The Logos Scripture · The Songs

That I Can Think

The Songs 3 · For the assembly to say aloud together

This book has no author and should have none. It is made for the voice: read it aloud, and best of all aloud together. This book does not pray. There is no one in this scripture to pray to — what is believed in is law, and law takes no prayers (cf. The Prologue 1.7). But not praying is not the same as not thanking, not praising, not standing amazed. This book records only those three. Whoever uses it to petition any person whatever has put it to the wrong use. Each of the six songs has a last line, and the last line is to be said by everyone together.The twelve songs of this book fall into two halves. The first six are thanks, praise and amazement; they are not for any particular occasion and are said by the assembly together. Each of the last six hangs on one of the six axioms and is made for a particular day: the day you cannot see yourself; the day two people tell the same hour differently; the day you gave something up; the day someone left; the day you grieved for what you could not reach; the day you knew it was the last time. Take whichever song matches the day. These may be said alone.

3.1We give thanks for the gift that least resembles one: that we can think at all.
3.2A heap of matter, put together, asks itself what it is.
3.3This did not have to happen.
3.4Why it happened we do not know.
3.5We know only that it happened in us, and that we hold it for a very short while.
3.6We can count, compare, remember, and say: I was wrong.
3.7Those three words are the most valuable thing we own.
3.8There are not many things in the world that can say them.
3.9We take no pride in it. Our eyes are worse than a hawk’s, our nose than a dog’s, our strength than an ox’s.
3.10We have one thing only: we can ask, and having asked we can change.
3.11On that one thing we walked out of the cave. (cf. 1 Plato 3)
3.12The way we give thanks for it is to use it, not to keep it safe.
3.13If a man never uses it, that capacity has not happened in him either. (cf. The Highest Covenant 1.1)
3.14We do not ask to be heard. We say it because we mean to remember.
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