Phil Keaggy did a concert tonight for Word of Life’s 25th anniversary celebration. We’ve had Casey Treat, Reinhard Bohnnke, and Brian Houston three nights in a row. It’s been awesome beyond words.
Keaggy did a song I used to know but hadn’t thought of in years. It’s a CS Lewis poem set to music, and totally beautiful, brutally honest.
AS THE RUINS FALL
by C. S. Lewis
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends merely to serve my turn.
Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love—a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything You are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless You as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.
Lord, I give myself to you again. Take me, mold me, break me. Be the potter, and I’ll be the clay. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Amen and amen.