Rick Hill: Music

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This song is about the characteristic in Ron Clark's book "The Excellent 11" called compassion. 

I read Matthew Fox's book "A Spirituality Called Compassion" and thought what he said really made sense.  Compassion needs to be more than simply feeling sorry for someone or tossing some money at a proble.  If we really want to help, we have to involve ourselves with the one's we are helping.  This does not mean that we leave behind who we are and become one of them.  It means, instead, that we utilize the resources we have to be helpful but also take a look at what consequences our own actions have on the situation.  I wanted this song to reflect all of that.  The notion of a bird that is able to fly above tragedies and carry with it others seemed an appropriate image.

Spread your wings

And fly above the mountain tops

Where the sun

breaks through the clouds

Soaring high

Far into the atmosphere

See the world

With holy beauty crowned

 

Carrying upon your back

The troubles of the world

Lift them to a higher plain

And release them to the sun

 

In your beak

Bear again the olive branch

An offering

Of tomorrow’s hope

Let your song

Gently fall to earth

Beck’ning forth

The heart’s own tones

 

Join the choir of heaving sadness

Lifting their mournful song

Add your voice in deep compassion

Til you and they are one

 

Then spread your wings

And lift them o’er the mountaintops

Where the sun

Breaks through the clouds

Soaring high

Far into the atmosphere

Show them the world

With holy beauty crowned

Copyright © 2011 by Richard H. Hill, all rights reserved.