All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats –
Politicians and entrepreneurs –
Can you safeguard your breath in the night while you sleep?
Keep your heart beating steady and sure?
As you lie in your bed, does the thought haunt your head
That you’re really, rather small?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

All you champions of science and rulers of men,
Can you summon the sun from its sleep?
And does the earth seek your counsel on how fast to spin?
Can you shut up the gates of the deep?
Don’t you know that all things hang, as if by a string,
O’er the darkness – poised to fall?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

All you big shots that swagger and stride with conceit,
Did you devise how your frame would be formed?
If you’d be raised in a palace, or live out on the streets?
Did you choose the place or the hour you’d be born?
Tell me what can you claim? Not a thing – not your name!
Tell me if you can recall, just one thing, that’s not a gift in this life?

Can you hear what’s been said?
Can you see now that everything’s grace after all?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

January, 1979 saw a terrible crash and it couldn’t help but laugh.
My ear pressed against the past like a glass on a wall of a hospital photograph.
My forehead no longer sweet with holy kisses worthy of Your fiery lips.
I was floating in a peaceful sea, ‘rescued’ by a sinking ship.

If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (I could be your servant)
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (If I could be your servant)
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (I could be your servant)
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (If I could be your servant)

You watched me like a ten car highway wreck with detached, vulgar curiosity.
Us looking down on the tops of the hats of us passersby from your seventh floor balcony
And from such a height you missed creatures too small for sight
carry on covert conversation, as the misguided insects
crown me their grasshopper king with a dance of celebration.

After years with their crown on my head,
I’ve grown overfed, unconcerned and comfortably numb
Kept busy indulging in the pleasures of the wealthy.
(Oh, someone make me afraid of what I’ve become!)
At the first sign of possible sorrow I’ll turn my heel and run.
(Oh, I’ll never learn!)
My life’s a cup of sugar I borrowed before time began and forgot to return.

It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I’m going blind. (I could be your servant)
It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I’m going blind. (If I could be your servant)
It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I’m going blind. (I could be your servant)
It was a matter of miserable time but I heard somewhere,
there was a cure for useless eyes. (If I could be your servant)

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.

“As we melt let’s make no noise
oh the profanation of our love
to tell the world our passing joys!
And we, besides, care less to miss
our eyes and lips and hands.”

(but honey, I’m not who you think I am!)

“And so you’ll be to me
who must obliquely run
“thy firmness makes my circle just,
and makes me end where I begun”
There’s nothing wrong
as I’ll be somewhere singing all along.”

(no! tell me, where have you gone, my love.)

Demain, post d’Émilie

Well, I’ve got a will but I want yours
I’ve got a growing heap of crosses and burdens
I’ve simply lost heart to shoulder
Simply no strength to lift
I’ve always been a man in need
’cause I keep stepping in and out of the shadow

Caught by the drift and pitch of whatever it is
That keeps me coming back
I want out
’cause I’m getting sick
Sick from all this swerving
Driver, sick from turning on you

Someone show me a hole in this cycle
Show me the way away and I’m coming back
The way I came
No! I’ve seen this place before
Surely this is no place for the light of this world

Oh how sweet the sound
I know it saved but is it changing a wretch like me
Oh my God how sweet is the sound
I once was blind but now I just look away

My bride, I don’t want to know what I’d be without
Forgiveness brushing these adulterous lips

-As Cities Burn

http://www.myspace.com/livingsacrifice

Who am I to question
Every day to understand
This precious beginning
Now fading, passing
This is the feel of sadness
Where will solace find me?
Where will peace begin?
Where will peace begin?
I have the call to be true
Find a way for you
The peace be inside
Follow safely home
In my God, in His smile,
Nothing is impossible
Every day brings an awesome hope
Grace will lead the way
And joy will follow
My heart leaps at the sound of Your voice
Calling my name
And You are so perfect
In every way
A testimony of creation
Beautiful is Your Name
I can’t wait to see Him when I wake
Fresh and new
Simple and true
Formed by mercy
Formed by grace
Earth and sky
In Your eyes
Blessed
Pure
You’re more than I deserve
You’re my blessing
You’re my wisdom
You’re my freedom
You’re my mission
I live for His glory

January 1979 saw a terrible crash and it couldn’t help but laugh.
My ear pressed against the past like a glass on a wall of a hospital photograph.
My forehead no longer sweet with holy kisses worthy of Your fiery lips.
I was floating in a peaceful sea, ‘rescued’ by a sinking ship.

If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall.
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall.
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall.
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall.

You watched me like a ten car highway wreck with detached, vulgar curiosity.
Us looking down on the tops of the hats of us passersby from your seventh floor balcony
And from such a height you missed creatures too small for sight
carry on covert conversation, as the misguided insects
crown me their grasshopper king with a dance of celebration.

After years with their crown on my head,
I’ve grown overfed, unconcerned and comfortably numb
Kept busy indulging in the pleasures of the wealthy.
(Oh, someone make me afraid of what I’ve become!)
At the first sign of possible sorrow I’ll turn my heel and run.
(Oh, I’ll never learn!)
My life’s a cup of sugar I borrowed before time began and forgot to return.

It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I’m going blind.
It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I’m going blind.
It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I’m going blind.
It was a matter of miserable time but I heard somewhere,
there was a cure for useless eyes.

Why burn poor and lonely?
Under a bowl, or under a lampshade,
or on the shelf beside the bed
where at night you lay turning like a door on its hinges
(first on your left side, then on your right side, then your left side again).
Why burn poor and lonely?
Tell all the stones we’re gonna make a building.
We’ll be cut into shape, and set into place
or if you’d rather be a window,
I’ll gladly be the frame.
Reflecting any kind words,
we’ll let in all the blame
(and ruin our reputation all the same)
So never mind our plan making.
We’ll start living!
Anyway, aren’t you unbearably sad?
Then why burn so poor and lonely?

We’ll be like torches!
We’ll be like torches!
We’ll be like torches!
Oh, we’ll be torches together, torches together!
We’ll be like torches!
We’ll be like torches
with whatever respect out tattered dignity demands.
Torches together, hand in hand.

Why pluck one string?
What good is just one note?
Oh, one string sounds fine I guess, and we were once ‘one notes’.
We were lonely wheat, quietly ground into grain
(What light and momentary pain!)
So why this safe distance, this curious look?
Why tear out single pages when you can throw away the book?
Why pluck one string when you can strum the guitar?
Strum the guitar!
Strum the guitar!
Strum the guitar!
Strum the guitar!
With no beginning, with no end
Take down a guitar and strum the guitar!
Strum the guitar if you’re afraid,
And I’m afraid and everyone’s afraid
and everyone knows it, but we don’t have to be afraid anymore.

You played the flute but no one was dancing,
You sang a sad song and none of us cried.

Anyone that makes a living pleasing people, accepting bribes, doing the popular thing, invading countries, murdering, stealing resources, is far from what Jesus would want. Any sort of the rhetoric the Bush administration used to justify the Iraqi war is sickening. Bush using Christianity to justify war is idolatry and nationalism. Committing violence and brutality and theft in the name of Jesus is the worst of anything. If you’re a Christian you have to lay that stuff down – love your enemies turn, the other cheek. When faith and power mix together, the results are troubling. When people say, ‘when you reject the Republican Party you’re rejecting God’, well, that just has to be one of the biggest tricks the Devil has pulled. The people who might be reading this interview, I don’t know where they’re coming from, but we just need to walk in the path of Jesus and there are going to be toes we’re going to step on. God is forever, the Republican Party is not. The people who say God is a Republican, well, you’ve got a very, very strange Christian. He’s not a Democrat either, but he’s definitely not a Republican. Jesus did not come to build up a political party, he came to bring Truth. America is just gluttonous, wicked, and frankly probably line for God’s wrath. Christians don’t want to hear about that, they want to hear ‘God Bless America, go to church on Sunday and all is well.’ We are not fooling God.

http://decapolis.com/music_/pages/mewithoutYouInterview.shtml

To love another in spite of his weaknesses and errors and imperfections is not perfect love. No,to love is to find him lovable in spite of and together with his weakness and errors and imperfections. Let us understand each other.

Suppose there were two artists, and the one said, “I have traveled much and seen much in the world, but I have sought in vain to find someone worth painting. I have found no face with such perfection of beauty that I could make up my mind to paint it. In every face I have seen one or another little flaw. Therefore I seek in vain. “Would this indicate that this artist was a great artist? In contrast, the second one said, “Well, I do not pretend to be a very good artist, if one at all; neither have I traveled very much. But remaining in the little circle closest to me, I have not found a face so insignificant or so full of faults that I still could not discern in it a more beautiful side and discover something glorious. Therefore I am happy in the art I practice, though I make no claim to being an artist.” Would this not indicate that precisely this one was the artist, one who by bringing a certain something with him found then and there what the much-traveled artist did not find anywhere in the world, perhaps because he did not bring a certain something with him! Was not the second of the two the real artist?It is a sad upside-downness, altogether too common, to talk on and on about how the object of love should be before it can be loved. The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable – whether given or chosen – and to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no mater how that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees. As the apostle John reminds us: “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20)

Consider how Christ looked on Peter, once he had denied Jesus. Was it a repelling look, a look of rejection? No. It was a look such as a mother gives her child when the child is in danger due to its own indiscretion. Since she cannot approach and snatch the child from danger, she catches him of guard with a reproachful but saving look. Was Peter in danger, then? Alas, we do not understand how serious it is for one to betray his friend. But in the passion of anger or hurt the injured friend cannot see that it is the denier who is in danger. Yet the Savior saw clearly that it was Peter who was in danger, not him, and that it was Peter who needed saving. The Savior of the world did not make the mistake of regarding his cause as lost because Peter did not hurry to help him. Rather, he saw Peter as lost if he did not hurry to save him.

Christ’s love for Peter was so boundless that in loving Peter he accomplished loving the person one sees. He did not say, “Peter you must first change and become another man before I can love you again.” No, he said just the opposite: “Peter, you are Peter, and I love you; love, if anything, will help you to become a different person.” Christ did not break of his friendship with Peter, and then renew it again when Peter had become a different man. No, he preserved the friendship and in this way helped Peter to become another man. Do you think that Peter would have ever been won again without such faithful love?

We foolish people often think that when a person has changed for the worse we are exempted from loving him. What a confusion in language: to be exempt from loving. As if it were a mater of compulsion, a burden one wished to cast away! If this is how you see the person, then you really do not see him; you merely see unworthiness, imperfection, and admit thereby that when you loved him you did not really see him but saw only his excellence and perfections. True love is a mater of loving the very person you see. The emphasis is not on loving the perfections, but on loving the person you see, no mater what perfections or imperfections that person might possess.

He who loves the perfections he sees in a person does not see the person, and thus does not truly love, for such a person ceases to love as soon as the perfections cease. But even when the most distressing changes occur, the person does not thereby cease to be. Love does not vault into heaven, for it comes from heaven and with heaven. It steps down and thereby accomplishes loving the same person throughout all his changes, good or bad, because it sees the same person in all his changes. Human love is always flying after the beloved’s perfections. Christian love, however, loves despite imperfections and weaknesses. In every change love remains with him, loving the person it sees.

Alas, we talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity teaches us that the perfect person is the one who limitlessly loves the person he sees. We humans always look upward for the perfect object, but in Christ love looks down to earth and loves the person it sees. If then, you wish to become perfect in love, strive to love the person you see, just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses. Love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, when he perhaps turns indifferently away or turns to love someone else. Love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you. Love the person you see and see the person you love.

- Søren Kierkegaard – Works of Love

Le livre “Provocations, spiritual writings of Kierkegaard” est disponible gratuitement, ici.

Il écrit pour le blogue de Relevant Magazine. Je l’aime pas trop en tant que personne, mais il fait juste beaucoup trop de sens sur ce sujet. Je suis complètement d’accord avec lui.

Consider not the messenger only, nor only the motive. The artist himself is only one part of the equation. Consider the medium as well as the message. Consider the fact that God speaks through the confused minds of unbelievers if he so chooses, along with believers. After all, he is the God of all things…

http://relevantmagazine.com/releblog/andrew-schwab/im-not-a-christian-writer/