When I Feel Despair
When I feel despair
I remember that truth and love
Have always won.
Lyrics based on a quote by Ghandi. Adapted and set to music by Bret Hesla
©2010 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please.
Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.
The song works well in a contemplative service, evening service, interspersed with prayers or readings, alternate singing and humming, etc. Including a Good Friday setting. It also has easy SATB for folks to jump in on.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” Mahatma Gandhi
Also this quote from Howard Zinn:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Thanks to Zach Busch for the wonderful piano score!