Today I wrote a worship song.
Though I used to be in a Christian band, I've never been one for writing worship. There's so much in the human experience to sing about - you can write a gazillion songs about love in just trying to capture that feeling alone. Its not that I try and cut God out of my art - I'd like to think that if you look deep enough into my lyrics you would see his influence on every line (or at least some of them). Its just to me a lot of worship seems forced. Its like songs about love, you rarely can write one which perfectly captures that feeling. And I don't want to force my worship on God. Worship to me is something which flows out of your heart, and a lot of other people's hearts are closer to God than me. So I prefer to sing their songs rather than my own.
And yet...
Someone somewhere once told me that you write about what you love.
And the flipside could be true, in that you love what you write about.
This is not what I love. This is WHO I love.
NEARER
Though despair conspires with the night
To empty day's new light
May I hold with shaking hands this truth
Be nearer my soul to you
Though every hope a sinner drowned
Though every sunset clouds
Still let me seek with every move
Be nearer my soul to you
Oh, Spirit flow
Through every deep and darkening storm
Let Your love be my warmth
Though brighter days I will pursue
Be nearer my soul to you
Though I may seek bright heavens home
NOW, Lord Jesus let me know
Nothing more or less than to
Be nearer my soul to you
Oh, Spirit flow
In my weakness you are my strength
In my silence you are my song
Lord I'll praise your name forever
In your arms is where I belong
(c) Jordan Gowan and Falling Movement Music 2014
Inspired by:
Edge Kingsland
Psalms 96:1-2, 98:1
2 Corinthians 12:9
Saturday 23 August 2014
Sunday 10 August 2014
A moment to take your breath
For Marcus.
Breathe. Let's take it back to the start.
We were just kids, grew up on different sides of the coast but I'd like to hope/ You had mountains to climb and stories to live/ When we could be whoever we want to be/ And believe it, that we'd see it/ Not knowing one day we'd leave it/ All these places unseen, all these things undone/ Does it drive you dumb? Can't even move my tongue enough to say the words I wish you'd heard before you were gone/ To fast. A moment, a flash, a spark/ They say its in the past but it hits me in the present. In this space, this time I feel your absence like a knife into my eyes/ The lights gone out, blinded like the one small kindness it was to see/ To believe, to dream
And I can't even speak, the words just repeat/ Inside my mind like a tide sweeping forward and then back/ My every thought a sea, a storm, a shipwreck/ And I'm sunk like a slam dunk to the bottom of the ocean floor/ What we were is now no more/ And every day I'm waiting for the pain to stall/ To not feel at all cos to feel's to fall/ And all I ever do is falling/ Not walking but crawling, not talking but calling
Out for a rescue from this place/ God, if you had a face would you show it? Would you let it be known, all our tears are sown by your hands that we might reap in JOY/ Far beyond pain's worst ploys we have a hope of meeting once again/ Oh but to skip to the end and not have my heart rend like it does right now/ As I'm found lost yet still looking/ For something to bookend this so it makes sense while its senseless/ Peace while I'm restless/ And light for those heavy of heart.
Breathe. Let's take it back to the start.
J.
Works which inspired my words:
Psalm 126:5
Blindsided by Bon Iver
Everything about your life
Breathe. Let's take it back to the start.
We were just kids, grew up on different sides of the coast but I'd like to hope/ You had mountains to climb and stories to live/ When we could be whoever we want to be/ And believe it, that we'd see it/ Not knowing one day we'd leave it/ All these places unseen, all these things undone/ Does it drive you dumb? Can't even move my tongue enough to say the words I wish you'd heard before you were gone/ To fast. A moment, a flash, a spark/ They say its in the past but it hits me in the present. In this space, this time I feel your absence like a knife into my eyes/ The lights gone out, blinded like the one small kindness it was to see/ To believe, to dream
And I can't even speak, the words just repeat/ Inside my mind like a tide sweeping forward and then back/ My every thought a sea, a storm, a shipwreck/ And I'm sunk like a slam dunk to the bottom of the ocean floor/ What we were is now no more/ And every day I'm waiting for the pain to stall/ To not feel at all cos to feel's to fall/ And all I ever do is falling/ Not walking but crawling, not talking but calling
Out for a rescue from this place/ God, if you had a face would you show it? Would you let it be known, all our tears are sown by your hands that we might reap in JOY/ Far beyond pain's worst ploys we have a hope of meeting once again/ Oh but to skip to the end and not have my heart rend like it does right now/ As I'm found lost yet still looking/ For something to bookend this so it makes sense while its senseless/ Peace while I'm restless/ And light for those heavy of heart.
Breathe. Let's take it back to the start.
J.
Works which inspired my words:
Psalm 126:5
Blindsided by Bon Iver
Everything about your life
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