Carry This Memory

Carry this Memory

Rows and rows of tombstones among miles of graves.  There’s millions of stories here among all these names. Every one cherished to someone they knew.  Stories untold to many, unknown to me and you. 

Were they a hero, a fighter, a family man

Were they the type to always lend a helping hand.  Who were these folks now long since past - and who will make their memory last

Who’s going to carry this memory

When the good Lord takes the light from their eyes 

When the things they’ve seen, when all the places they’ve been fade like shadows in the sunrise.  Who’s going to carry this memory.

Some won’t ever be on a statue, They’ll never make the headline news.  It only takes a generation, one or maybe two, for history to forget your name - and move on to something new.  When all the world has moved on, like a ripple under the ocean’s waves - who will care again for the stories, buried in these graves.  

When the engraving becomes distorted - ruined and so frail. The markers get hard to recognize and the weeds grow taller than the tales. A million little stories no one will ever tell…

So who will carry these memories

The bits and pieces of those we loved

Records of a people marked by the pitches an unremarkable life can throw

Who will carry these memories

If a life is more than the sum of it’s parts did these bread crumbs leave a trail through the woods of these years.  Is this life telling the story of bigger things to come - the story of the one who will wipe away the tears…

Who’s going to carry this memory

The only one that really matters 

A savior broken and bleeding and battered 

for me and for you

The victory of a risen king - of conquering death and the grave for eternity

Who will carry this memory 

Fault Lines

Fault Lines

Standing in the garden - resting in the cool of the shade,

It was their choice, it was plain as day

Staring at the fruit, the words echoing in their heads

Whatever was going through their thoughts,

We all know where the actions led,

I can almost hear Adam saying…

I think we’ve crossed a line

Suddenly this fruit we’ve tasted

Doesn’t seem so sweet

Though our eyes have been opened

It’s only death we see.

Can’t say you didn’t warn us

Can’t say you didn’t guide

Yet all the same we chose the lie

If life’s moments read like pictures

I wonder what you’d make of this

When we’ve wandered way beyond the limits 

We say we want to make things better

We say we’re ready to move on

To live like tomorrow’s grander

If we can make it to the dawn

but it isn’t just our thinking,

Or our minds that we have lost…

I think we’ve crossed some line

Somewhere in the sand

Where what once was common sense

now seems hard to understand.

We’ve chosen to bend and crawl

When we had the chance to stand

I think we’ve crossed some line, 

And somehow things got out of hand.

and it doesn’t make a difference, how we wish things could have been.

It doesn’t change our standing, it doesn’t fix things again

It seems we’ve crossed some line

And things can never be the same

We can’t just pack these bags and go back from whence we’ve came

How quickly we’ve lost even the illusion of control

And if it was up to me, I’d step right back across

Hoping foolishly that perhaps no one saw me on the other side

A momentary misjudgment,

After all it wasn’t by much this time

I’d minimize the damage, of the innocence that was lost.

But what’s happened here is not easily undone

What’s done I’m afraid is done.

I think we’ve crossed some line

This giant fault of wayward pride

The hubris of propping up something that’s already dead inside

Whether flesh or bone, it could never have survived.

But for us he crossed a line,

Not just some marker in the sand

a chasm wider than we will ever fully understand

What started in the garden, still haunts this life today

Through tragic ends, love still wins and will be made well one day