“Onward Christian Soldiers”

“Onward Christian soldiers, marching off to war!”

The Metropolitan Community Church choir in flowing robes singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

“My mother beat me to the meter of ‘Onward,/ Christian Soldiers,” she writes in the poem “I Do Not Know If It Is True, but I Think.”

Defiance was nothing new to him - his first act of rebellion was as a young Jewish boy refusing to sing Onward Christian Soldiers at school in Philadelphia.

There were poised and clear-voiced readings by several Bush granddaughters, and beautiful renditions of patriotic and inspirational music: “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”