Fight Song

What a weekend! So much to write, so little time. The Emmanuel retreat was Friday night. After it ended Saturday morning, we drove over to Gatlinburg, stayed in a hotel overnight, and then went to the Knoxville Zoo today. We packed a lot in – especially for the kids – but it was a memorable weekend, to say the least. I’m sure I’ll post more about it over the next few days as I keep remembering different things.

To kick things off, I’ll talk about the “ice-breaker” at the retreat on Friday night. We divided into groups of 10 and were given an assignment: write the lyrics to a song that describes our ESR experience so far and perform it in front of the rest of the group. We were to use Rocky Top as the tune.

There were, of course, a few requirements that had to be included. Choreography and creativity earned points. These are the words we had to include: Seminary; exegesis; Appalachia (pronounced Apple-at-cha); the name of everyone in the group; at least one obscure ESR reference (including, but not limited to Dr. Wetzel, John Wasem, Jason Bembry, Maximus the Confessor, Aunt B’s restaurant, etc.); and complete group participation in the performance.

So – our group won with our little ditty. Here are the lyrics we came up with. Sorry if it’s crude. You can’t rhyme much with seminary…

Intro
Are you ready to rock?

Verse 1
What’s the deal with exegesis,
let’s keep the original, please.
Kip got dysentery while at seminary
eating down at Aunt B’s.

Verse 2
With Matt and Christy, John and Jennifer
Phil and B.J., too
Seth and Brian with Jason Bembry
singing this song for you

Chorus
ESR, you’ll always be
App-a-lachia to me
Good ol’ Holy Hill (Wooo!)
Holy Hill, Tennessee
Holy Hill, Tennessee

Outro
Thank you, Junaluska, we love you!
Go Emus!

BJ then did a stage dive directly onto Dr. Bembry. I managed to get my arms around both, saving them from immanent disaster. Hopefully, Dr. Bembry will remember that when I have him for Hebrew next year.

I was told the stage dive and Christy’s conversion of a piece of cardboard into a washboard were the game-winners for us.

What did we win for such lyrical beauty? The highly coveted Emmanuel Emus t-shirt. Of course, there are only Smalls left. There’s a reason Smalls are left – they don’t fit anyone. It’s the thrill of victory that matters, not the trophy, right?

I’m sure we’ll be singing this fight song for years to come during the intramural games at Milligan.

The following two tabs change content below.
Howdy. I'm Matt. My wife, Christy, and I have four kids and two dogs, I'm passionate about orphan care. I'm a die-hard fan of the Evansville Aces, the Indiana Hoosiers, and Star Wars. I'm trying to live life by the Todd family motto: "It behooves us to live!"
Spread the love