Lord, show me Your way,
When I walk in the gray
Not in darkness, or in light
But the mists of my own sight.

Lord, how can I know
How to walk, and then to grow
In the fog, when I cry out
In the midst of fear and doubt.

Lord, I cannot stand,
Unless You’re with me in this land.
Lest then from Your path I stray
And be found out of Your way.

Lord, here in my storm,
Is little light and less of form.
Let me hear the blessed sound,
In trackless waste, of solid ground.

Lord, faith give to me,
That I may walk this stormy sea.
Let me trust now that Thy arm
Shall protect me from all harm.

Lord, I cannot steer,
My own course, through storms of fear.
Without Your light I soon should fail;
My soul be swamped, unless you bail.

Lord, when I shall guide
My own steps, from this side.
Then I cannot help but sink
‘Neath the waves and o’er the brink.

Lord, I cannot see
What Your will would have of me.
Let me cry, lest I should fall
Thy Word be my all in all.

Lord, please clear mine eyes
Balance all, and let me prize
In my heart Thy Word aright
That I may safe come through this fight.

Lord, now help me fight
Long as I stand within Your light.
Yet when clouds shall cover me
Let not my thoughts stray far from Thee.

Solid truth shall set me free
Bring safe to harbor, near to Thee
Let not me trust my darkened sight
Be thou, my Lord, my perfect light.

This event got me to thinking about the nature of creativity. I would hesitate to use the word “inspired”, because that implies a lot of other things. But this was one of the stranger experiences I’ve had with creativity…usually, I spend some time over a poem, constructing each verse and rhyme–rarely does anything of length come to me fully– (or mostly-) formed. Yet all our creativity stems from God, subcreationally, so should we be surprised when He takes different paths with it?

Note: I don’t have a tune for this, and so if anyone’d like to tackle it, shoot me a message! I did notice while I was writing this post that it fits fairly well with the traditional Celtic tune arranged by the Scottish band Runrig for “One Thing” on their The Stamping Grou

Last week one of my classmates introduced us to a most interesting song by Irish band Guggenheim Grotto, Philosophia.

When we’re young we set our hearts upon some beautiful idea
Maybe something from a holy book or French philosophia
Upon the thoughts of better men than us we swear by and decree a
Perfect way to end the war of ways the only way to be a…

Work of art, oh to be a work of art

But in time a thought comes tugging on the sleeve edge of our minds
Perhaps no perfect way exists at all, just many different kinds
Oh but if it’s just a thing of taste then everything unwinds
For without an absolute how can the absolute define…

A work of art, oh to be a work of art

The end of the second verse is excellent…it refutes the central tenet of post-modern relativism in only two rhyming lines! If you deny absolutism (the existence of an absolute truth, virtue, or moral standard) than you self-refute your assertion–how can a statement (the absence of universal truth) then be universal? The video is also quite significant–it’s not just random images or eye candy–the director and DP were very aware of the meaning of the song.

You can find Philosophia on iTunes or on Amazon MP3 here.

…without the absolute how can the absolute define…
John Calvin Young