"William & Maggie"

Although I don't generally think much of his singing ability or musical style, one of the better writers in contemporary Evangelical music is Charlie Peacock. About his only CD that I could really say I like to listen to (and when you listen to the interview at the end, you find out that he intended it to be different from his other stuff) is Everything That's on My Mind (1994). My favorite song on the CD--perhaps of any song he's written--is "William & Maggie." I've liked it for as long as I can remember, and perhaps now more than ever. Here's a lame attempt to render a song with its lyrics only:

William, to whom the world was given,
Dared not disturb the sleep of friends.
But one time in the night,
He turned to his wife,
And he whispered, "Remember
When I was young, and you were Maggie?

"'Cause I been thinking about
You and me and everybody in between.
It seems we've suffered one too many dreams
Of things that weren't so bad; it's just,
They were never things that we could trust.
Are we still pretending they're enough?"

Maggie, by whom all hearts were measured,
Kissed William softly on the cheek and said,
"Oh, it always amazed me
How someone could come
To the edge of the world,
Drop a stone down the side,
And turn and return
To the very same life. I remember
When I was young, and you were William.

"'Cause I been thinking about
You and me and everybody in between.
It seems we've suffered one too many dreams
Of things that weren't so bad; it's just,
They were never things that we could trust.
We must stop pretending they're enough."

"But what of the interval moment,
When you feel nothing,
And I feel nothing?
Maggie, I'm trembling in this interval moment,
When you feel nothing,
And I feel nothing."

Maggie, by whom all hearts were measured,
Kissed William softly on the cheek and said,
"Sometimes William,
William sometimes,
You've got to open up the windows
And let the wind blow through.

"You've got to let it blow through
You and me and everybody in between.
It seems we've suffered one too many dreams
Of things that weren't so bad; it's just,
They were never things that we could trust.
We will release them as they turn to dust."

I realize it's probably meant to be about the Christian life in general and how we sometimes lose our enthusiasm and our perspective on what a difference it should really make. But for me right now, it seems to sum up how I feel about Orthodoxy. I can't settle anymore for a form of Christianity that stops half-way, especially when I can no longer trust its method. I'm also finding it increasingly difficult to keep my mouth shut about this stuff with the people around me. I don't want to beat them over the head with it, but I want to speak out for what our Evangelical lives are missing.