A Song for the Ages

Music is an integral part every time I hit the gym. If there isn't a class to go for and I had left my player at home, I would simply not go.

So it is only appropriate that I choose one song as my anthem for my walk. For after all, isn't an anthem a song, as of praise, devotion, or patriotism?

49 hours to go before I leave these lands and head off into a country where I do not speak the language (right now, I am still working on my hola! and I am not getting anywhere closer than when I started!), where the weather forecast is shouting one of an Irish summer (rain, rain and more rain) and where I will be in the great outdoors all.the.time.!

Yet, I am not afraid. Or rather - no longer afraid. And I knew it when the word anthem came to mind this morning and the prayer of St Francis Assisi jumped right at me. Which is funny cos this hymn which I grew up singing, never meant very much until recent months.

And so my piece of sacred vocal music, usually with words taken from the Scriptures, shall be the very same sung by Susan Boyle. 

With God's grace, I shall be everything the hymn says as I make my way, one step at a time, one foot ahead of the other.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.