and even though we’re talking late into the night
and parts of me feel mostly dead
you are keeping me alive
age is not the passing or a measure of what’s past
just keeping score of all we’ve given up
my loveyou saved my life tonight
you did it twice before you noticed
i was drowning in the dark
i was drowning in the dark
Beyond that, you’ll have to be patient with me.
I’m writing eulogies of a life I wasn’t finished with yet.
Thanks to Madonna and Vanity Fair, May 2008.
“Ultimately everything’s good,” she told me. “Even bad is good, because bad is there to help you resist it. You need to have that resistance to be good, and, let’s face it, the worst things that happen are always the best things that happen. If you look back at your life and say, Well, what did you learn? What happened that changed your life, that made you strong, that made you grow, it’s always things you perceived as bad. So is there bad?”
“You have to get to a point where you care as little about getting smoke blown up your ass as you do when you become a whipping boy in the press, because ultimately they both add up to shit. You just have to keep doing your work, and hope and pray somebody’s dialing into your frequency. If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you’re always going to be disappointed.”
Audience Of One
My favourite song of Bruce’s whole album and the 2nd single to be released is Long Lost Friend. It’s a song of hope & loss. The clip above is just pleasurable. I’m listening to this track and most of the CD on repeat with single malt and crying a lot.
My friend Simon Moore was laying tracks (guitars) for this long awaited album over Easter weekend 2006. It was the first Easter Si wasn’t at for a number of years. We had written the Sola series in the week prior and Si was emailing updated scripts for me to shoot at camp from the studio. Later, we were to name our company after that weekend’s pivotal output (Sola Fida – the first of Luther’s creeds).
It seems that this weekend, as the news is starting to penetrate amongst friends, colleagues and my family of easter crew… this song takes me back to beginnings and ends and is so appropriate.
This week I accepted the news that I will no longer be working on Eastercamp.
It’s a hard goodbye, too fast and too soon. But God is present in it. In the weeks to come I’m going to endeavour to chronicle the time as a way of saying goodbye and honouring all that God has done and that I’ve been privileged to be part of.
In the meantime – if you have a special Eastercamp story – I’d love you to send them to me, even with a photo or two. I’m going to collect as many stories from 1999 – 2008 as I can to remember this season that’s been so important and beautiful in my life. Feel free to pass this around as many people as you know who have been part of or impacted by Eastercamp in some way during my involvement.. I’d appreciate the help. Email to tash at solafida dot co dot nz.
Song Of The Moment : Long Lost Friend
by Bruce Conlon
goodbye my long lost friend
i’m glad to see there’s no bitter end
cos it’s a long time we spent in our lives
and now it’s time to go
i won’t see you tonight
cos now it’s time we must say goodbye
cos it’s a long long time
til we can say i’ll see you again someday
no need to make amends
i’m glad we parted the best of friends
cos it’s a long time we spent in our lives
and now it’s time to go
i won’t see you tonight
cos now it’s time we must say goodbye
cos it’s a long long time
til we can say i’ll see you again someday
stay with me tonight
and all these memories inside you
stay with me
i want you to stay with me
cos i won’t see you tonight
cos now it’s time we must say goodbye
cos it’s a long long time
til we can say I’ll see you again someday
A Collection Of Stanzas
1.
i want to cry forever
until my tears are dry
i want to cry forever
until i’m washed away
i want to cry forever
until my skin is pale
through and through
til there is nothing of me
2.
how precious is grief
like a numb and sting
all at once and over again
how quiet is the pain
though my heart is loud inside my skin
my words fall into silence
and i hold on fast to them
3.
i don’t need you to argue for me tonight
not with me, yourself or any other ghosts
oh let angry words put down their curses
and weapons aim their sights away
let rain wash all things clean again
oh what other good is there for a storm tonight?
4.
have mercy with your words tonight
in your arms tonight
for the sake of our love and my hurt tonight
don’t break me, have mercy tonight
i break and i boil and live a little
where you are even when you’re far
5.
love has a way through valleys and rises
there must be a way of peace through all of this
for all i’ve done wrong
all that’s pulled apart
all injustice decried
if you’re torn all to pieces
i can mend a broken heart