Birthday Contemplation

A life of fifty-two weeks another year
A deck of cards including the jokers too
I will contemplate truth and what makes it true
On this New Year's Eve as I count fifty-two
Years a deck of cards the game which keeps me here:

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To tell the truth come what may
That a truer world might be
I embrace the ones before
We came who went before us
To dance on a different day
I thank them that they tried for
And lived for as they died for
Life discovered and love shared
Love lived life loved intensely
As pure possibility

As the ones before prepared
Life is love which we can see
Love which we cannot still more
In which life and love agree
To embrace the ones who dared
Who by this grace restore us
To embrace the ones before
Who dared to come before us
And remember what they cared
For as possibility

Even through their darkest doubt
Even doubt as dark as now
It was worth caring about
And still is somewhere somehow
Ancient wings renewed shake free
Unfold new reality
I embrace the ones before
Who danced on a different day
Who died for what they lived for
To tell the truth come what may

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+Steven Curtis Lance



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