This World
My mind says “tamp it down!”
“Drown it out!”
This world is too much!
Its beauty and its bleakness assault my soul
And I cannot bear it
I can neither live nor die as I am
I must become more or less
I must cease to be or have more of what is
And so, in this life
This oh so Human
Being
I have sought death of mind and soul
I have sought to quell and to quench
And even in these dark paths
I have found beauty
I have found that there is light
I do not know why
But I do know
In suffering and joy
In affliction, apprehension, and anguish
In amusement, animation, and alleviation
We come to know
Good is what my heart desires
Love is all that matters in the end
And in the beginning
In its absence or its presence
We come to know the meaning of life
For, I cannot gratify my spirit
If my flesh controls me
What will I seek?
The Kingdom
Or the barrens of this world?
The eternal and the temporal are held out before us
And before us is the question
“But who do you say that I am?”
Drink and drug and sensual gratifications
Torrents of temptations
All these have spent my soul
And now I must answer
“What shall I store up if I have spent all I have?”
If I have only sought to buy
To possess and to consume
I will find that I have none to give
If I only seek to myself to live
There will be no Life to be had
Deliverance from this life by way of living
Unshackled from the fear of death through dying
Here the wisdom of God meets man
Hear, the wisdom of God meets man
