If there’s one thing that brings people together, it’s difficult circumstances. There’s a quote by BEN PEARSON (see EDIT) about Rich Mullins. I can’t locate it right now, but it’s in the foreword of one of his books, I believe. He said, “Rich knows the secret handshake of the broken.” It’s not a good club to be in, but if you’re in it, I sort of feel like I don’t have to explain this song.
Feel like a bird tied to a tether
Not quite how it’s meant to be
I’m looking around at all these feathers
That I don’t even need
In a word, this song is about hope. About the time I wrote this song, I remember my friend Matt saying, “Hope floats.” I asked him what he meant by that. “When everything is going down, we grab onto that thing that feels like it’s keeping us up and we hold on for dear life,” he told me. All it takes is one little blink of light and you think, “Could that be the light at the end of this tunnel? Is that the sound of a rescue boat I’ve been waiting on this deserted island so long to hear?” It’s the thing that gives you courage to finally get back up and sit in the saddle again after a painful ejection.
Don’t take away this harness yet
And I think I might still need this net and
Let me know if you’ve got some hope to spare
So, to most people, almost flying probably sounds like failure. To me, it represents possibility and hope.
I’m in China right now, but I have several friends all over the world who have been working on remixes of this song. You can visit my myspace page to listen to some of my faves. There are at least 3-4 excellent versions on the REMIX ME page and one more is still in process that I really like too.
EDIT: I just wanted to make a correction here. The quote was not by Brennen, but in fact, his photographer for The Raggamuffin Gospel, Ben Pearson. Ben wrote the 2nd Foreword for this book. I knew I read it in that book, but couldn’t find it last week when I wrote this post. Anyway, I’d like to post just an excerpt here of where the quote comes from, simply because it has meant a lot to me over these last 4 years and I’ve referred to it more than a dozen times. And to Ben, my apologies and sincere thanks for the way you put this. Your art is remarkable. Thank you.
… In these two photographs, Brennen Manning and Rich Mullins are sitting outside on the steps. Outside seems to be an appropriate place for them. Outside you can breathe. It’s not that being inside is necessarily bad; it’s just that it’s easier to hide there. Society as a whole has become expert at concealment–a word that doesn’t seem to be a part of Brennen or Rich’s vocabulary. These two have a certain bond–a brotherhood of the transparent. They know, all too well, the secret handshake of the broken and so embrace that much more fully the arms of grace extended.…
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