A Portrait of Love

© 2007 Carl Thomas and Anna Stroud Gladstone

Two lives together as oneRaised in the promise of God
Then a daughter and a son
To serve, to sing, to love

Thank you for the love that you give
For the love that you gave
For the love that you give
to me

You picked on me till I cried
Then a shoulder I cried on
I was your punchline, now
You're the laughter in my life

Thank you for the man that [woman] I am
for the woman [man that] I am
for the man that [woman] I am
today

You left a rose on the porch
A father's day we won't forget
The pain has slowly run its course
While I learn to walk and stand again

Throw a little party with you
throw a party with you
throw a party with you

Now we'll take a turn to share
your love for us with the world
we go out from your care
missionaries of...this love!

Save a little part of the world
save a part of the world
save a part of the world
with you

Two share a love untold
Realized amid many
Many companions all posed
in a portrait of love

Paint a little portrait of love
paint a portrait of love
paint a portrait of love
with you

For all our friends and family 

Aaron's Beard

© 2001, Carl Thomas Gladstone

Bearded and belted in blue jeans and leather,
Aaron tears across the desert scene.
The dusty highway shoulders
salute this one-man stampede.

From the dirt tinted black of his boots,
up the day faded fringe on his chaps,
to the gray beard beneath his bandana wrapped head,

He rides like a rocket, like the road will never end.
He rides like a rodeo, a little rough around the edge.
While the hula-girl dances, Aaron rides for us all.

Steer horns on his handlebars point
toward the only direction he knows.
Forward, past state lines, forward
through stop signs and speed traps and towns.

Along the way he picks up riders
from Acolita and Clear Creek,
riding together toward a sun-baked horizon

They ride like rockets, like the road will never end.
They ride like a rodeo, a little rough around the edge.
While the hula-girl dances, Aaron rides with them all.

Sun pours over his body like oil

Baptized on the road,
these riders have driven through spit shined road blocks,
and barricades, and dusted off detours
calling for you to…

Ride like a rocket, like the road will never end.
Come ride like a rodeo, a little rough around the edge.
While the hula-girl dances, Aaron rides with us all.

All Shall Be Well

© 2006, Carl Thomas Gladstone
Words by Julian of Norwhich

All shall be well
All shall be well
All manner of things shall be well
Mother Jesus

Kind Mother
In whom I am reborn
Nearer me than I myself
Rid of our sharpest scourge

Deep Wisdom
From whose sweet open side
Flows the ground of Motherhood
and intellect in kind

Great Hen
Beneath whose wing and breast
Gathers us from scattering
To humble, simple, rest

Close Knower
Of all your children's needs
Make real Great Pow'r, Great Love
bury our sick deeds.

And Are We Yet Alive

This is a traditional text sung at yearly conferences of Methodists. In the early days it literally celebrated the fact that these frontier circuit riders were still living on this planet! Now the words, in light of the troubles our churches have seen as institutions, remind us that with a focusing on the mission of Jesus Christ for us - to make disciples for the transformation of the world - we may continue experience life in Christ together.

And Are We Yet Alive (pdf)

At Last Death Sleeps

This hymn celebrates God's victory over death.  The imagery is of deathly things transformed into the things of life.  Graves to beds, sorrow to mirth, along with seeing our own eternal life in Jesus' own resurrection.

At Last Death Sleeps (pdf)

Band of Love

This song captures the ever-present teaching of Methodists hymns that the closer we get to one another in the spirit of Christ, the closer we are to God. We celebrate a common Lord, we celebrate a binding together that because of God's strength cannot be broke. We also get a taste of the hope the Wesley's had for Christian perfection.

Band of Love (pdf)

Bend Beneath Abyss

This song captures a sense of God's greatness and unimaginable depth. It also reminds us of our baptisms during which we die to our selves and Jesus claims us for his own. Even this power, though, that seems crushing is a power bound by the love of goodness of God.

Bend Beneath Abyss (pdf)

Born 'Mid The Storm

A lament hymn for those mothers and families caught in multigenerational slavery today, but also a cry of hope that perhaps this is the generation to escape bondage.

Born 'Mid The Storm (pdf)

Charge To Keep

As we hear the Gospel and God's call in our lives we have the responsibility to respond. This song imagines that response as a charge placed upon us by God. Keeping it is the way of life. Ignoring or working against it is that which deadens us.

Charge To Keep (pdf)

Close By Your Steps

In the midst of painful lives, thristy times, and unmet wishes we turn to God. This songs rehearses a confidence in God's way even when the storms of life rage. Inherent in this is a prayer for patience, humbleness, and rest.

Close By Your Steps (pdf)

Count of Waves

© 2001, Carl Thomas Gladstone

How long could I sit here in my feigned sovereignty
counting up the vast blue and irregular waves
as they crash here on the shore right in front of me?

How long could I sit here counting waves?

How long could I sit here watching boulders shrink?
Dropping grain after grain after grain
until the waves crash down and they do it all again.

How long could I sit here counting waves?
Until my hands seize into claws?
Until my nimble body goes taut?
Until the sun turns my rigid skin to dust? How long?

How long could I sit here—imagining God out on the horizon,
riding some thick cumulus, while these waves approach my feet?
They splash, shush, and rasp against my counting.

How long could I sit here counting waves?
Until my eyes ancient windowpanes crack?
Until my weary body succumbs beneath the sand?
Until the tide returns and mingles with my bones? How long?

How long could I sit here in my feigned sovereignty,
as my world crumbles around me?
While these vast blue waves splash, shush past, crash, clap,
they whisper, they whisper, they rasp “I am here with you.”

Daddy's Dracularity

© 2006, Carl Thomas Gladstone

It's one thing Daddy
sending me to my room.
But Daddy, it's another thing,
sending children to their graves,
while telling me, "Go get the gun."

Oh, Daddy I'm your deviant son
since you started courting Dracula,
and living in a coffin-world.
I won't follow when you roam.

Know this Daddy,
I'm the leader of the mob
sitting right outside your door
barricading you without pitchforks
from your supervision over death.

My, my Daddy,
you want to keep it squeaky clean.
This disobedient son of yours,
mudding up the clothes you bought,
disrobing your authority.

But listen Daddy,
we were sent to bring you news.
Our eyes were opened yesterday,
this mud on your doorstep will wash away,
if you choose your disobedience to death.

*John 9

Echoes In Dreams

© 2001, Carl Thomas Gladstone

I’ve spent my life asking for the name
of who I’ll meet or who I’ll love,
but only answers in dreams
have reached me;

We’ve sat under apple trees at evening,
driven blue highways to be near for a while,
talked hundreds of times, in ten thousand places.

I’ve found shadows of you, echoes in dreams,
whispers that escape when I open my eyes.
You’ve brushed by and brought me
from dreaming to wanting I know
you are lovelier than echoes in dreams.

I’ll keep the light of you in my eyes,
a blaze so bright no rivers could dowse it.
Our love is stronger than wealth, life, or death.
And you are lovelier than echoes in dreams.

Embrace of the Quitters

© 2006 Carl Thomas Gladstone;

Seems that I remember
a farmer with a field,
sold his field for gold dust
and laid it at our feet,
sold it for some gold dust
and laid it at our feet.

How 'bout that my sisters,
how bout that my friends
sold his field for gold dust,
but he's planting once again.
sold it for some gold dust
and he's planting once again.

We called him "Second Chances"
Called him "Something else!"
We called him lots of names then,
now we're calling him for help.

You go your way and Iíll go mine.
Sometimes taking two paths
is the only way we'll find-
sometimes play the fox, boy,
sometimes play the hound.
but we'll find our way around my friend,
we'll find our way around.

Seems that I remember
a preacher with no ears.
He had two lobes upside his head
but no people who could hear,
He had two lobes upside his head
but no audience could hear.

How 'bout that my brothers,
how 'bout that my friends,
seems he'd persecuted
all the people he'd been with
seems he'd persecuted
all the people he'd been with.

So we called up second chances,
called up an embrace,
gave the man a new name
and sent him on his way.

Seems that same old preacher
called for quits today
from a young'n in his party
wasnít party to the plan
from a young'n in his party
wasn't party to the plan.

How 'bout that my neighbors,
how 'bout that my friends.
Preacher called for quittin
from the same boy that he'd been
Preacher called for quittin
from the same boy that he'd been.

Called him disrespectful
called him just a child
Called him all the things he'd called
himself for a little while

So the farmer with the gold dust
opened up a wing
split with that ol' preacher
and went to help the kid
split with that ol' preacher
and went to help the kid

How bout that my neighbors
how bout that my friends
Sometimes weíll be quitters
sometimes weíll be like kin

Sometimes weíll be quitters
sometime weíll love like kin.
Sometimes weíll be quitters
Sometimes weíll get split
Sometimes weíll catch each other
even in the midst of it.

Acts 15:36-41

Enter My Joy

This song revels in lives lived as pleasing servants of God. Even this life that seems so difficult or so short can be lived beautifully and the nearness of God's glory is offered.

Enter My Joy (pdf)