Sharing a bicycle song yesterday made me think of an old one.  The first verse of it I composed on my bicycle over twenty years ago.  It seemed to me then to express an important feeling – about yearning toward Spirit and trying to figure out how to move with that yearning in the day to day world.  I felt the second verse should offer some kind of insight into the question the first verse stated.  I tried for years to find it, but couldn’t.  Then in December 2004, I found the words to complete it.  I wrote it for and to my sister, since we were gaining great spiritual insight on our bicycle rides together.

I felt, at that time, that my growth in understanding had given me the insight I needed to finish the song.  I remember thinking, I didn’t know this then, but I know now.  Funny, I still find myself saying that.  I guess it’s a function of infinite Spirit that it unfolds ever fresh, so that I’m always thinking that I have finally found the secret, and there’s always more.

I don’t want to just preach to the choir

There’s got to be something here sweeter and higher

Something’s got to ignite with this new fire

Before the sparks expire

It’s a long way down

And it’s easy, though unbroken

To fade to ineffectual

Before the truth is spoken

And the thing I need to give

And the thing I must receive

Will hold what it means to live

And to believe

Well life tumbles its lessons but the words are terse

And those bursts of insight somehow seem to disperse

And here I am waiting for the second verse

To go deeper than the first

If it’s heaven now

Then your life can be my mirror

The crystal singing sound of it

Will ring me ever clearer

For the light I see in you

Will show forth what is my own

So while whole, unique and sovereign

We will not be alone . . . 

I don’t need to just preach to the choir

For the yearning is of universal desire

Like sparks we go flying up higher and higher

And our fireworks inspire.