Sunburnt Speculations

This week I was able to polish a song lyric that had sat with me for almost 50 years. Over those years, I had promised myself that I would complete the lyric … some day; but had never gotten round to it until I put in a determined effort over two days – all to complete just three lines. But they turned out to be a line in each verse.

So, I’d been carrying around a misshapen lyric for decades -a lyric that held promise but had always been just out of reach, as life took me in a different direction each time I attempted to complete it.

The lyric, “Precious Gifts”, accompanied a tune which I wrote in my time with Pilgrim. We had looked at it but never performed it. But it would not let me go.

Well, here it is, at last.

Precious Gifts

We’re gonna’ find that life goes on forever

One day soon when we have to go away,

So don’t be afraid to share the life inside you

The paradox of love will guide your way.

All the precious gifts – they don’t really belong to anyone.

All the precious gifts – we must pass them on.

We’re gonna’ find that love endures forever,

And all the love in our hearts will be set free.

Like a lamp on a hillside and a light by the sea

Love can shine. Love can shine for all to see.

All the precious gifts – they don’t really belong to anyone.

All the precious gifts – we must pass them on.

We’re gonna’ find, beyond our understanding

Why Jesus paid the price he chose to pay

And, with joy in our hearts, the light of understanding

Will fill us to enrich the lasting day.

All the precious gifts – they don’t really belong to anyone.

All the precious gifts – we must pass them on. (Repeat)

The Creative Process – “The Paradox of Love”

My struggle with the lyric perhaps reflected my own misgivings concerning various interpretations of the doctrine of atonement. What eventually let me pull it together was a reflection on the paradox of love – the mystery that love grows in its giving; not in its hoarding.

I can share my work sheet, where I focused on the structure of the lyric and what I felt was not working.

The reflection that led to these seemingly simple changes involved a ten-thousand-word exercise in scriptio divina – a sacred practice where, through writing, we can engage with what challenges us and holds deep meaning for us.

One short extract may serve to demonstrate the struggle I was having with the fourth line in the first verse, where I was rejecting the line which years ago had seemed easy:

 the message is now much harder. Previously “Share freely because you didn’t have to pay” but, now, “Share freely …” there is no easy because. However, there is an abundance. And that is picked up in the first line, We’re gonna’ find that life goes on forever,

And this is where it took me:

And now that troublesome line 4 in Verse 1, which was:

“Bought for a price you did not have to pay”.

Here’s my train of thought: IF we’re going to find that life goes on forever and so are not afraid to share the life inside us, THEN Why? What is that “life”? What can we say about it? ANSWER: The inner life is part WHAT and part WHO. Our inner life might be – is – out of the abundance that is Christ. “I am come that they might have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). If we hold  on to that, our inner life is governed – not by the laws of possession – but by the “paradox of love” – by the paradox that the precious gift grows in the giving and sharing of it. So, “The paradox of love will guide your way”.

It looks like I was talking to myself, doesn’t it … maybe.

I journaled, of course. And I had to write the same preceding line over and over again to clear a writing block.

In the end, that line was wrenched out of me. And in the process, I discovered the type of writer I would need to become.

Well, now I’ll have to get back to the tune – and to practice – and, who knows, perhaps I’ll perform it one of these days.

Andy C. Wood