jeremy erickson : to entertain

lyrics

1 - Way Things Go

Saul was small in his own eyes

When Yahweh made Him king

Samuel loved him and wished for him

To succeed in everything

From The smallest tribe of Benjamin

And that the smallest clan

He tried to hide in baggage

But Saul was too big a man

That’s just the way things go

A king he came to be

Although the people knew quite well

That a man as king of Jacob

Was the fault of Israel

God was still Jehovah

Samuel still the priest

Saul the king forgetting

That to lead was still the least

That’s just the way things go

Some things you argue

Some things you don’t

That’s just the way things go

A power only in so much

As he would choose to be

Obedient to the word of God

And in that freedom free

To lead God’s chosen people

Defeat the Philistines

But bowing to the people

He became the enemy

That’s just the way things go

God, He writes the story

As we move to and fro

What’ll last will be His Glory

And He wants us to know

That’s just the way things go

Samuel still loved Saul

And grieved the path he trod

Saul loved Samuel

Still he loved his kingdom more than God

Sacrifice and fanfare

Is what Saul sought to give

While God was seeking honor

In the kingdom life he lived

That’s just the way things go

2 - Philosophia

You sing your songs about the water

I listen to you while I’m drowning

You keep talking about the water

But never notice that I’m drowning

Philosophia,

If you could love me just like I loved you

Philosophia,

I wouldn’t have to spend my time with you

I listen to your propagations

And all the questions here inside me

Impressing my imagination

Would someone save me from this tragedy

Philosophia,

if you could love me just like I loved you

Philosophia,

I wouldn’t have to spend my time with you

You say if I could ditch my expectations

If I could leave them all behind

Then I could ditch my disappointments

And make my way into the sky

But here I am

Here I am

In the water

He comes walking on the water

Right to me where I am drowning

He picks me up out of the water

Where no one could ever so love me.

Philo Christeo,

You love me more than I could ever love

Agape Deo,

I am drawn in, I am drawn in

Philo Christeo,

You love me more than I could ever love

Agape Deo, I am drawn to spend my life with you

I can love you and You can love me

And I can love you because You love me

3 - I Love You More

Dying slowly

Lord you died for me

That I might live

To be like you

To love like you

Lord you found me

Found me needing

More than I could find

Till I found you

Love found me too

And I love you more

Than I loved you then

Yet somehow I’m sure

I’ll love you more when

You open the door

And beckon me in

To be with you Lord

To know you within

Where I’ll love you more

But between now and then

I’ll love you Lord

Lord you bore

The cross for me

You bled for me

That I might rise like you

To shine like you

Lord you love me

Loved me always

Loving me and

Jesus I love you

I love you

4 - God’s Own Glory

Age-old carpet

Shattered tile

Ancient songbook

Sit a while

Sing these words

No one knows

God’s own Glory

So it goes

Another funeral

Another day

Gone to heaven

Passed away

Better there than

Anyway

God’s own Glory

So they say

Bring to life these corpses

Reignite these torches

Risen life that’s true and real

More than just how I feel

Skies of gold and royal blue

Seem to speak much more of you

Reunite the here and there

To bear your image everywhere

Reunite the now and then

To bring your glory

Amen

Need some vision

Eyes to see

God’s own Glory

Right in front of me

Life done rightly

Life lived well

The church become

Emmanuel

So shape our hearts

Change our minds

To keep eternal

Things in time

To find the goodness

You put here

And live your image

Loud and clear

God’s own Glory

So they’ll say

God’s own Glory

So they’ll say

Hallelujah…

5 - Love Goes On

Praying for a baby for the eighth year in a row

Auntie married Marlo over seven Junes ago

Waiting on a promise or a dream to say the least

To bring to life the family she’s wanted since she was three

And your love goes on

The trailer’s on an acre of the greenest grass around

The forest in the backyard is a little boy’s playground

Her nieces and her nephews in trouble or the trees

Would never know the longing that she bears in spite of these

And your love goes on

The sun comes up and we all play again

This quiet game it seems that nobody wins

And your love goes on

Another trip to Mayo for the hundredth time this year

Praying for a baby still but that’s not why they’re here

With cancer in his mind now Marlo holds his wife

And says, thank the Lord for love, love, thank the Lord for life

And your love goes on

The sun comes up and we all play again

This quiet game it seems that nobody wins

And your love goes on

You never rewrite history

You never hide the cross

Suspended like a promise

Above a world where all are lost

Like the waters of a river never dry

Sometimes calm and quiet

Sometimes raging like a storm

This love will be the keeper of my life

I know no other way we can survive

So we’ll keep our eyes on Jesus and keep reaching like the trees

Planted in this heartache digging roots on our knees

Praying from the moment to one not far from here

Where the one who holds forever will himself come draw us near

Where your love goes on

6 - This Beauty

Somewhere south of the other side

On a piece of land that’s brave but small

Leaning hard into the tides of the Pacific

Til the waves look more like waterfalls

The people here could tell you a story

Of a glory lost to modern man

How a land so full of brawn and beauty

Could be raped and left with crippled hands

Why haven’t I noticed, haven’t I

Why haven’t I noticed this beauty

The dirt roads, the dusty roads,

Tonight will lead me home

My legs are ripe and ready to sleep

The sun has kissed me

Like a lover on parade

And my thrills have sown the seeds I reap

And I see the ocean cuddling with the shore

On the beach here that I love the most

The rocks are rolling in the salty massage

And the sand is cool beneath my toes

The sunset gave the best red she had to offer

And the moon rose in the eastern sky

As the colors settled down to the water

My heart rose up to wonder why

I see the palm trees bursting for the sky

Like emerald fireworks on the fourth of July

Is there something new here before my weary eyes

Or have I somehow been made here more alive?

More alive

7 - I Fall Down (I Will Rise)

No I’m not all I said I would be

Seems I’m getting nowhere near

But I can tell you all that I should be

Because the view of that is mighty fine from here

Though I fall down I will rise

Though I fall down, I’m gonna get up

I hear of the boys who climb the mountains

And I can’t even get up off my bed

But would you believe I’m part of a family

Where the living live and the dead they don’t stay dead

You find me laying on the sidewalk

You kick your stones into my face

You give me a plastic bag for a pillow

And say get some sleep

And I say man this ain’t my place

Cause my hero was a Healer

Full of kindness and resolve

I hear you tried to put him down forever

Thinking he was just a problem to be solved

So you nailed him to a tree

Then you bore your fangs at me

But even while you took him to his grave
There was a battle being won
By the very one you thought was done

I’m surprised you never heard him say

You never heard him say

Though I go down I will rise

Though I go down, I’m gonna get up

8 - Face of God

King Manasseh was a builder

He built his kingdom with bones and blood

It’s funny someone didn’t kill him

But in the end he lived his life before the face of God

Somewhere on a playground

In the suburbs of Chicago

Little boys are playing

With their bats and guns

Robbery they say

Will be their ode to trouble

They’d build a kingdom

But they got no where to run

They don’t got no vision

They don’t got no dreams

They don’t got no future

Don’t know what it means

To stand before the face of God

The face of God

Somewhere lost inside

The schools of the city

There’s a little girl

Who’s barely holding on

Daddy’s doing things

That she don’t tell nobody

She’d build a castle

But she’s got no where to run

She don’t measure up

To the models on the TV screen

She don’t qualify for

The cover of a magazine
But she is precious and she’s loved

Before the face of God

Don’t you want to find yourself a home

Somewhere far from all the things you’ve come to know

Don’t you know there’s so much more than this

Before the face of God

God is using the simple to shame the wise

And the weak to shame the strong

If you believe that you might qualify

Then you’re already living

Already standing before the face of God

9 - Far Away and Famous

Fame is for the Maker

Not for mortal man

Who stumble over praises bigger than

The kingdoms they’ve created

The kingdoms given them

By we who long for those who comprehend

What it is we have discovered

What it is we’re looking for

A larger life than the little life we’ve lived

We fill a barren grove with starlight

And the grove is empty still

We need more than what these halls of fame can give

I don’t need another star on my horizon

Not because they shine, but that they’re far

Away from what betrays me

Immune to any scar

That keeps me far from being where you are

How I long to rise to be there where you are

The bane of my existence

Is the hopelessness I find

Where we matter only when we’re on the stage

Are we doing something wrong here

Are we missing something right

I can’t imagine You to be this way

Far away and famous

Throwing words into the wind

A decent way to live but not a life

A face that’s so familiar

Words that seem like friends

But we need more than distant heroes to survive

We amplify the silence

You see beneath the sin

You loved me in the garden

And You’d love me there again

I guess it’s not so complicated

You’re the one forever near me

And though pretension’s got me jaded

You still assure me that you hear me

A song can bend to meet me

Where flesh cannot abide

Writers merely frolic in the fray

But in you I find the writer

And in You I find the song

And I’ve a feeling life was meant to be this way

I’ve a feeling love was meant to be this way

10 - Love Real

Where the night gives birth to the morning

And the birds sing to another day

I will lie beside you

Until you wake

And we’ll rise like the morning

And we’ll sing to another day

And I’ll pray with you

My love, we’ll pray

Make our love grow

Make our love real

With the deepest passion

A divine attraction

That reveals You

In all we do

Make our love real

When our faces lose all their glory
And beauty is not for the eyes

I will feel with you

And beauty will rise

When our love just goes through the motions

And our rhythm has lost all its rhyme

I will stay with you

And our love will shine

11 - Fledge

Legs of mind

Run no more

Let sister feel

Fall to soar

Carry now her

To the ledge

Be legs that fly

Like brother Fledge

Release the ground

From tired feet

And hold the sky

New life to meet

Oh legs of mind

Run no more

Let sister feel

Fall to soar

Where ground lets go

And sky begins

This is to be

Where wandering ends

Be free to fly

Now free to feel

What’s always been

What’s more than real

So tickle clouds

And laugh the moon

And love the land

You’re leaving soon

Oh legs of mind

Run no more

Let sister feel

Fall to soar

Oh legs of mind

Oh heart with wings

Be bound as one

For higher things

Oh legs of mind

Run no more

Let sister feel

Fall to soar

12 - Lonely and Scared

No more playing round in the shadows anymore

The summer sun has beckoned me outside

So I take to walking where the blue sky watches me

I know it knows I am exposed naked

And I feel lonely and scared

So lonely and scared

Will I ever know that sweet intimacy

The kind I only find in movies and dreams

While I’m sleeping I know the love that I have made

Then the morning comes - you disappear the moment that I wake up

Lonely and scared

So lonely and scared

If you knew me like I want you to

Would you love me like you say you do

And if you knew me like you wanted to

Would you love me like I need you to

I’m lonely and scared

So lonely and scared

So like Adam I will find my place to rest

Let God Almighty come and take you from my chest

When the morning comes - the sun is shining softly on my day

I will wake to find you here with me, the love that He has made

Lonely and Scared

No longer lonely and scared

13 - To Entertain

We make these movies

Two hours of macro reality

And how they move me

Till I can’t feel this tragedy

I watched two towers

Filled with family just like mine

Burn up like flowers

And disappear in a moment’s time

It’s funny how I could not feel

Something more

I think I’ve seen it all on HBO before

Please tell me that there’s more

Something to it all

So I can know I cried these tears
For more than critical acclaim

Cause when you take me to my grave

These four stars won’t get me far

I’d rather die here knowing love
Than be alive in all this fame

I refuse to live my life to entertain

To entertain

We’re kings and queens of

All of our own lonely little worlds

Til something grieves us

And we’re all little boys and girls

Little boys and little girls

Please tell me that there’s more

Something to it all

Because you bless me when I sneeze

But then you love your tragedies

So when I cry you’d rather watch than bear this pain

And so the purpose of my life

I guess will be this human sacrifice

Alive and then I die to entertain

Are we alive merely to die

To entertain

Shut down our borders

Now this war has become our own

Straight faced reporters

While my mom cries on the phone

It’s funny how I could not feel

Something more

I fear we might forget what all the crying’s for