Written by: Aaron Tate
Appears on: My Calm//Your Storm, Self Titled, Guild 2, Guild 3, Chronicles
Lyrics:
There’s tarnish on the golden rule
And I want to jump from this ship of fools
Show me a place where hope is young
And a people aren’t afraid to love
This world has nothing for me and this world has everything
All that I could want and nothing that I need
This world is making me drunk on the spirits of fear.
So when he says who will go, I am nowhere near.
And the least of these look like criminals to me
So I leave Christ on the street
This world has held my hand and has led me into intolerance
But now I’m waking up, but now I’m breaking up
But now I’m making up for lost time
See also: MusicBrainz.
This song identifies with the struggle that Christians face to live “in the world, but not of it”. We have heard this song explained in different ways.
As Cliff has said during his ramblings numerous times in concert, as Christians it is our duty to take out light into the world, and not to hide it in our church pews. Based on this, some have reasoned that “this world” is referring to the christian sub-culture. Others have reasoned that “this world” refers to the literal world that we live in. The “secular world”, if you will. Even though it is filled with “all that we could want and nothing that we need”, if we don’t heed our call to be a salt and light to it, we will miss out on opportunities to serve Christ like reaching out “to the least of these” (Matthew 25:40). This meaning was probably Aaron’s intent, but the first theory applies as well.
In the first verse, it seems he is frustrated with the church today. The church is probably who he is referring to when he says “ship of fools”. He is frustrated because people havent been treating others the way the want to be treated, hope is not young, and people are afraid to love.
“When He says, who will go…”…this line refers to Isaiah’s meeting with God in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah responds to God’s call by saying, “Here am I. Send me.”
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