A new friend here (Banks Clark) introduced me to The Wailin’ Jennys this week. I love them. I think I stopped traffic yesterday skip-hopping and twirling along the sidewalk while I listened to them through earphones (there was a very slow car that got honked at, though possibly they were also just looking for a house number).
This is one of their sad songs, which I think is a beautiful prayer because it is genuinely faithful — it is from the place before an answer, the place where the longing is all we can touch. I find this sort of song helps me live because it does not make me feel crazy in the places when the whole world feels like broken edges that can’t possibly fit back together.
Of which there are so many.
[The title of a song is a link to the mp3; click to listen.]
take me home
And my body bears this trouble
take me home
Take me back to my beginning
Before the hell of night set in
And I came to this border
take me home
I have toured the endless starlight
take me home
I have shattered under midnight
take me home
There are no vultures in this clearing
Except the ones who brought me here
And I’ll no longer feed them
take me home
Kingdom come, their will was done
And now the earth is far away
from any kind of heaven
Hallowed be these frozen fields
And every single one of us
still left in want of mercy
Take us home
Now the bells stand still and hollow
take me home
And no one has come to mourn me
take me home
Find me where I close my eyes
Beneath this sky of powerlines
And let me see us clearly
take me home
Kingdom come, their will was done
And now the earth is far away
from any kind of heaven
Hallowed be these frozen fields
And every single one of us
Still left in want of mercy
Take us home…