Since writing my last post I've rediscovered an old song which I heard awhile ago and had forgotten about. So there will be a surprise addition to my list of seven songs.
There was no particular reason for the order of the songs I listed yesterday. Looking back over them though they seemed to be grouped most conveniently. First up we have, I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack.
This song is rather uncharacteristic for me, I'm not normally a fan of the genre. The choice is particularly ironic because I don't dance...ever. Not even in my dreams do I dance. However this song is ranked so highly by me because it speaks of hope, and humility yet is restrained by truth. There's plenty of songs that paint pretty pictures of life and encourage people to hope for things that only happen in fairy tales. This song though is fenced in by the lyrics, "Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along. Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone" It's important to hope for and pursue good things that have not yet come to pass. But to hope for things that can not come to pass or will not ever happen is not merely stupid but it's immoral and wrong as well. This song reminds us that we are bound by time and that it rolls on quickly. From this foundation we proceed to the rest of the song. We learn to stand in awe of the oceans grandeur, to consider the beauty of the heavens, to love hard and never give up. This song reminds us that life is about choices. We can sit on the sidelines, we can watch others participating in the struggles and the pain, in the joy and the victories and we can exist by ourselves until time rolls on by and we find ourselves look back wondering where the years have gone. Or we can choose to participate to share in the trials and the pain to share in life's hardships and life's triumphs. To dance as it were even when your feet have blisters and your ankles are sore.
Next comes a song more to my personal tastes. Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin.
The feel of this song is where it's message lies. It's lyrics are rather vague and repetitive. The song incorporates a message though which I know I need to learn and relearn almost everyday and I believe most of my generation needs to learn as well. The message is that, life is hard, time is short and most people are not going to survive. "No time to lose, We've got to move, Steady the helm." It means to me, consider my ways, count my days and focus. Realizing that I can die at any moment how am I going to choose to act right now? Should I continue righting this blogpost or should I go tell my sister how much I love her? or maybe I should go try to evangelize to all my neighbors. Regardless of what you happen to think I should do in light of the fact that life is not guaranteed a minute from now, I hope we can agree that nobody should simply let life pass them by. "The chorus says, "Only the strongest will survive, lead me to heaven when we die, I am the shadow on the wall, I'll be the one to save us all." As I get older and learn to understand people better I'm realizing that most people as they get older are not maturing. They are simply accumulating experiences the weight of which is slowly crushing them. Most people are in a process of slowly dying. To live we must filter our experiences and think through them so that we understand them. This song has taught me that just because my heart is beating I'm not alive and unless I strive to survive I will fail and become just like everybody else.
Oel ngati Kameie, it means I see and understand who and what you are. I watched the movie Avatar yesterday with my brothers and I heard this song again for the first time in awhile. The lessons I learned from and the reminders I was given after reading the lyrics would be enough for two or three blogposts by themselves. Boiling everything down to a summary statement I was reminded that I very often look and do not see, or I see and do not understand. For example how often do I look at my Bible and see merely one cover amongts many? Or how often do I see my Bible and fail to understand that there within it's thirteen hundred pages is wisdom and truth that has conquered kingdoms and destroyed cultures. Within it's covers are the foundational truths of human existence, who we are? why we are here? where we are going? where did we come from? what is love? what is truth? what is reality? who is God? what is prayer? Answers to all these questions and more are there for my perusal and yet nine times out of ten I simply see a worn black cover with golden lettering. Or another example, consider how many people look at their lives and see only things worth complaining about. they see themselves and do not understand that they are a unique individual created to fulfill a cosmic destiny.
There was no particular reason for the order of the songs I listed yesterday. Looking back over them though they seemed to be grouped most conveniently. First up we have, I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack.
This song is rather uncharacteristic for me, I'm not normally a fan of the genre. The choice is particularly ironic because I don't dance...ever. Not even in my dreams do I dance. However this song is ranked so highly by me because it speaks of hope, and humility yet is restrained by truth. There's plenty of songs that paint pretty pictures of life and encourage people to hope for things that only happen in fairy tales. This song though is fenced in by the lyrics, "Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along. Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone" It's important to hope for and pursue good things that have not yet come to pass. But to hope for things that can not come to pass or will not ever happen is not merely stupid but it's immoral and wrong as well. This song reminds us that we are bound by time and that it rolls on quickly. From this foundation we proceed to the rest of the song. We learn to stand in awe of the oceans grandeur, to consider the beauty of the heavens, to love hard and never give up. This song reminds us that life is about choices. We can sit on the sidelines, we can watch others participating in the struggles and the pain, in the joy and the victories and we can exist by ourselves until time rolls on by and we find ourselves look back wondering where the years have gone. Or we can choose to participate to share in the trials and the pain to share in life's hardships and life's triumphs. To dance as it were even when your feet have blisters and your ankles are sore.
Next comes a song more to my personal tastes. Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin.
The feel of this song is where it's message lies. It's lyrics are rather vague and repetitive. The song incorporates a message though which I know I need to learn and relearn almost everyday and I believe most of my generation needs to learn as well. The message is that, life is hard, time is short and most people are not going to survive. "No time to lose, We've got to move, Steady the helm." It means to me, consider my ways, count my days and focus. Realizing that I can die at any moment how am I going to choose to act right now? Should I continue righting this blogpost or should I go tell my sister how much I love her? or maybe I should go try to evangelize to all my neighbors. Regardless of what you happen to think I should do in light of the fact that life is not guaranteed a minute from now, I hope we can agree that nobody should simply let life pass them by. "The chorus says, "Only the strongest will survive, lead me to heaven when we die, I am the shadow on the wall, I'll be the one to save us all." As I get older and learn to understand people better I'm realizing that most people as they get older are not maturing. They are simply accumulating experiences the weight of which is slowly crushing them. Most people are in a process of slowly dying. To live we must filter our experiences and think through them so that we understand them. This song has taught me that just because my heart is beating I'm not alive and unless I strive to survive I will fail and become just like everybody else.
Oel ngati Kameie, it means I see and understand who and what you are. I watched the movie Avatar yesterday with my brothers and I heard this song again for the first time in awhile. The lessons I learned from and the reminders I was given after reading the lyrics would be enough for two or three blogposts by themselves. Boiling everything down to a summary statement I was reminded that I very often look and do not see, or I see and do not understand. For example how often do I look at my Bible and see merely one cover amongts many? Or how often do I see my Bible and fail to understand that there within it's thirteen hundred pages is wisdom and truth that has conquered kingdoms and destroyed cultures. Within it's covers are the foundational truths of human existence, who we are? why we are here? where we are going? where did we come from? what is love? what is truth? what is reality? who is God? what is prayer? Answers to all these questions and more are there for my perusal and yet nine times out of ten I simply see a worn black cover with golden lettering. Or another example, consider how many people look at their lives and see only things worth complaining about. they see themselves and do not understand that they are a unique individual created to fulfill a cosmic destiny.
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