Made Straight - Propaganda, Audrey Assad

So self-sufficiency dies hard, right?

But when rightfully humbled, God shows up in burning bushes

May we step into the fray like «I got something to say»

May we hold no armies, no weapons, no ceremonial authority

Just a walking stick of an old-timer and not an ounce of fear

May we have a faith birthed out of a revelation of promise

A reflex caused by what you know to be true of God

Life is not a comic book

There are no perfect victims or villains, just us

We are smog-laced oxygen tanks tossed to capsize murderers

Resting on his power of deliverance and the integrity to accomplish it

May I stand in the belly of what Babylon is biting

In the vein of the best metaphor of what love exists for

May my legacy be permanently associated with those hated

An exodus from Exodus with zero concern for what Pharaoh thinks

May we be crooked champions

And we are not those without hope or hoping in hope alone

Resurrection shows that this land is not our home

We are sojourners living out what a past action bought us

With the knowledge that we have yet to see the fullness of what it got us

All of creation groaning, labor aches and pains

Like the crushing of a planet’s moon could make Saturn’s rings

My crooked soul covered in blood stains

Blessing is a perspective, the ironic gift of cancer

If I could bottle the feeling where every morning’s a blessing

'Cause every breath could be your last one man, that’s the answer

Be patient with one another, be gracious 'cause our time is short

Remember you too were once in darkness 'fore he brought forth

Christ the hope of glory sealed our eternity

Purchased permanently, by only Him worthy

But my mouth has yet to catch up with what my heart knows

And my heart is still lightyears behind my library, it’s scary

There’s no plaques on my wall

'Cept the influence I had on those with plaques on they wall

It could leave a man salty like «when it finna be my turn?»

And a lower me is leaning towards an attitude beneath me

And I am just like them, a systemic participant

Longing for escape and hoping in salvation

Yeah, hoping in salvation

Waiting for the day He make the crooked way straight

We march on a crooked road

And we raise our eyes

And we raise our eyes

Justice is going to roll

Like a river wide

Like a river wide

Glorious state of our soul’s gentrification

But the purchaser ain’t put us out, he paid all our mortgages

And repaved the streets and found homes for the orphans

Once under the thumb of an unbearable slum lord

Dumb son of a gun said rescue could never come lord

And we all believed him and took matters into our own hands

And made a filthy mess of our own homelands

And crimes of survival, they were proof of a flawed system

And we only got ourselves to blame, our cheating little hearts

But the hope of trans-cultural love and acceptance

That erased racism and sexism, the blessed

Day we don’t look down on the poor like we ain’t like them

And they not us and gender ain’t fodder for suicide among us

The already but not yet, so we look for it with joy and anticipation

For when the time keeper comes soon and make the crooked way straight

We march on a crooked road

And we raise our eyes

And we raise our eyes

Justice is going to roll

Like a river wide

Like a river wide

I’m really starting to enjoy my alone time as I’m getting older

I’ve started to notice I’m becoming more introverted

Tryna declutter

Finding I don’t need a lot of stimulus to get me over

And you can turn the track down

I like it when the level’s even in my head

Sometimes I find the volume is peaking in my brain

Stays in the red and it’s not sustainable

Help me to remember peace of mind

Despite what would be happening

And hold on to the quiet

Remember the quiet

Help me remember the quiet

Remember the quiet