1.Sink Or Swim

Lori Chaffer

Will you hold my hand
Do I have to stand in this world all alone
Where it's icy coldAnd all the people chime in
"You've got to sink or swim"

Where there's rain there's drought
So I'll confess my doubts
Where there's threshing of the fields
Something's bound to yield

And all the people cry out
They feel they're about to drown
On the ocean floor
But I know there's more

I know
You understand what it's like to me man
Sometimes I forget You're near
Sometimes I forget you hear
The way the raindrops fall

The sound of the wind as it calls
And every breath I breathe
And song I don't sing

2.No One Told You

Don Chaffer

Your momma's drunk
You sister went insane
You been trying to keep from getting sick
Standing in the pouring rain

No one told you
That it would be this hard
And that it'd hurt so bad inside
Cause no one ever
Really gets to know
We're all on the same dark ride
But when the ending comes
Will you choose to live
Or will you choose to die?

The girl you love
You've tried to tell her that
That you love her so
But if she's supposed
To love you back
She doesn't seem to know
Just to be fairIt should be stated that
It's not always this way
Once in a while
From behind your back
You can hear somebody say

"No one told you
That I am really here
But I have been all along
And I know your sky
Is far from clear
And that it has been far too long
But when the ending comes
"I already did, so you don't have to die."

3.Not Enough Time

Lori Chaffer

My father told me never to fear
All of the darkness that I see down here
He said not to worry, you'll be okay
Just don't become a part of the deadly game

And if you're troubled by all of the hate
Don't look aside, stare it in the face
And you can love them like you should
Love all the people that have so misunderstood

Don't wait for the night to fall in on you
There's not enough time

Your simple please are not enough
To keep the rain from pouring
The mindless stone your clinging to
Will turn into a boulder

It barely rests above your head
So soon it will be falling

Don't wait for the night to fall in on you
There's not enough time

The piece of gold you bow down to
Can never calm your anger
Millions of charms that "detour harm"
Can't make your joy forever

The stars just fall down from the sky
No wish you make to them will be granted

4.I Know The Plans

Lori Chaffer

You talk of hating war
But where's your own peacetime?
You don't love anymore
All my children
You linger in your mind
"Everyone's so unkind"
But you forget about the mines you laid on your land

I know the plans I have for you
I know the things that I want for you to do
I know the plans I have for you
And it hurts sometimes to see you blind

You read up on the lies
And keep them in motion
So clever the disguise of devotion
You tell me there's no time
But there you stand joking
But you forgot that I'm the one
Who weighs the words you've spoken

I know the plans I have for you
I know the things that I want for you to do
I know the plans I have for you
And it hurts sometimes to see you cry

5.Lonely Sometimes

Don Chaffer

I woke up from a strange rain
And it was dreaming outside
I rolled over for the telephone

I thought I'd call someone
Tell them I dreamed I had died
But I know that I was all alone

I just get lonely sometimes
I want someone to take away my grief
I just get lonely sometimes
I want to wake up in the morning with someone
Lying next to me who I can turn to for relief
I just get lonely sometimesBut I know I just need You

I probably slept in a bed of bitterness
That's why I woke up this way
That's probably why I'm in this lonesome hole

I probably got to needing everything
And needing it today
That's probably why I play this lonely role

But I know I know I know I just need You

6.And

Don Chaffer

I am haunted by my love for comparison
My fascination with a single common theme
And I am hounded by the fear that I might be losing it
Slipping from reality into dream

When my mind is muddled by the way it seems to work
I start looking for just one connecting Force
Someone to assure me that we didn't lose the war today
That the battle's General's still riding on his horse

In the mornings when I pray, I've often come to You with dreams
Little bits of power that I can't comprehend
And sometimes I can keep my eyes unclosed for long enough
To see the blowing of a distant steady Wind

The distance doesn't take too long for You to cover it
And when You reach me,
You just blow these things apart
You clear the crowd that's gathered 'round the crisis of my soul
And whisper to my suffocating heart

And is the juice of the joints of the motion of life
And is the love that is between God and his beautiful wife
And has two hands and two feet and a long, lovely side
And rose three days after he was crucified

So You're the Force of gravity that I feel pulling at my feet
You're the Fuel at the center of the sun
And, it's your Ghost that fills the atmosphere with what we need to breathe
And, everything I've ever wondered, You're the one

Both my hands are stained with blood
And both my lips are stained with tears
From when I kissed the widow of the man I killed
And, yet You're asking me to swallow Your forgiveness here today
You say the bond required for my pardon's been fulfilled

7.Go

Lori Chaffer

Go tell it on the mountaintops
That I'm alive

Go listen to the children cry
And let them know
That dark and night are not their masters

Between you you'll know all the things
That I never said out loud
Don't walk away from the crowd

Go tell them that it's cold outside
And I won't thrive there

And I'm getting tired of hiding
My face
From your disgrace
Although you think that you've disguised it

And when you get too tired of waiting
To picture My face in the clouds

Look around

I know it won't be sown the way
You want it to be
I will make it grow with or without you

You'll pray, I'll wait
You may fall down a time or two

Go tell it in the valleys low
That I'm alive
Go listen to the men that sigh
And let them know that dark and night
Are not their masters

And when you get too tired of waiting
To picture
My face in the clouds

Look around

8.Both Of Us'll Feel The Blast

Don Chaffer

We're both dirty, baby- that's just the way it goes
We'll try to cut the fuses off before everything blows
And if it blows and both of us are standing real close by
Then both of us'll feel the blast and both of us'll die
But dying's overrated, it's a ticket on a train
And as long as I can hold your hand, I'll know that I'm still sane
Maybe I'm an idiot for thinking that that's true
But I believe that Jesus knew what He was doing when He gave me you

Lately I've been wondering- what are we gonna do
When we wake up in the morning and it’s just me and you?
Cause we ain't never done this thing but I guess that's how it goes
You breathe deep as it comes to you and hold tight when it blows
And if it blows and both of us are standing real close by
Then both of us'll feel the blast and both of us'll die
And dying's underrated, it's a ticket to the feast-
The one we're all invited to, from the greatest to the least

I hope we sit together when Jesus serves the wine
So I can look into your eyes when I taste it the first time
And I know there's no secrets when you're sitting at that table
But I believe we'll smile real knowingly when we read the label
And it says "passion sacrificed to keep from going crazy."
We'll tip our glasses to the Host who used to look so hazy
And drink it down all sweet and slow and slip inside
His mind And realize as it goes down- this is communion wine

This is communion wine
This is communion wine
This is communion wine

9.Legend Of Vertigo

We believed it was time to lift off from the land of vertigo
The captain said "despite the wind and tide, you will have to row.
"Will that mean that the ones who do not wish to row won't wish to go?
Maw was mawkish cause the house we'd left we'd surely never know again.
We search for planets where the land won't be the kind you have to sow.
We left behind pernicious minds and fancy lies.

"i'm really gonna miss you - you and your mom,i got real used to how it feels to have a kind of family again,my mom left us when we were all six.. i mean when i was six.i told you about that once. remember that - when i told you about that?that one day in the park, on the bench. you had that green skirt onand it was one of those days when the sky was really blue in your eyeslike it gets sometimes. i told you that didn't i? on certain days whenyou were real clear, how you... a, i don't know that there's any words for it,but you were always the clearest one of us. with you gone,it's like my balance is off or something... god, i miss you. you're likea little bit of God to me. everybody needs a little God. you were that to me-you and your mom. you were like the family i needed. please come back to vertigo. i think i need you here. please come back to vertigo. i need you here."

"everyone's been kind of acting sad or strange lately around here.things already seem different just knowing you're leaving.yesterday i was talking to sheila. she's pregnant again, you know.she started crying when i told her about you leaving. you helped her somuch when annie was born. she kept saying how she doesn't know what to do (i'm glad i was the only one there actually). i would have been a little embarrassed for her otherwise. oh, and greg, i'm scared about him, hon, he seems like... like he might do something crazy. he keeps saying stuff about how his balance is off - weird things like that, and he just sort of spaces

off, not like his normal thing. it's like all the time now. i'm worried.if you were here, i think... well, you're not though... you know, there'sone thing that i don't get about you leaving. i never saw you falling forall that captain stuff - all that business about new worlds and all. i mean really, i'd hate all that rowing and order taking, and you, well, i always thought you were more the free spirit type. why don't you just quit all this leaving business and come back to vertigo. we'd still have a place for you."

We'd thought it so dreamy the way it spun our time.
Everything was so easy if we hid behind the lies.
That made us seem leavened made us reel we were usually tripping
Till we couldn't feel but our souls were just dripping out all that was real.

All you sinners
All you spinners
All who love
The winding roads
Who love vertigo
It's time to board
Or be lost to the undertow

Thank God I get I get to go away from vertigo

10.18 Bullet Holes

Don Chaffer

18 bullet holes in the body of a priest
They say he was eating a hot dog when the ammunition was released.
They say he was always fat and lazy but he was an awfully nice guy.
That's just one more death to show you you never know when you're gonna die.
You might be facing the beast

Sometimes, God, I feel like I'm living in a bone grinding mill
And every time I hear the sound I can barely stand still
It's a thing I can't quite make out sometimes but it seems to keep getting louder-
One more body from the valley of the dry bones getting ground up into powder
Against Your holy will

Oh, God, it hurts so bad to love anybody down here
Why don't You come and help me out?
Cause I can't even see clear

The funny thing about the way a girl gets destroyed
About the way that deal goes down
Is that everybody pretty much sees it coming at the sister
From all the way across town
And she isn't always blinded, she isn't always far astray
She just might not be thinking, she might be having a bad day
But when you choose, you choose, and when you drown, you drown

Last night I dreamed that
You swallowed me into Yourself
And I was floating on the sea inside
When I landed on the shore,
I saw all these people that I thought had died
I hadn't seen some of them for ages
They had left without a single word
And when I said something to them, not a single one of them had heard

They were all looking right through everything like it wasn't even there
Some were full of anger, some full of fear
And then I recognized that something very sad
But very beautiful was happening right here

They were all caught outside standing alone in a very heavy rain
And when a raindrop landed on my tongue
I didn't need You to explain
That these were Your tears

Oh, God, it hurts so bad to love anybody down here
Oh, that's right, You know so well
One thorny crown, three nails, and a spear

One thorny crown, three nails, and a spear

11.I'm Afraid I'm Not Supposed To Be Like This

Lori Chaffer

Well I'm afraid I'm not supposed to be like this
Like I was born in a land where no serpent hissed
And I have waited a long time for Your kiss

Well I have felt that they'd all take offense at me
And so a fence I have built to protect the seed
But all the bricks will secure its mortality

I have been seated in circles and stood in disgrace
At the noted intention to be in place
And I have seen that one man saved the human race
But it took His life and it took His faith

I have risen from ashes and fed on flames
But even so I still fear I have played a game
And it seems no one else is as sick and depraved

I have heard that I'm not supposed to be this way
And still the stones that are lifted fall down to stay
But I keep doubting and think one will strike my face

He's been promising me something more than pain
Where the cost is grace and my loss is gain
And I have chosen because there is no other way
I either wallow in shame

Or humble myself and be saved
And be saved

12.You Knew

Don Chaffer

In a crazy haze
In a purple robe
I walk amaze
King of the strobe

Flashing and unfaithful
I'm hardly light at all
Tripping and ungraceful
I was born into the fall

You knew
You knew
I've never been true
I'm true in You
You knew

At the stretch of dawn
In the yawn of time
You thought upon me
With Your bread and wine

But how my blood is hardened
I fear of losing life
Do drown me in Your heart and
Say I'll be Your wife

You knew
You knew
Before I was true
I was true in You
You knew

13.Down At The Riverside

Don Chaffer

They sat near one another at the water's edge
I'll say "they" because "we" is too hard to say
And he told her what he'd come so far to tell her
With tears in her eyes she said it can't be that way
I left the ring down at the riverside

He stared at the water for a long time, leaning on his hand
He was going through the things that he was wondering
The air was fairly still, like the calm before the storm
No one would have guessed the rain.
There was not distant thundering
He still felt a long ways away inside

I left the ring down at the riverside

Should I tell them how he cried?
Should I tell them how you held me, my never-bride?
And how I left the ring down at the riverside

The riverside-
One like where believers stood for John to baptize them
I'm going down to die, but I'll be coming up alive
Then I'm going down to die, but He'll bring me up alive then

14.I Am

Lori Chaffer

I am more than you think
I am more than you know
I'm as black as the darkest night
And whiter than snow
You're tripping through wires and words
And spires and tombstones

I have burned with desire
Felt the air become fire
Given lions my bones
Buried Myself with stones
And I love whether or not you believe Me

I'm as wide as the ocean
And as small as your soul
I'm as tall as the mountains
And I am deeper than gold

I'm as swift as an arrow
But I am slow when you stray
I'm as calm as the waters
That we walked on that day
And I love whether or not you believe Me

If you ask Me again
My reply still will stand
I am who I am
And I love whether or not you believe Me

13.Rivers Rise

Don Chaffer

I have watched
From a distance now for several months
We used to hang out
Every day and talk all at once
Those were greater days and greater lays
Or whatever it was that we used to say

But the rivers rise and
And our longing eyes are
On what’s gone downstream
And the ground is damp
And there is no lamp
And things aren’t what they seem

So we make calls
And we leave behind our voices after we’re gone
Each tries to catch
The other in between a hurry and a yawn
And the children need, and there’s ground to seed
And the general sense of security

On this bank where sinners sank
There’s polished bits of glass
From years ago when two guys swore
They’d never let this pass

14.Easy Baby

Don Chaffer

Be Easy, baby
Don’t cry so hard
My road was blocked
My way was barred
But it’s not all darkness
The night sky is starred
So be easy, baby
Don’t cry so hard

If I ever had a reason to run away
I would take it like a one horse open sleigh
I learned twice as much from sorrow as I learned
During all my days of study oh how I burned