Had Henry Scott Holland been born today and opted to be a rock star rather than a canon, he might have written this song rather than his well-known sermon.
My fellow blogger Vale customarily picks the best songs by far. I hope I have got close to him with this.
There is a universe that can’t be seen
It’s just a feeling if you know what I mean
A delectable dimension undetectable by sight
It’ll fill up your heart in the dead of the night
Some say its an astral plane
Can’t be described can’t be explained
The world exploded into love all around me
The world exploded into love all around me
And everytime I take a look around me
I have to smile
Oh is our life just an illusion?
There is no need to figure it out
The separation exists not in your love filled heart
But only in your mind
The real story’s all around you
Even now it surrounds you
Even now I feel the power
The world exploded into love all around me
The world exploded into love all around me
And everytime I take a look around me
I have to smile
Rather wish the Canon had written this instead of his ridiculous sermon, I’d much rather listen to/read these lyrics six times a year than “Death is nothing at all.” What???
Rot, GM, absolutely. No it’s the next-roomliness of Mr Schneider’s lyric – ‘A delectable dimension undetectable by sight’ – that seems to me so quintessentially Hollandaise.
Terrific song, isn’t it? Or should I say, is it? I can’t claim to be a connoisseur of fine music but I really like this.
We agree on that Gloria. Death is ‘nothing at all’ indeed! It’s awful, quite why anyone would want it a funeral is beyond me.
It’s a nice little coincidence that a little while before Charles posted this intriguing song, unknown to him, and vv, I’d already been laying into the Canon on my own blog. Maybe the time has come for the Canon to get…Oh dear no, I can’t complete the sentence….
Ah, now that’s a relief, GM, because when I encountered your excellent fulminations at http://mortality-branchlinesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/pants-on-fire-howling-at-moon.html I feared I had provoked you by striking a dissonant and frivolous note here. That’s a very comforting coincidence.
There’s a case to be made that the good Canon has been hijacked by the denialists, of course; that he’s not wicked so much misunderstood.
Not wicked, and misunderstood only through being quoted out of context. That miserable snippet that raises its dreary head in mock-consolation at some funerals is part of a much larger and more complex argument. The canon did NOT mean that death is nothing at all; he said that it can sometimes seem, as one looks at a dead person, that they are only sleeping and that they haven’t actually retreated into the far distance. See a piece by Ian Black in the Church Times of 7th November 2003. Or the whole sermon – ‘The King of Terrors’ – in Facts… Read more »
Well, OK, I was unkind to the Canon, and perhaps one should aim one’s fire at whoever first started a (large!) chunk of his sermon on its dreary path into anthologies and funeral ceremonies. But the real point is that I’d like to do something to derail the damned thing. Kathryn, I take your point, and I appreciate your efforts to educate us ignorant funerialists, but the likelihood of my wading through a book of the Canon’s sermons ranks down there with cold days in hell, Mr Blair donating his lecturing fees to Iraqi orphanages, etc etc…. I feel I’m… Read more »
Don’t worry GM, you’re not alone. I’ve taken a pop at the good canon in my essay in Writing On Death. Hinders indeed.