Yesterday was my first day in the studio doing vocals for the new GVB CD. Ben Isaacs, Wes Hampton and Bill Gaither were there, too. Wes had done some of his vocals that morning. Ben and Bill are co-producing this project. We worked on ‘Rumor Mill’ and ‘The Love Of God’. ‘Rumor Mill’ is a funny song written by John Mohr about gossip and how hurtful it is.
If people really understood how powerful words are it could change the world. Words are seeds and they grow where they’re planted. They are powerful and they’re delivered on the wings of emotion. The pitch of your voice can say as much and sometimes more than the words. My mother used to hit that ‘certain pitch’ and we knew she meant business. She was serious and we’d better move quickly.
The second song we did was ‘The Love Of God’. It’s a new acoustical arrangement of the old classic. I asked Bill if he knew who wrote it, and of course he did. Then I asked him who wrote the second verse and he repeated what I already had heard, that the second verse was found on an insane asylum wall. Well, whoever wrote it, they definitely weren’t crazy. Here it is:
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were ever stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.
I remember one time talking with J. D. Sumner about this verse. When I was finished quoting it to him he asked me what it meant. I explained it like this, “If we could drain the oceans and fill them with ink and if we covered the sky with one, big, piece of paper then every blade of grass became an ink pen and every human being became a Shakespeare, we would run out of ink and paper before they could finish describing the love of God.”
As writers, our job is to attempt deduce the Unfathomable into words. I can’t be done, but it’s fun trying. Whoever wrote the second verse to, ‘The Love Of God,’ did it very well..
Today at 10:15 I’m supposed to be back in the studio. Y’all pray everything goes well. I can really tell when people are praying for us. And we appreciate it so much.
