Running to the Light

I apologize for the lack of recent posts. Things have been very busy here. With both of us participating in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), where you have to write 50k words onto your novel during the month of November, we've been spending almost all our time writing novels, not blog posts.


Anyway, on occasion we listen to a band named Runrig. It is a six-piece Celtic Rock band, founded in 1973. It's music is typically rock oriented, while the lyrics are drawn from folk roots.

My favorite of their many songs is one called Running to the Light






The lyrics:

Running round the sacred mountain
The rushing stream
Feel the power
In everything
By the water. where the air is clear
Surrender everything

Old hearts grow younger again
They promise bring
The greenest. plants are tender
They're full of sap in spring
Empty the places of the mind
Running to the light
Running to the light

Those who stride too far too soon
Will not hold pace
Only the calm
Will win the race
Through the forest, the sea of mountain pine
Surrender everything

Only those who
Greatness see in little things
Worthy are the simple
They're happy in their ways
Self will wither out of sight
Running to the light
Running to the light

Arise soul
Soar above the singing river
Go lying down
Into the ground
Quickened by the stream
When all is said and done
The race moves on

Running, running



To me, the song speaks of the last moments before someone's death. When a dear family friend died in an accident, this song meant a lot. Though death is the end of our life on earth, to those of us who believe, it is merely the beginning of a new life, in which there will be no pain, no sorrow, no suffering, and no death.

1 Corinthians 9:24 says "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." (NKJV).

Our life is a competition, a battle, and Paul describes it as a race. We cannot let death halt us. Though we die, the race goes on. "Quickened by the stream // When all is said and done // The race goes on"

A note: Laurel Clark, an astronaut on the US Space Shuttle Columbia was a great fan of Runrig, and brought two CDs to space with her, including "The Stamping Ground". Running to the Light was used as the wake up call for the seven astronauts who would later die in a tragic accident on re-entry over Texas.


So, brothers and sisters, let us run our race in a manner that we may obtain the prize

~The Two Young Men