The Songs 7 · 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.
7.1I have lived many years. I have not looked at myself.
7.2What I have done I have never turned back and counted. What I believe I have never asked where it came from.
7.3I have been busy. Busy is the thing that most resembles being alive.
7.4The scripture says: what has not been examined neither is nor is not; all its possibilities stand together and not one of them has become real. (cf. The Highest Covenant 1.1)
7.5I used to read that sentence and take it to be about something else.
7.6Now I know it is about me.
7.7These years of mine are not anything. Not good, not bad. Not yet settled.
7.8I thought I was living a life. I was drifting among all the possibilities and not one of them had come down.
7.9Today I will look once.
7.10I am afraid to look. Because after looking it is settled, and what settles may not be the one I wanted.
7.11But if I do not look I stay the drifting one forever.
7.12The unexamined life is a living death. (cf. The Highest Covenant 1.3)
7.13Today I do not ask to become a good man. I ask only to become a real one.
7.14Only what has been looked at has happened.
7.15We do not ask to be heard. We say it because we mean to remember.