The first time I heard the song was forty years ago when I attended one of my first annual conferences in the West Michigan Conference. The dean of the cabinet gave the District Superintendent’s report, which included playing a recording of “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong and released in 1967. I’m sure you’ve heard it before. I was mesmerized.

Producer Bob Thiele and writer George David Weiss, creators of What a Wonderful World, hoped that Armstrong’s grandfatherly image would help convey the song’s message, which was controversial at the time. The single was released in 1968, as race riots spread throughout the country to over a hundred cities. There were also attacks on Jewish business establishments. Peter Ling, a professor of American Studies at Nottingham, told the BBC that the Jewish-American Thiele and Weiss believed Louis Armstrong to be “the perfect ambassador to restore race relations between white people like them and the African-American community.”

One day last week, I took a morning walk and decided to empty my mind of everything except a focus on the beauty of Iowa, with Louis Armstrong’s song, What a Wonderful World, on my lips and the scriptures in my heart.

Read blog