Rising love

Big Log
by Robert Plant
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My love is in league with the freeway
Its passion will rise as the cities fly by
And the tail lights dissolve in the coming of night
And the questions and thousands take flight

My love is miles in awaiting
The eyes that just stare and the glance at the clock
In the secret that burns and the pain that won't stop
And it's fueled with the years

Leading me on
Leading me down the road
Driving me on
Driving me down the road

My love is exceeding, and women
Red eyed and fevered with the hum of the miles
Distance and longing and my thoughts do collide
Should I rest for a while and decide

Your love is cradled in knowing
Eyes in the mirror still expecting their prey
Sensing too well when the journey is done
There is no turning back, No
There is no turning back, On the run

Rising love. Robert Plant sings about something that apparently he knows well. He calls his love like a free way, a flowing wonder, "leading me on, driving me on, down the road." He recalls distance and the miles, longing, indecision "should I rest for a while and decide?"

These few words are contrasted with the statement that "your love is cradled in knowing..." When I hear this song, it seems hopeful to me. And finally the lyrics speak to a surrender, a free giving: "There is no turning back. Love on the run." Paradoxically it's spoken with an equal sense of melancholy.
And last of all, I came across a website with quotes and inspirations of a diverse authorship. Its title is the Rising Sun. Check it out. Do read through it. You will be delighted and pleased by the many thoughts presented.
There is a thought included there: "Every loving thought we think is a key." --Author unknown

Complete in Every Moment

Unless we accept responsibility for our life, we will always resist change.  ~Unknown author

Prayer of St. Francis

sung by Sinead O'Connor

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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
where there is injury, pardon

where there is doubt, faith
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy

O Divine Master, grant

that I may not so much seek to be 
consoled as to console

to be understood as to understand

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive

for it is in pardoning that we are pardoned

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

Patience is a special kind of love. When we are patient with our self or others, we experience the sense that we are all "works in progress," that in each and every moment we are whole and complete.
This is the great paradox, because in the wider view, we are often aware of our longings and strivings and we feel unfinished, like a song.
It takes both persistence and practice to learn to play the music to sing a song. Persisting in the moment does lead to a stronger sense of accomplishment when the time comes that we both play the music and sing.

Crazy, Some Would Say

Ordinary Day
by Duran Duran
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Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV and the radio
still I can't escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all? Crazy, some would say
Where is the life that I recognize? gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday, there's an ordinary world Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world I will learn to survive
 

Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say

Pride will tear us both apart Well now pride's gone out the window
cross the rooftops run away left me in the vacuum of my heart

What is happening to me? Crazy, some would say
Where is my friend when I need you most? Gone away...

Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and greed
here today, forgot tomorrow

ooh, here besides the news of holy war and holy need
ours is just a little sorrowed talk...

And I don't cry... and as I try to make my way
to the ordinary world I will learn to survive

every one is my world,
I will learn to survive

any one is my world,
I will learn to survive

every one is my world

The lyrics about 'Ordinary Life' caught my attention since I first heard them in early January. Over and over they played in my head, went through my brain; I had not heard the song in years, and suddenly, there it was, causing me to meditate upon the meaning of lyrics like, "pride will tear us both apart."
Well, aren't we to love our self...as others? What's wrong with a measure of pride? What is it anyway? Why would anyone write a song lyric like that? "I will learn to survive in the ordinary world... Crazy, some would say... Where's my friend when I need you most?" Is it about illness, about survival? There seems to be something there, something that the music in its art wishes to convey.
It asks several questions such as, are we bodies, or just spirits--ghosts? When we live 'in the ordinary world,' do we aspire to separate from our body, this 'bio-container'? It talks of passion, suffering, greed and holy war; it's some pretty intense stuff. It concludes with the final refrain that 'everyone is in my world.' As I ponder this tune for the past month or so, I came upon the prophet Amos. Surprisingly he says some of the same or similar things:

"You would put off the evil day, yet you hasten the reign of violence!"Amos 6. 

Because people do not have what they most desire and need; they are restless, even violent, like the modern people of the Middle East this moment, they revolt with violence.They want to do something, to be something.

You notables of the leading nation

 On whom the House of Israel pin their hopes...
They lie on ivory beds,

Lolling on their couches,
Feasting on lambs from the flock
And on calves from the stalls.
They hum snatches of song to the tune of the lute--
They account themselves musicians like David.   Amos Chapter 6:
 

 Pride is unlike the injunction to 'love your neighbor as yourself' for one very simple and important reason: pride is unconcerned with others; it excludes recognition of neighbor. In Amos, the overindulgence, the self centeredness that is pride, typifies the materialists, of whom the prophet Amos decries.So then the rich man in the story, or oracle of Lazarus suffers not only because of his greed, but his intense pride. Amos takes direct aim at those who while materially rich, are in spiritual poverty or destitution. They are starving.

Pride said Saint Thomas Aquinas, indicates a contempt for the Creator, the Lord, God of Hosts. In fact every transgression may boil down to just this one thing, pride. Pride being self absorbed is self limiting; it consumes itself until nothing is left. And yet we also learn paradoxically in the Beatitudes that the blessed 'are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom heaven is theirs.'