1. |
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How good, very good
How delightful it is to live all together
How good, very good
How delightful it is to live as brothers and sisters
Like fine oil on the head, running down the beard,
running down Aaron’s long gray beard,
down the collar of his robes, like we’ve been dunked,
like we’ve been soaked in life everlasting
Like a squirrel up a tree, rustling the leaves
when God has given him all he needs
Like a slice of pecan pie at the end of the line
When all God’s children have come to dine
How good, how good
It’s in the you. It’s in the me.
It’s in the us and the we
It’s in our blood. It’s in our eyes.
It’s in the God who gives us life.
Like a friend at your side, casting just enough light
on your darkest day to make it bright
Like freedom to a slave, like life to a grave
like this sinner finding out that God does save
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2. |
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There's a weight that sits on Danny's shoulders.
He's a leader of others.
He's supposed to be important and even listened to.
But beyond himself he can't control that,
what songs are on others' sound tracks,
whom they listen to,
when and what they choose to do
He can't control how others feel,
only how he treats those things that he thinks are real.
He starts to feel lopsided
when the world seems undecided
as to the validity of his identity, yeah.
Everybody wants his name in a song
so that others can sing along
because your feelings feel more true
when others are singing about you
Everybody wants her name in a song
so that others can sing along
because you feel more alive
when you hear others harmonize.
Stephanie just feels confused.
Is she being loved or being used
as boys make her propositions that objectify herself?
Because she knows she's more than her chest.
There's something the boys have missed
when they look her up and down
and never really see her
She can't control how the boys feel
only how she reacts to what they treat as real.
She starts to feel lopsided
when the boys are undecided
as to her identity outside her sexuality, yeah.
Everybody...
We can't control how others feel,
only how we treat those things that we think are real
We start to feel lopsided
when the world seems undecided
as to the validity of our identities, yeah.
Everybody...
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3. |
I Got Two Sons
03:44
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I have owned a lot Been defined by what I got
But I've been broken by what I lost
Not with bulging purses, can’t pay enough nurses
To heal what his leaving cost
But when he went from me, he took all he could of me
I got two sons, some say that’s one too many
Because one ran off, taking half my money
But if you want the other half
I’ll give you that to have him back
Because I can’t laugh when half my heart is gone
He was the younger. He never knew his mother,
but I never knew a boy so strong.
Though weak in arms and legs, his eyes could break your neck,
And his will could run a marathon
But he could never go so far, that I'd forfeit half my heart
I got two sons...
On the other side of grace, wearing his mother’s face,
Through the grit and grime this child of mine
was lost but now is back in sight
and I won't lose a chance to say
I got two sons, though some say one too many
Because you ran off, taking half of my money
But if you’re looking for a place
to clean the grime off your mother’s face
You’ve found grace, it brough you home.
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4. |
Cross-Shadowed Season
04:05
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As I sat up this morning and rolled my legs off the bed,
I saw my cross lying there on the floor,
Waiting for me to bend on down and pick it up
With my name engraved on the beam
God, I come to you today,
In this cross-shadowed season
Hoping for a hand to lift it,
for a friend to share it
Hoping I will make it home
I know I’ve done my part, put my name on the cross
with chisel and greed and lust.
But the human heart was building crosses and swords,
guns and bombs long before I earned mine.
As my feet find the path that leads to calvary,
May the weight on my back remind me of your grace
May the strain of my legs remind me of your strength,
And when my humbled head looks up to see how far I have to go,
may I see your loving face
creased with compassion,
bright with joy, leading me on to resurrection.
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5. |
I Didn't Fall in Love
04:14
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I planned to be where I was standing,
when you got out of your car
Asked your address, then I went knocking
and you answered your apartment door.
I wasn’t sure where we were going
but confident I wanted more
I didn’t fall, didn’t trip
No, it was no accident
I may have jumped.
I know I ran,
it was all a part of my plan
to make you the one.
Darling, I didn’t fall in love.
I knew what it was I was asking
on the night I proposed
Well aware of the cliff I was climbing,
it didn’t sneak upon me unbeknownst.
I felt the risk i was taking
with the ground so far down below.
I can’t blame it on circumstance
that my boy’s nose looks like yours.
It is more than a coincidence
that I come home to your front door.
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6. |
Weakness Endured
03:48
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Quadriceps quiver, a yaw at the knee
Muscles adrift, they retreat to the lee.
It’s a moment all runners and all lovers know
with miles and miles and miles to show.
Keeping apace, deteriorating gait,
lengthening strain, maintaining heart rate
while every step forward steers you abaft
with a yawn in your lungs and a moan in your laugh.
Metabolize fats as it slenders the sides,
less to hold onto and so less to hide.
We log in the miles. It blisters the feet,
but the miles, the miles, the miles repeat.
The loops and the laps, we return to the start,
not to be elsewhere, to not be apart.
The leagues that we cross, in league we’re secure,
a practice in weakness, weakness endured.
With miles and miles and miles to show
and miles and miles and miles to go.
In love, we go on.
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7. |
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God ain’t from Jackson, Mississippi.
God won’t born in Nashville, Tennessee.
But God’s been known to have a southern accent
Walking on the path God takes to talk to me.
God ain’t from the shores of California.
God didn’t rise up first from Hudson Bay.
But God’s been known to walk out on the water
and rise up like the sun on each and every day.
God is, God is shhhhhh
God is more like a living fountain.
God flows free from a source you can’t dam.
God’s been known to surge up in an instant
Carrying you off somewhere you ain’t never been
God is, God is shhhh
God lives outside of our culture
God speaks with more than our words
God is older than the mountains
and every belief we will ever believe in
God is, God is shhhhhh
I swear I felt you lean your head to mine
But your life leans on every child’s side
I’m all yours, but you’re so much more than mine
Because you ain’t from Jackson, Mississippi
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8. |
We're Not Home
04:14
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Turn right, brake tight the freeze defrost relief
My face, my arms, the wheel waits for release
Forgot where we were just then
I act as if I know where they will lead
Look back, I missed the turn onto our street
I don’t want to go where it goes
Perhaps I’ll paint the grass a deeper green
To match the lawn my heart so wants to see
that feathers the fall of your feet upon our yard
The shutters and trim, we’ll make them all our own
Olive 3, Stem Green, a neutral that we know
Will cover the walls of all we don’t recognize
The trees aren’t green enough.
The house isn’t ours enough.
It takes one more hour for the sun to find
its way to us from our old lives.
We’re not home.
Dark ales, cocktails, can we make friends with these?
Three Jenns, Four Johns, two dinners in a week
I didn’t know how much you loved pork
Same table, same chairs, same touch of your hand
Same pillow, same sheets, but something’s different
I cannot fall asleep with empty walls
In time, I’ll drive these streets without a care.
My eyes, my heart, will know the people here.
We’ll cover these walls with captured smiles we won’t have to fake.
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9. |
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Weaker than we want,stronger than we think,
with twigs, her nest we frame.
It may not accomplish all that we ask it
yet hold up far more than we name
Of life that we gathered and bred in the heather,
cushioned with fescue and down.
Made a house of a shrub, made a meal out of grubs,
we made love of whatever was around.
That migratory bird, in season flocks are heard
taken to wing by the wind.
The roots that she grows will travel though sown
far from her flyway’s end.
The soil she carries, terrain vast and varied,
is not bound to a regional clime
but sings here between us, a song bird, she sings us
a tune that she calls “You and I.”
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Steven Fuller Jackson, Mississippi
Steven is a husband, father, and pastor of First Baptist Church of Gastonia, NC
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