WEBVTT

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This is called "This
Hour and What Is Dead."

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I think this has to
do with a quarrel.

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I have been continually
with the God of my father.

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My father was a
Presbyterian minister

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but he resembled an
Old Testament prophet,

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you know obsessive, angry.

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This has to do with
quarrels I have

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with that aspect of his God.

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I remember while
we were wandering

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throughout Southeast Asia.

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My father was a fugitive
and things were just

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falling apart around us.

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We were living among
other people's things.

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We never had any money.

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We were always trying
to learn a new language.

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And through it all my father
kept doing this thing.

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He kept translating
from the Bible.

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He was very fluent
in Hebrew and Greek.

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And he kept doing this.

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And he said it kept him sane.

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And I think I never
understood that.

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Of course I was very young.

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But even as I grew
older and I look

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back I don't understand
how that could--

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I do and I don't
understand how devotion

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to that kind of God,
an Old Testament God,

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could make any sense, especially
when we were in exile.

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It's called "This Hour
and What Is Dead."

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"Tonight my brother
in heavy boots

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is walking through bare
rooms over my head, opening

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and closing doors.

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What could he be looking
for in an empty house?

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What could he possibly
need there in heaven.

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Does he remember his Earth,
his birthplace set to torches?

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His love for me feels like
spilled water running back

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to its vessel.

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At this hour what is dead is
restless and what is living

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is burning.

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Someone tell him he
should sleep now.

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My father keeps a
light on by our bed

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and readies for our journey.

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He mends ten holes at the knees
of five pairs of boy's pants.

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His love for me is like
his sewing, too much thread

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and various colors,
the stitching uneven.

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But the needle pierces clean
through with each stroke

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of his hand.

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At this hour what is dead is
worried and what is living

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is fugitive.

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Someone tell him he
should sleep now.

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God, that old
furnace keeps talking

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with his mouth of
teeth, a beard stained

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at feasts and his breath of
gasoline, airplane, human ash.

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His love for me feels like
fire, feels like doves,

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feels like river water.

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At this hour what is dead is
helpless, kind and helpless

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while the Lord lives.

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Someone tell the Lord
to leave me alone.

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I've had enough of his love that
feels like burning and flight

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and running away."

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