*I've updated this post to add an instrumental version of the song. Enjoy. -tjc
Feel free to download this song and to share it with friends.
I used the following sounds from the Freesound Project
Thin Cloud
Beneath Ambient 2
Fake Vinyl
and a Librivox recording of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis - Book 3 Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
Of Meditation Upon the Hidden Judgments of God, that We May
Not
Be Lifted Up Because of Our Well-Doing
Thou sendest forth Thy judgments against me, O Lord, and
shakest
all my bones with fear and trembling, and my soul trembleth
exceedingly. I stand
astonished, and remember that the heavens
are not clean in thy sight.[i] If Thou chargest Thine angels
with folly, and didst spare them not, how shall it be unto
me?
Stars have fallen from heaven, and what shall I dare who am
but dust? They whose
works seemed to be praiseworthy, fell into
the lowest depths, and they who did eat Angels' food, them
have I
seen delighted with the husks that the swine do eat.
2. There is therefore no holiness, if Thou O Lord, withdraw
Thine
hand. No wisdom
profiteth, if Thou leave off to guide the helm.
No strength availeth, if Thou cease to preserve. No purity is
secure, if Thou protect it not. No self-keeping availeth, if Thy
holy watching be not there.
For when we are left alone we are
swallowed up and perish, but when we are visited, we are
raised
up, and we live. For
indeed we are unstable, but are made strong
through Thee; we grow cold, but are rekindled by Thee.
3. Oh, how humbly and abjectly must I reckon of myself, how
must
I weigh it as nothing, if I seem to have nothing good! Oh, how
profoundly ought I to submit myself to Thy unfathomable
judgments, O Lord, when I find myself nothing else save
nothing,
and again nothing! Oh
weight unmeasurable, oh ocean which cannot
be crossed over, where I find nothing of myself save nothing
altogether! Where, then,
is the hiding-place of glory, where the
confidence begotten of virtue? All vain-glory is swallowed up in
the depths of Thy judgments against me.
4. What is all flesh in Thy sight? For how shall the clay boast
against Him that fashioned it?[ii] How can he be lifted up in
vain speech whose heart is subjected in truth to God? The whole
world shall not lift him up whom Truth hath subdued; nor
shall he
be moved by the mouth of all who praise him, who hath placed
all
his hope in God. For
they themselves who speak, behold, they
are all nothing; for they shall cease with the sound of
their
words, but the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.[iii]
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