If you enjoy the abundance of God’s encompassing love and have an appetite for wonder and reverence about the nature of the human person, we, the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, invite you to savour Carolyn Arend’s ‘I Am A Soul’ this Thanksgiving season.
Invitation: see Carolyn ‘live’ at Cup O Joy, Green Bay, WI on December 5, 2009.
Carolyn and Arlan Feiles’ ‘I Wonder’ unite this month on Franciscanized World to provide a menu of timely thoughtfulness. You’ll want to listen to both artists.
Carolyn’s Notes on I AM A SOUL
My duo partner Spencer and I were sandwiched into a window and middle seat on a flight across Canada. In the coveted aisle seat was a man heartily enjoying a book by one of the “New Atheists” – I can’t remember if it was by Dawkins or maybe Hitchens. (Let’s call it “Ditchkins”.)
Spencer is never one to turn down a good conversation so he started chatting this fellow up. It turned out he was a thoughtful professor of something or another who was convinced that no case could be made for any existence beyond this material world. Pretty soon all three of us were in a lively discussion about synapses and neurons and whether there was any reality beyond that which can be built from molecules.
I found myself stymied. How does one argue for Transcendence without just sort of mumbling about beauty and art and hunches and instincts?
You know how, when you lose an argument, a thought comes into your head an hour or a day later and you think THAT’S what I should have said? “I Am a Soul” is what I should have said. I wrote it a few days after the airplane conversation, and if I can ever track that professor down, I’ll thank him for the inspiration!
Biography
Carolyn Arends is releasing her 10th album and is the author of 2 critically-acclaimed books. 15 of Arends’ songs have become top 10 radio singles on the Canadian pop and US Christian charts. Arends has earned 2 Dove Awards, 3 Juno Nominations, and was recognized as the West Coast Music Awards’ Songwriter of the Year.
Carolyn’s newest project, Love Was Here First, features 10 new Carolyn originals and a reinterpretation of the classic gospel tune “Standing in the Need of Prayer.” New musical twists like vocals from the 3-man gospel group The Sojourners and a crackling horn section surprise and delight, but what’s really on display here is the lyrical prowess of a master songwriter passionate about her subject–the encompassing love of God.
Website: http://carolynarends.com
Invitation: See Carolyn ‘live’ at Cup O Joy, Green Bay, WI on December 5, 2009.
I Am A Soul Lyrics
Molecules and atoms, just like Eve and Adam
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Even still I wonder – when we are six feet under
Will that truly be the end of us
‘Cause why beauty, why poetry
Why “no! no! no!” to every tragedy
Why laughter, why lullabies
And why this asking why
I have a body, but I am a soul
I see a fraction, it’s not the whole
I cannot prove it, but still I know
I have a body … I am a soul
A sculpture or a canvas can speak a private language
Telling secrets hidden in the heart
About a world of spirit – I swear sometimes I hear it
Playing like a piper in the dark
It’s in love songs, in symphonies
In funeral marches and in liturgies
It’s in whispers, in rally cries
In dreams that won’t say die
You have a body but you are a soul
You see a fraction, it’s not the whole
I cannot prove it, but still I know
You have a body … you are a soul
World without end, amen
Chorus
© 2009 Running Arends Music/ASCAP
Phil Robertson: drums
Adrian Walther: bass
Roy Salmond: electric guitar, organ, keybords, tambourine, backing vocals
Spencer Capier: electric and archtop guitars
Carolyn Arends: acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Word Without End: The Not Bad Singers
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