Wonderful Peace [Hymn]


Uploaded by Heber Vega

WONDERFUL PEACE
Composed by W. D. Cornell

Intro:
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray,
In fathomless billows of love.

Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial-like strains it unceasingly falls
O’er my soul like an infinite calm.

Chorus:
Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above;
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray,
In fathomless billows of love.

What a treasure I have in this wonderful peace,
Buried deep in the heart of my soul;
So secure that no power can mine it away,
While the years of eternity roll.

Chorus:
Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above;
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray,
In fathomless billows of love.

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance! ..............................................................................................................................


Note From The Gull

Lasting peace on this earth cannot be guaranteed by men's efforts alone but all peacemakers will be blessed.

People are wounded. We are been damaged. Minds, bodies and souls are not at ease. Voices continue to cry out against the wrongs, whether real or imagined, by which they are burdened. For the powerless, violence erupts when it appears that no redress is forthcoming. For the powerful, violence ensures that their weakness will not be discovered. The very few adults who are completely innocent are the only ones who can in all honesty protest. The rest of us, even when we pretend otherwise, have invited retribution and violence because of the direct or indirect parts that we have played in the oppression of others. 

Our homeland is in desperate need of some peace, if only at first a firm promise. It has needed peace for the longest while. The honest among us will admit that our need for peace did not begin under the last administration. No foreign privateer, law-giver, advisor, deus ex machina was ever going to bring it to us. No Ministry of Defence, no attacks on "hotspots", no bands of lawyers, no national security state was going to usher in this peace.

We have been wronged, and often with our complicity. We have hurt each other in the past and we continue to do wrong to each other. Until we address the violence and injustice that is systemic, we are approaching peacemaking with the attitude of a Ministry of War in very much the same way, for example, that Ministries of Health often mistakenly place their focus on the bandaging of disease rather than on the preemptive cultivation of wellness.

Prime Minister Keith Rowley's words are heartening and his apparent sobriety and humility are a balm. Some Trinbagonians, especially those who invested emotionally and otherwise in different outcomes, are bound to withhold their trust at first. Some will view him with understandable trepidation - those who have not forgotten the betrayals of the past, those who are now justifiably leery of glib orators who do not practice what they preach and some of those in the previous government and their supporters who are hurt to their souls by the rejection by the wider community. Regarding the last group, do not make the mistake of underestimating the importance of the role that has fallen to them. Our new Prime Minister has clearly acknowledged that their responsibility is an awesome one and here is how it is also described by Gerald Schmitz, Political and Social Affairs Division  of the Parliament of Canada:

"A situation in which the activity of politics is devalued is inimical to parliamentary democracy. Parliament, after all, is fundamentally about debate – "rhetoric" in the classical Greek sense – and the transacting of the people’s business in public. It is also about the right to dissent in a civilized manner. Genuine political opposition is a necessary attribute of democracy, tolerance, and trust in the ability of citizens to resolve differences by peaceful means. The existence of an opposition, without which politics ceases and administration takes over, is indispensable to the functioning of parliamentary political systems." SOURCE

As I have said elsewhere, all hands are on the same plough. We are all shoulder to shoulder tending the one field that is this nation. Over time, if the actions of the new government, in collaboration with the new Opposition, consistently match our hopes or expectations, the calm that I am sensing this week will put down strong, deep roots and it will spread. We are going to need deep roots to weather what lies ahead.

Trinbagonians are not wired to hate. Despite all the damage that we have endured, from the passages of our ancestors to this place and our experiences in this land, I have seen that love and kindness and their expression come more naturally to us than hatred and violence. Please allow each other to exhale.

We have to ask ourselves if we have been blindly taking upon our shoulders the ugliness, rage and vindictiveness that burden the few. Can we find the courage to pause, to honestly examine what we are being asked to accept, to rescue the tormented by convincing them to take the load off? We have to examine why some of us feel compelled to covet and attempt to possess what is not ours. Are we all aware that we cannot take power or material wealth with us to our final destination? What we do take with us, however, is whatever we sow here in our hearts and in the hearts of those who fall under our influence. Those vibrations will follow us to the ends of creation. What will be our legacy? 

Those who pay attention to what is going on in the wider world know that our problems are not unique but what will be unique, and a marvellous thing to behold, is how we go on now together to bring our unique spirit to the work of restoration, reconciliation, renewal and resurgence.

AHAKUTUWATIWA, ALËLEKATIWA, AKUYAWATIWA!
We awake, we laugh, we return!

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

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