Dorothy Ann Soper
When you are little and you cry out in the darkness...it is soothing for the torchlight to come through the door you know it is a loved one...that is how soothing it is many times over for Jesus light to shine through our darkness in our lives. I pray for those lost at present without, it seems, a future.
Matthew 5:14, 5:16.
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NOTES on 'The Man God Chose':
A song that is my setting of Isaiah 52: 14-53, a passage that is sometimes called the ‘song of the suffering servant’. For Holy Week and Good Friday.
The song's origins lie in my long friendship with Fr. Ted Kennedy. I first met Ted when I was a student and he was chaplain at Sydney University. He encouraged me to write my first folk-hymns, including 'Fill My House' , 'The Beatitudes' and ‘Born Anew’. Ted later moved to St. Vincent de Paul Parish, Redfern, an inner suburb of Sydney. There, he became a great friend and fierce advocate for the many Aboriginal people who lived in that area and who always felt welcome at St. Vincent's. Ted was at Redfern from 1971 until a couple of years before his death in 2005.
Eighteen years after ‘Fill My House’ was written, it was Ted and the Redfern community who inspired me to write 'The Man God Chose' - one of twelve songs, recorded and published in 1984 as 'Turn It All Around' (Songs for Peace and Justice). But the recording heard in the song-post is a later version by me and the 'Crossover' group, recorded in-concert’ at St. John's Hall, Dapto (near Wollongong NSW). The applause has been edited out. Listen for some marvelous playing on electric violin by Lindsay Martin.
The original recording of The Man God Chose is one of 12 songs on the 'Turn It All Around' Custom-CD. See resources section below.
P.K.
lyrics
THE MAN GOOD CHOSE
We can hardly believe what has happened,
Hardly believe if we try -
The wonderful man God has chosen
He was here in our midst all the time.
He grew up in a place with no promise
Like a tree taking root in dry ground,
He walked the streets of our city
And he came from the wrong side of town.
CHORUS:
And we didn't think that kind of man
Would be at the heart of God's plan -
A lowly loser in ragged clothes,
The man God chose.
Nothing was special about him,
No beauty attracting our eyes-
We crossed the road if we saw him,
He was someone we despised.
And that man was so burdened by sorrow
And he was so far gone in his pain
We thought he was someone punished,
Struck by God and marked like Cain. CHORUS
And by force of the law he was taken
And nobody pleaded his cause;
We saw he was harshly treated
But we carried on without pause.
Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter
He went, never saying a word.
He was torn from the land of the living
But no complaint was heard. CHORUS
Oh weep for the man we have wounded,
And weep for the one we have killed;
This man whom we showed no mercy
The mercy of God has revealed.
Yes, something deep down has happened -
He was emptied and we are filled.
Life has come through his dying
And by his wounds we are healed.
FINAL CHORUSES:
And we didn't think that kind of man
Would be at the heart of God's plan -
A lowly loser in ragged clothes,
The man God chose.
Oh we didn't think that kind of man
Would be at the heart of God's plan.
He was just a lowly loser in ragged clothes -
The man God chose.
Words and music by Peter Kearney
Based on Isaiah 52: 12, 14-53
THE RECORDING:
Recorded in concert at St. John's Hall, Dapto. Nov 22, 1990.
KENNY MILLER (recording engineer).
Mixed at Abergeldio Studio, Mittagong.
PETER KEARNEY (vocals, guitar)
with the group CROSSOVER:
HELEN ARCHER (vocals & percussion)
MAX BURGESS (electric double bass).
LINDSAY MARTIN (electric violin)
CLAIRE PARKHILL (vocals & recorder)
Peter Kearney is an Australian songwriter and singer. His early folk-hymns 'Fill My House' & 'The Beatitudes' are
internationally known. He has written many other songs of justice and peace, songs for children, and a musical-narrative on St. Francis of Assisi. His published recordings include 153 original songs.
LINKS BELOW are for Peter's:
- Website
- Online store
- Facebook Artist Page....more
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