Goin’ Home / Waiting / Walk in My Shoes / Coming Home / Choose Something Like a Star / The Road Not Taken / Amazing Grace (choral) / May the Road Rise to Meet You / Danny Boy / Love is Love is Love / The Road Home / Bright Canaan / Blue Skies

Goin’ Home  (Antonìn Dvořák. Text by William Arms Fisher)

Goin’ home, goin’ home, I’m a-goin’ home;
Quiet like, some still day, I’m just goin’ home

It’s not far, just close by, through an open door;
Work all done, care laid by, goin’ to fear no more.

Mother’s here, expecting me, Father’s waitin’ too;
Lots o’ folk gather’d there, all the friends I knew

Home, home, I’m goin’ home!
Nothin’ lost, all’s gain, No more fret or pain,
No more stumblin’ on the way,
No more longin’ for the day,
Goin’ to roam no more!

Mornin’ star lights the way, restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break o’ day, real life just begun

There’s no break, there’s no end, just a-livin’ on;
Wide awake, with a smile goin’ on and on.

Goin’ home, goin’ home, I’m just goin’ home,
It’s not far, just close by, through an open door.
I’m a-goin’ home, I’m just goin’ home.  Home!

Waiting  (Howard Helvey. A poem by John Burroughs)

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

Walk in My Shoes  (André J. Thomas. A poem by Neil Lorenz)

When dreams you dream are different than mine,
When anger remains from a different time,
When the path you choose is a stranger’s line,
I’ll try to walk in your shoes.

When I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,
And don’t see what you see, try as I may
When things that you do are just not my way,
I’ll try to walk in your shoes.

Can you walk in mine, give them a trial?
Can you think as I do, though it’s not your style?
Can you try being me, just for a while?
Come dare to walk in my shoes.

If we’re willing to open our minds and our hearts,
Understanding each other has a place to start
I’ll give you my shoes, wear yours as my part,
Let’s step in each other’s shoes.

Our differences don’t tear,
But instead can be a strength we share
Tomorrow’s answers are waiting there
the day you walk in my shoes.

Can you walk in mine?  Can you think as I do?
Can you try being me for just a while?
Come dare to walk in my shoes!

Coming Home  (Jay Althouse. Words and music by the composer)

I have traveled sea and mountain.
Distant pathways I did roam.
Now it’s time my friend, for journey’s end.
I am coming home.

For my wand’ring now has ended.
So goodbye, farewell, shalom.
Now at last I’ve found to you I’m bound.
I am coming home.

Coming home to see you again,
Coming home to you.
With the stars as my guide,
I’ll be there at your side.
I am coming home.

When the tides are calm and gentle,
when the sea is mist and foam,
then I think of you with love so true,
I am coming home.

Choose Something Like a Star  (Randall Thompson from Frostiana. A poem by Robert Frost)

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.

Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.

Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.

And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,*
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here,
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

The Road Not Taken  (Randall Thompson from Frostiana. A poem by Robert Frost)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Amazing Grace  (arr. Michael John Trotta. A new choral setting of a well-known traditional hymn)

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a soul like me
I once was lost, but now am found, I am found,
I was blind, but now I see, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to heal
and grace my fears, grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace, that grace appear,
the first hour I believed.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come
’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
and that grace shall lead me home.

Sweet, how sweet the sound, Grace.

May the Road Rise to Meet You  (Noel Paul Stookey, arr. Sylvia Chapa. A traditional Irish Blessing)

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand

Amazing Grace  (arr. Almon Bock. A setting for two singers)

(Traditional text)

Danny Boy  (arr. Frederick Weatherly.  A farewell to a young man going off to war.)

O Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow
‘Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And when you come, and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.

And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you’ll not fail to tell me that you love me
I’ll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.
I’ll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

Love is Love is Love  (Abbie Betinis, From the Justice Choir Songbook, Volume 1)

Love is love is love is love,
Love is love is love is love,
Oh love is love is love is love

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est
Love, love, love, all we need is love, love, love
All we need is love.

AUDIENCE SING-ALONG
Love, love, love, all we need is love.

The Road Home  (arr. Stephen Paulus. A poem by Michael Dennis Browne)

Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own
That I left, that I lost
So long ago
All these years I have wandered
Oh, when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home

After wind, after rain
When the dark is done
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home

Rise up, follow me
Come away, is the call
With the love in your heart
As the only song
There is no such beauty
As where you belong
Rise up, follow me
I will lead you home

Bright Canaan  (arr. Alice Parker & Robert Shaw.  Traditional.  A dream of escaping slavery in the American South)

O who will come and go with me, I am bound for the land of Canaan.
I’m bound fair Canaan’s land to see, I am bound for the land of Canaan.

O Canaan, bright Canaan, I’m bound for the land of Canaan.
O Canaan, it is my happy home, I am bound for the land of Canaan.

I’ll join with them who’ve gone before, I am bound for the land of Canaan.
Where sin and sorrows are no more, I am bound for the land of Canaan.

Our songs of praise shall fill the skies, I am bound for the land of Canaan,
And higher still our joys they rise, I am bound for the land of Canaan.

Blue Skies  (Irving Berlin, arr. Steve Zegree.  A song from 1926, recorded by …. everybody!)

Blue skies smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies do I see

Blue birds singing a song
Nothing but blue skies from now on

Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things going so right

Noticing the days hurrying by
When you’re in love, my how they fly

Blue days, all of them gone
Nothing but blue skies from now on

Blue skies smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies do I see

Bluebirds singing a song
Nothing but blue skies from now on