesn't like to waste food and how he feels bad doing so. Aaron would take food from dumpsters and cook meals for himself and often a group of people. His mother wanted Aaron to understand some things will get wasted and we just have to live with it.

Aaron also states a lot of believes where he expresses that G-d is everywhere and in everything (in a certain sense). Even in the smallest things like a good gesture, creation, and us. This view is very common with a particular religion (I forgot which one) but the point is that Aaron obviously adopted this belief where he G-d is in the smallest of things.

All that being said, I believe this song is about how our culture is careless with G-d's creation and Aaron is simply stating this story/belief.

• He talks about how the holland lops hopping along some grass and cut hurt because the grass was cut. The grass doesn't speak out against us and doesn't mind it being cut. This act of cutting the grass doesn't take into consideration other animals and how they might dislike this...

• He talks about chicken wire hutch, how the chicken is limited.

• "I touched her back, she was lying face down the dew turned to frost in her eyes me and sister margaret in the pentagon lawn with our wrists in a plastic tie": Here he is talking about the grass. Aaron touched the back of the grass with its face lying down. The grass is probably lying face down because someone walked on it or he was laying on the grass when being arrested. The due is on the tip of the grass which he calls her eyes, it turned to frost.

• can you guys apply this view to the rest of the song now? Aaron puts himself in the shoes of animals and says no more timothy hay as a way to say "we animals are tired of this life where you limit us in every way, G-d made us to roam free, live our life, and here you humans are being all selfish, cutting our lovely grass where we play and sleep, putting us in cages, trying to kill us with traps, and feeding us this nasty food"

• I can't quite understand how the last paragraph fits in this picture, I might come back and comment later after reading from the CD lyrics.

What do you guys think?

I think it's

"Me and Sister Margaret on the pentagon lawn with our wrists in a plastic tie"

and i still can't figure out the line before "we found a better mom" but i'm pretty sure it's "we found a better Mom we called "G-d" which She took quite well" great job on the transcribing though!

maybe Broke the news to mom: we found a better Mom we call God (which she took quite well)

the "she" being their biological mother