The Word

by Sara Groves

I've done every devotional
Been every place emotional
Trying to hear a new word from God
And I think it's very odd
That while I attempt to help myself
My Bible sits upon my shelf
With every promise I could ever need

The Word was
The Word is
The Word will be

People are getting fit for Truth
Like they're buying a new tailored suit
Does it fit across the shoulders?
Does it fade when it gets older?
We throw ideas that aren't in style
In the Salvation Army pile
And search for something more to meet our needs

The Word was
The Word is
The Word will be

I think it's time I rediscover
All the ground that I have covered
Like 'Seek ye first,' what a verse
We are pressed but not crushed
Perplexed but don't despair
We are persecuted but not abandoned

We are no longer slaves
We are daughters and sons
When we are weak, we are very strong
Neither death nor life
Nor present nor future
Nor depth nor height
Can keep us from the love of Christ
And the Word I need
Is the Word that was
That put on flesh to dwell with us

In the beginning....

The Word was
The Word is
The Word will be

Maze

by Tom Marshall

The overhead view is of me in a maze
And you see what I'm hunting a few steps away
I take a wrong turn, and I'm on the wrong path
And the people all watching enjoy a good laugh
Embarrassed with failure, I try to reverse
The course that my tread had already traversed

In so doing, the trauma engulfing my dream
Invaded through what was an unguarded seam
The torrent of helplessness swept me away
To the cavern of shame and the hall of dismay
Inside me a voice was repeating the phrase
'You've lost it, you'll never get out of this maze'

The Story

by Phil Hanseroth

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true, I was made for you

I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines, and I broke all the rules
But I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do, and I was made for you

You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through
Like you do, and I was made for you

Portrait of a Lady

by T.S. Eliot

Thou hast committed— Fornication: but that was in another country, And besides, the wench is dead.      The Jew of Malta

I

Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do—
With "I have saved this afternoon for you";
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips.
"So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."
—And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets
And begins.

"You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
[For indeed I do not love it...you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!]
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!"

Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite "false note."
—Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in his fingers while she talks.
"Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands";
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
"Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."

The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
"I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.

But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.

I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."

I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage.
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?

III

The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
"And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that's a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn."
My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac.

"Perhaps you can write to me."
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This is as I had reckoned.
"I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends."
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.

"For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends."

And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression...dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance—

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the housetops;
Doubtful, for a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon...
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a "dying fall"
Now that we talk of dying—
And should I have the right to smile?

Someday We'll Know

by Gregg Alexander

Ninety miles outside Chicago
Can't stop driving, I don't know why
So many questions, I need an answer
Two years later you're still on my mind

Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart?
Who holds the stars up in the sky?
Is true love just once in a lifetime?
Did the captain of the Titanic cry?

Someday we'll know
If love can move a mountain
Someday we'll know
Why the sky is blue
Someday we'll know
Why I wasn't meant for you

Does anybody know the way to Atlantis?
Or what the wind says when she cries?
I'm speeding by the place that I met you
For the ninety-seventh time tonight

I bought a ticket to the end of the rainbow
I watch the stars crash in the sea
If I could ask God just one question
Why aren't you here with me tonight?

Someday we'll know
Why Samson loved Delilah
One day I'll go
Dancing on the moon
Someday you'll know
That I was the one for you

Sleepwalker

by Jakob Dylan

Maybe I could be the one they adore
That could be my reputation
It's where I'm from that lets them think I'm a whore
I'm an educated virgin

Sleepwalker, don't be shy
Now don't open your eyes tonight
You'll be the one that defends my life
While I'm dead asleep dreaming

Cupid, don't draw back your bow
Sam Cooke didn't know what I know
I'll never be your valentine
The sleepwalker in me and God only know that I've tried

Let me in, let me drown, or learn how to swim
Just don't leave me at the window
I could be the one to be your next best friend
You may need someone to hold you

Sleepwalker, take this knife
You may see someone tonight
You'd be the one that saves my life
When I'm dead asleep dreaming

I'm in your movie, and everyone looks sad
But I can hear your voice in the laugh track
But you never saw my best scene
The one where I sleepwalk into your dreams

Sleepwalker, what's my line?
It's only a matter of time
Until I learn to open up my eyes
When I'm dead asleep dreaming

Cupid, don't draw back your bow
Sam Cooke didn't know what I know
I'll never be your valentine
The sleepwalker in me and God only know that I've tried

4th of July, Asbury Park

by Bruce Springsteen

Sandy, the fireworks are hailing
Over Little Eden tonight
Forcing a light into all those stoned-out faces
Left stranded on this Fourth of July
Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers
So fast, so shiny, and sharp
As the wizards play down on Pinball Way
On the boardwalk way past dark
And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open
Like Latin lovers along the shore
Chasing all them silly New York girls by the score

Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight, for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl

Now the greasers, they tramp the streets
Or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night
Them boys in their spiked high-heels
Ah Sandy, their skins are so white
And me, I just got tired of hanging in them dusty arcades
Banging them pleasure machines
Chasing the factory girls underneath the boardwalk
Where they all promise to unsnap their jeans
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night, and my shirt got caught
And that Joey kept me spinning
I didn't think I'd ever get off

Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us
The pier lights our carnival life on the water
Running down the beach at night with my boss's daughter
Well he ain't my boss no more, Sandy

Sandy, the angels have lost their desire for us
I spoke to them just last night
And they said they won't set themselves on fire for us anymore
Every summer when the weather gets hot they ride that road
Down from heaven on their Harleys they come and they go
And you can see them dressed like stars in all the cheap little seashore bars
Parked with their babies out on the Kokomo
The cops finally busted Madame Marie
For telling fortunes better than they do
This boardwalk life for me is through
You know you ought to quit this scene too

Sandy, the aurora's rising behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight, and I promise I'll love you forever