Brave and Strong

Yesterday, Mark, Judi, Mel and I went out to lunch after church. We were practicing our handwriting on the paper table cloth. I started writing out depressing Pedro the Lion lyrics, and it sent Mark and I off on a tangent for a good 10 minutes. This inspired today’s blog. What are some of your favorite lyrics? What gets stuck in your head and initiates thoughts and emotions?

 

Here are a few of mine:

 

Priests and Paramedics by Pedro the Lion

 

Paramedics brave and strong
Up before the break of dawn
Putting poker faces on
Broken bodies all day long
The neighbors heard a fight
Someone had a knife
It must have have been the wife
Husband’s lost a lot of blood
He wakes up screaming
“Oh my God, am I gonna die?
Am I gonna die?”
As they strapped his arms down to his sides
At times like these they’d been taught to lie
“Buddy just calm down, you’ll be alright”

Several friends came to his grave
His children were so well-behaved
As the priest got up to speak
The assembly craved relief
But he himself had given up
So instead he offered them this bitter cup
“You’re gonna die, we’re all gonna die
Could be twenty years, could be tonight
Lately I have been wondering why
We go to so much trouble to postpone the unavoidable
And prolong the pain of being alive”

 

 

The Resurrection Fern by Iron and Wine

 

In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road
We’ll keep everything
Grandma’s gun, and the black bear claw
That took her dog

And when sister Laurie says “Amen,”
We won’t hear anything
The ten-car train will take that word
That fledgling bird

And the falling house across the way
It’ll keep everything
The baby’s breath, our bravery wasted
And our shame

And we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its Resurrection Fern

In our days we will say
What our ghosts will say
We gave the world what it saw fit
And what’d we get?

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We’ll see everything
In the timid shade of the autumn leaves
And the buzzard’s wing

And we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies all wound around in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its Resurrection Fern

 

 

 

There are many more, those are the first two that came to mind on this Monday afternoon. What about you?

Hope

I stole this from Mel Miles‘s post:

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Dear Enemies and Friends,

Why are we all so alone here? All we need is a little more hope, a little more joy. All we need is a little more light, a little less weight, a little more freedom. If we were an army, and if we believed that we were an army, and we believed that everyone was scared like little lost children in their grown up clothes and poses; so we ended up alone here floating through long wasted days, or great tribulations.. While everything felt wrong. Good words, strong words, words that could’ve moved mountains. Words that no one ever said. We were all waiting to hear those words and no one ever said them. And the tactics never hatched. And the plans were never mapped. And we all learned not to believe. And strange lonesome monsters loafed through the hills wondering why.. And it is best to never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever wonder why. So tangle — oh tangle us up in bright red ribbons! Let’s have a parade. It’s been so long since we had a parade, so let’s have a parade! Let’s invite all our friends. And all our friends’ friends! Let’s promenade down the boulevards with terrific pride and light in our eyes: twelve feet tall and staggering.. Sick with joy with the angels there and light in our eyes. Brothers and Sisters, hope still waits in the wings like a bitter spinster; impatient, lonely and shivering, waiting to build her glorious fires. it’s because of our plans man; our beautiful ridiculous plans. Let’s launch them like careening jetplanes. Let’s crash all our planes in the river. Let’s build strange and radiant machines at this Jericho waiting to fall.

– Built and Then Burnt, A Silver Mt. Zion