Category: Love

Take This Life (w/ Lyrics)

Higher Up IDEALS6 Comments

Updated on December 4, 2022

I am grateful that after more than a 4 year journey, Take This Life has finally made its way out into the world. It has been a blessing to me. I hope it blesses everyone it comes in contact with because you are made to shine. #makeitlight

To see this song on other online platforms click here.

I’m using Take This Life to create a #makeitlight challenge to highlight good being done in the world. If you happen to decide to share it online, can you use the #makeitlight tag? 

(When you shine your Light it isn’t just for you.
It’s for everybody else that’s been watching what you do.)

Take this life
Make it right
Take this life
Make it Light
To see…

You ever had those thoughts that wouldn’t go away?
They’re runnin’ though your mind like every single day.
Wake up in the mornin’
Get on your knees and pray
Don’t believe it works
But you do it anyway
That’s what it’s like when you feelin’ hopeless
Lookin’ at your life and you’ve got no focus
You say, “It gets better.”
Swear to God you know this
But you caught up in the mix
Don’t where your flow is
This is the way of the American dream
We think we see clearly
But it isn’t what it seems
Addicted to consumption
So we livin’ like we fiends
Only find meaning
When we get a bunch of things
Sooo…

Take this life
Make it right
Take this life
Make it Light
To see…

You know the Way
That’s what they say
That’s why I pray
To shine like the Day
Sooo…

Take this life
Make it right
Take this life
Make it Light
To see…

Here’s a little something
I’m getting off my chest
It’s been a long time
Since last I confessed
I denied you
Thinking I’d get the rest
But life without you
Is a life that’s a mess

The best of me
Is messin’ with the rest of me
It’s testin’ me
At least until I get to see
I’m blessed to be
Livin’ with you next to me
‘Cause life within you
Is for X to see
You see

They say you know the Way
I’m inclined to believe it
Though never in my life
Have I seen one to achieve it
You told us how to do it
I’ll be shocked
If we gon’ heed it
Then we looking all surprised
By the fact that we defeated
Soo…

Take this life
Make it right
Take this life
Make it Light
To see

You know the Way
That’s what they say
That’s why I pray
To shine like the Day
Sooo…

Take this life
Make it right
Take this life
Make it Light
To see…

When you shine your light
It isn’t just for you
It’s for everybody else
That’s been watchin’ what you do
You can talk that talk
But the walk shows what is true
Are you a hypocrite
Or the proud and the few?
That’s the kind of question
I ask myself daily
Trying to get back to my roots
As if my name was Alex Haley
You don’t like my style
But never will you play me
‘Cause I’m gon’ shine my light
Till the day that they take me

You say I know the way
‘Cause if you do, I’m supposed to
I’m glad you chose me
Even when I hadn’t chose you
The world is out of order
And everybody knows it
How’s a nation under you
When all you are, it opposes
If they gon’ be that Pharaoh
Then I’m gon’ be that Moses
They don’t want to see us shine
‘Cause when we do it exposes
So I’m gon’ keep speaking
Til everybody knows this
It’s when we turn to you
That we see where the flow is

You know the Way
That’s what they say
That’s why I pray
To shine like the Day
Sooo…

Take this life
Make it right
Take this life
Make it Light
To see…

Matthew 5:15
 
No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Below is the original performance of the song that I did as a pastor.

Below is my final sermon as a pastor where in my farewell, I remind the community that, as the song Take This Life says, “YOU KNOW THE WAY”. The message ends with Asha singing, Change Gonna Come by Sam Cooke.

Spoken Wordless

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Words cannot express

What words cannot express

But Silence is compelling me

So I will do my best

Though everything is backwards

There is something coming forth

That is leading us to where we’ve never left

So that we’ll always be on course

It’s fullness is not religious

Truth’s Way will free us from our binds

But first we must deny ourselves

So that our True Selves we might find

That is the Revelation

That so many before us bore

But, we lost our Way living outside in

And always keeping score

The Way Showers wants to free us

But we have to kill them first

Because we refuse to be what we will not see

Thus labeling them a curse

But as soon as we can’t see them

We see them as they are

Exposing what we once denied

That we never were that far

Then suddenly we’re speechless

If only we had known

We’d’ve been deliberate in our reaping

So that our freedom could be sown.

© Copyright 2018 Pedro Silva

There’s A World

Higher Up IDEALS8 Comments

infinite-crisis-worlds1
There’s a world we all are living in
But not everyone can see
A World of eternal spaciousness
Where everyone is free

Inside that world is another world
Where people choose to live a lie
“Special people”claim to know the Truth
And teach the “forgetting” we can die

Some of those people know the Truth
And twist it tight for so called gain
Telling us that we can’t get along
And that the Other causes pain

Their clarion call is “SAVE YOURSELF”
So that’s what many of us try to do
We can’t see it’s just a cattle call
And all they want to hear is “MOOOO”

They have no purpose if we’re not scared
“Can’t you see that there’s a threat?”
They know that we will sell our souls
Only as long as we’re fearing death

They tell you they’re here to protect us
That’s the job for which they’re paid
In exchange you can focus on other things
But you lose consciousness in the trade

The world of lies that we think is real
Does not objectively exist
Like a picture of a sumptuous meal
On which no one can subsist

Meanwhile in the eternal world
One is the Truth that always reigns
“divided houses” do not exist
And there is no loss or gain

No one’s seeking for the joy in life
For Joy is the Cause of Life itself
And value isn’t used as we use it here
Since everything springs from eternal wealth

There also is never a use for Welcome
Because there’s never a time that we aren’t here
We can tell ourselves that we’ve gone away
But to Truth we’ve never disappeared

Like children with their hands on eyes
Who think they’re unseen when they can’t see
Here we can choose to chain ourselves
But that doesn’t make us less than free

We’re only bound by the limits that we project
Our own judgments become our jail
But our sentence is never for our entire life
Because the Truth always prevails

He Fit the Description

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They told him “put your hands up.”
He did and that day he died.
Innocence put to death.
His crime was he complied

The authorities are the ones who killed him.
He must have “fit the right description”
They called him a troublemaker.
Never mind it was a fiction

It wasn’t just the way he looked
It was also the way he saw
He loved outside the rules
To them it violated law

He was out with his friends
No one knows what he did wrong
But they came for him with their weapons
They already had them drawn

Though unarmed and non-threatening,
They started drawing near
To me it’s quite ironic
That they were filled with so much fear

What were they afraid of–
The stories they were told?
“You better watch out with a guy like him.”
“He’s been known to lose control.”

“Have you seen the crowd he hangs with?”
“Let’s look at all the facts.”
“A gang leader if there was ever one.”
“He should have never crossed the tracks.”

“He dines with people known as criminals.”
“He’s friends with women of the night.”
“Believe me he’s not innocent’.”
“Something is just not right.”

That’s the kind of messaging
That makes those like him such a threat
No one ever gets him
And we still haven’t seen him yet

That’s why still today we kill him
In the bodies we see as least
And yet many of us say we follow him
I thought he was called “The Prince of Peace”

He died so we could stop this
But still we choose to pay the price
Because whenever we kill the innocent
We are always killing Christ.

© Copyright 2016 Pedro S. Silva II

martin-luther-king-and-his-hands-up-huffington-post

No matter what one thinks about Christ, we know what innocence is and what it isn’t in the depths of our being. When we deny that knowledge, we deny all that can be right in this world.

Twisted

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People,

In the wake of all that is going on with the violence, fear, hurt, and anger in this world, I challenge all of us who are seeking to transcend status quo to read this poem and take it into your heart. If you get something out of it share it. It’s autobiographical, but in the end, it isn’t about me. It’s about taking responsibility for the world that we are all creating. It’s time to wake up or die in our sleep.

The Love,

Pedro S. Silva II

Twisted
Open up your ears and hear
The story that I’m telling you
When I was a little kid
I used to get dissed on the regular

I used to get picked on
Poked at and made fun of
Because I was a sensitive cat
Always talking about One Love

Other kids my age
Had multiple distractions
Where as I was more focused on
Putting words into action

So when I took it to the streets
I didn’t expect to get straight dissed
‘Cause my shoes had too many stripes for Adidas
But not enough for K-Swiss

My words were for nothing
I only evoked laughter
I tried to get them focused off my clothes
But it just didn’t matter

They called me church boy
They said I talked “white”
But they were living cartoon
While I was living real life

I wanted to show love
But all they knew was hating
Perpetually playing themselves
Because they were mentally masturbating

They believed the lie
It had been passed down from their mama
Generations infected by an attempt
To keep the black man in drama

So I took it to the adults
I thought they would understand
But they were too “whitewashed”
To see this burgeoning black man

So I took it to my history teacher
Then he said this to my face
“You’re a smart boy
And a credit to your race”

He thought it was a compliment
Only a white man could say that
If he understood anything about me
He’d have known I wouldn’t play that

But I knew he had good intentions
I could tell he didn’t know
He was caught up like everyone else
So I decided to let it go

I then took it to my Grandma
But what she said left me unsettled
She told me tell white people I was Portuguese
So that they would treat me better

What the hell was that?
Was this some conspiracy?
Everyone and their mama working together
To try to instill fear in me

They saw something I thought was impossible
While I saw something else
They were choosing to believe a lie
But I chose to believe in myself

I knew that God had made me
And I know He only makes the best
So I knew the fact that I was not white
In no way made me less

Someone had gotten it twisted
And I was going to find out who
There was no way I was letting these scared victims of society
Tell me what to do

So at first I examined the white man
Since everyone thought he was so smart
I discovered so many despicable deeds
It was as if he had no heart

Then I checked out the black man
I figured they were more like me
But I got pissed to find out some of them helped
When we were sold into slavery

My mind became consumed with anger
I had to let it out
So I decided to tell every black and white
What I was all about

Well both sides called me a racist
In that they agreed with each other
Whites said I was an uppity nigger
And blacks called me siddity brother

So I then turned to God
Well turned on Him is more accurate
Because I didn’t like the way He made this world
I told Him I wasn’t having it

I said “You better do something
Before I fix this world myself
If You are the One responsible for this
I might as well pray to someone else”

He responded, “While you’re sitting here pointing fingers
How about looking in the mirror
I am the One that made all you see
Call nothing I made inferior

Who are you to judge?
Are you the scale by which all things are measured?
Are all things imperfect as compared to you?
Did you put this world together?

There’s a point to all of this
Just listen to what I’m saying
Perhaps I created this entire world
Just to have you right here praying

In Me anything is possible
To all those who believe
This world is as beautiful or ugly as you see it
It depends on what you choose to perceive

I made this world out of perfection
But in your Ego you thought you could fix it
This world will change when you change your mind
You are the one that got it twisted

© Copyright 2004 Pedro S. Silva II

 

 

Pain and Loss

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There is a place where what we think we’ve lost

Is right here with us all along

Never not within our reach

Out of view but never gone

It’s a place that’s called Reality

It isn’t hard to find

All you need to do is reimagine you

And accept that time is not a line

It’s not even a circle

More precisely it’s like a sphere

Expanding all around you

So that any now is always here

With your focus on a center

Life moves in and out like breath

On the inhale you touch eternal life

While the exhale feels like death

But of course that is illusion

The in and out are wholly one

Try to divide them into two

And what you wind up with is none

But that is just a moment

In an infinitude of more

As soon as one ends another begins

That’s why no one’s keeping score

Now some would see this as their freedom

“I will do what I want to do.”

“No loss must mean no consequence.”

But actually it isn’t true

Despite the fact that all is here

And that time lasts longer than forever

There is a flow to how it goes

Which keeps it all together

There’s a pushing and a pulling

That manifests in waves

That creates alignments with likes and likes

Creating masters bound to slaves

Some people call it karma

I call it reaping what we sow

God probably calls it “It is what it is.”

But it’s a mystery we cannot know

It maintains itself through veiling

As we approach the truth we feel it shifting

Causing us to look again

Because now it feels like something’s missing

It’s not trying to be evasive

Even though that’s how it seems

Truth’s just trying to keep us moving

So it can pull us from the dream

There is really nothing to lose

This is the one thing we can gain

To wake us up from the fear of loss

Out of which we make up pain

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

Everything and Then Some

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When someone asks you to prove your love,

You better prepare to die

Anything less is just holding back

In this beholder’s eye

Though they do not think they’re worthy

They want you to make them feel they are

But no matter how much you offer them

They won’t believe it without your scars

They want to see you bleed

They want you to give it all away

How much your heart has love for them

Is the last thing they demand you say

Your last words should be a testament

To how much they mean to you

But they’ll find a reason to doubt it

No matter what you do

On them the sun should rise

On them the sun should set

Give yourself to anything else

And their whole world will be upset

Even if it’s your own children

Or your faith in your religion

Any focus that is not on them

In their minds will cause division

They will say it’s because they love you

But this can’t be further from the truth

Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from love

Is that it never asks for proof

It gives with no thought of getting

It’s sole hope is that we receive

And even after we’ve denied it thrice

We find Love is the One who grieves

Abandoned and abused

Love still keeps us in its prayers

Compelling us to fulfillment

While we are focused on other cares

Love is so relentless

That it will even refuse to die

Coming back to bless its murderers

Despite this fact we still deny

Love forgives us before we seek it

Keeps its promises while we’re debating

And when we arrive in the hells that we create

We find Love is right there waiting

 

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

The One You Seek Is Seeking You

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The One for Whom we think we’re seeking
Is the One who sought us first
For we begin as a thought in the Eternal Mind
Before descending into birth
Personality, pursuits, and power plays
Had not yet even been conceived
But being formed in the “Always Is”
All we will be is achieved
Being fashioned out of what cannot be grasped
We cannot fathom the depths of Being
Or the heights to which we’re being led
If we surrender to Truer Seeing
God seeks us not to catch us
But to release us into Life
By first stripping us of all we’re really not
So that the real us comes to light
But the reason that ww keep running
Is because what we fear that we might lose
We think that the life we’re making up
Is the only life that we can choose
We subscribe to false conditions
Thus becoming what is prescribed
Most conforming to illusion
Not knowing it’s based on lies
Even the god that we’re pursuing
Is rarely the God that truly Lives
Because any god that we can grasp
Has limits on what it gives
The God who seeks is ever giving
And from this giving emerges pleasure
We accept our need and God will give
That’s what keeps us all together
God’s Spirit pouring out
Gives our God the greatest joy
So every Word that ushers forth
Will never ever come back void
Even the slightest little whisper
God will seek with all abandon
Calling it back to its Wholly Source
Where no other creation can ever stand in
Once we’re found by Our Creator
We come to know what’s known by few
That the God who seeks is the God who finds
The God inside of you
Some of you might call this blasphemy
But not because of why you say
It’s really because a god who is not in you
Is a God you can keep away
Some of us wonder where God is hiding
We ask “Where can this God be?”
Not imagining that God’s invisibility
Comes from being too close to see
And thus we do so little seeking
So thank God we can be found
Just by choosing to get so very still
And trusting that God is all around

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

This Side of the Resurrection

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This body that you see 

Is merely an appearance

My truest body is doing work

While this one is running interference

In reality you can’t see me

Despite the fact that you think you do

But what you see is just a shadow

That somehow the Light is shining through

Yes, I know that is impossible

According to the laws that you call physics

But our laws are just a theory

To the One in Whom Light’s intrinsic

To the One there is no darkness

They simply turn it inside out

So that the vibrations become reflective

What was within now shines without

It’s something like electric

But with the absence of the static

Transforming so very instantly

That it’s faster than automatic

As it was in the Beginning

Has nothing on what’s eternal

The Being before existence

This Fire consumes before it burns you

All the dross that’s left behind

Is everything we were attached to

Revealing on the other side

That the lies could not dispatch you

Playing the hostage to a lie

We live lives that are not our own

Putting our principle interest

On a body that in truth is just a loan

This is not the true intention

Of assuming this expression

The goal is to know as we are known

Through the releasing of our regression

Going backward to take us forward

To lead us to where we never left

Is the path of least persistence

In the realm where there is no death

 

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

 

After the Walls Come Down

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Walls now crumbled, things start shifting

No one can deceive you

You find yourself where you always were

But no one will believe you

You tell them your new story

Because in Truth you know it’s theirs

In the Mind of God where we live and move

Death has no power there

Resurrection is a promise

Because no one ever dies

Once they choose to live the Life

Which reveals that Love abides

Now you’d think that this was good news

And the simplest of decisions

But soon you see that’s not the case

When people have the habit of division

At first you understand it

Since you were living by those rules

But once it became so clear to you

You start to think of them as fools

How could they not get it?

Can’t they see that we’re all One

That there’s no such thing as separation

When we focus on the Son

But no one you’re telling wants to hear it

Especially not from you

“Suddenly you’re so high and mighty.”

“We know what you used to do.”

“Don’t act like you’re so holy.”

“Remember the way you used to be.”

“Then you go and find religion.”

“Now you stand here judging me.”

You try to tell them you’re not judging

And that religion is not what guides you

It’s just that now you see the Truth

That all our lives we have been lied to

This is bigger than religion

The Truth is so much more

Religion is a roadmap to the Center

But it can’t take you to the Core

When you see it you can’t forget it

It transforms your entire life

Now you’re willing to surrender everything

For the Pearl of greater price

You’ll let go of all attachments

To receive what God’s ordained

But you never thought in doing so

Your relations would be strained

But now it’s starting to hit you

The Truth does not always bring accord

That’s what Yeshua was trying to tell us

When he said he came to bring a sword

This is rarely preached in churches

For this fact we don’t prepare you

When people just want you to join the club

We fear that it will scare you

We try to tell you of the joys

But forget about the costs

Which is natural when we choose our words

From a paradigm of loss

You see the connections we think we’re losing

Are ones that never did exist

Who they accepted was a false us

That’s why the true us gets dismissed

But we shouldn’t take it personally

It’s not the real you they’re rejecting

They doing what the ego does

It’s the false them they’re protecting

To do this they will attack you

Your temptation is to get them back

Which insanely makes them happy

Since it seems to keep the lie intact

Yesh says, “Pick up your cross and bear it.”

“Come and follow me.”

“The Truth is that since we’re all One

If you get lifted they get free.”

“I know that it’s a mystery.”

“But as I told you it is Light.”

“Being low is the way to go

If you’re to see the highest heights.”

“But you cannot take them with you.”

“Still you must give the invitation,

So they can see how much they’re loved

And perhaps surrender separation.”

“While you can’t control the outcome,

You’ve power over what you give.”

“So while they may not see it now,

One day they’ll remember how you lived.”

“They’ll know you lived forgiveness.”

“They’ll see you knew what you were worth.”

“That you saw yourself as a child of God

Despite the conditions of your birth.”

“And perhaps that will be the trigger.”

“That they can live forgiveness too.”

“But in the meantime you must show them,

By forgiving what they do.”

 

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

 

See 1 John 4 for perspective.