Song 1: Who Holds Tomorrow
From Emptiness · Suffering · Longing, Volume 1: Suffering
The year I turned six, my father didn't come home;
I bowed to idols, had my fortune told, wanting something to hold;
fifty years later, on an afternoon,
I couldn't sign my own name.
Why me? I asked it too, like anyone would;
but all of us must die once; no one is exempt for good;
so I turned it round: why not me?
Lord, what will You do here, through me?
I know that You are showing something,
but I don't know what it is;
the hidden things belong to You,
the things revealed are mine to live.
Why me? I asked it too, like anyone would;
but all of us must die once; no one is exempt for good;
so I turned it round: why not me?
Lord, what will You do here, through me?
Though I sit in darkness, You are my light;
I don't know tomorrow, but I know who holds tomorrow.
Song 2: Not a Hole I Dug
From Emptiness · Suffering · Longing, Volume 2: Emptiness
A single B, and I began to climb,
grades and ranks and honors, one thing at a time;
I'd cover it and breathe again,
then the breath would fade, and I'd reach again.
This empty place is not a hole I dug;
He set eternity within the human heart;
good is not enough; what sustains me can't say who I am;
nothing under the sun can fill this part.
A fortune-teller's word, a Taoist charm,
five times through the Bible, worn as armor on my arm;
I changed the things a hundred ways,
but never changed the reaching all my days.
This empty place is not a hole I dug;
He set eternity within the human heart;
good is not enough; what sustains me can't say who I am;
nothing under the sun can fill this part.
Faith is setting down your weight
before you've seen, and choosing still to wait.
Song 3: The Empty Chair
From Emptiness · Suffering · Longing, Volume 3: Longing
That week we sat and really talked;
I told him he had reached the goals he'd set;
it was a good talk, and I'm grateful yet;
I didn't know it was the last.
That chair is empty, and it's not your fault;
the holding-on needs no one's leave at all;
knowing you will lose, still let them in,
but never ask them to fill the place within.
The ache I carried from the age of six
is fifty-seven years and still is here;
when it hurts less, he grows lighter too:
two ends of one thing; I can't keep only one.
He too stood weeping at a grave;
love is not the absence of fear; it loves through it.
That chair is empty, and it's not your fault;
the holding-on needs no one's leave at all;
knowing you will lose, still let them in,
but never ask them to fill the place within.
Before that empty chair,
may you still dare to love again.
Song 4: The Same Questions
From The Ultimate Questions
What is real? And who am I?
Why is there suffering? Can a person change inside?
And after death? Seven responses,
seven roads from seven starting lines.
Our responses are not the same,
yet the questions that we ask are one;
can a finite life be joined
to something real and larger than our own?
Some plant a tree for children they will never meet;
some give their blood to strangers on the street;
some keep a promise to the long-departed dead;
not one of the seven calls it foolish, as they said.
Here I state my own response:
I stand with the Apostle Paul;
the One who knows me died and rose;
He lives today, the larger truth I'm joined to, after all.
Our responses are not the same,
yet the questions that we ask are one;
can a finite life be joined
to something real and larger than our own?
What we share is not one response,
but that we asked the same questions.
Song 5: So Who Do You Say You Are?
From Six Questions: How Seven Traditions Respond
A body that will wear away, the things I've done,
the ones still by my side: which of these is me?
Money and work, my health, the ones I love:
they sustain me, but can't tell me who I am.
Jesus asked, "Who do you say I am?"
Now I turn that question round to you;
you needn't have it all worked out to ask:
so who do you say you are?
One afternoon I couldn't sign my name;
one by one the illness took the rest away;
when everything is taken,
who is the one who stays?
My response is written after my name:
an adopted son in Jesus Christ;
because He died and rose on the third day,
I've set my weight on Him.
Jesus asked, "Who do you say I am?"
Now I turn that question round to you;
you needn't have it all worked out to ask:
so who do you say you are?
You can listen, then choose your own way;
the asking needs no license.