Low

The comedown after chasing the mountaintop. Trading the rapture for the cool of the floorboards and a quiet cup of coffee — learning that the salvation you went looking for in the fire was passing you by all along, in the ordinary days.

Lyrics

I used to chase the lightning till my eyes went blind
Searching for a mountain that was harder to climb
Thought the only way to hear you was a thunder clap
The tired traveler looking at a map
The fire in the rafters has all burned to gray
And the ringing in my ears finally faded away
I’m standing in the kitchen in the four a.m. light
Just trying to outrun the ghost of the height

Coming down off the oxygen light
Learning the rhythm of water and wine
I don’t need the rapture, I don’t need the heat
Just the cool of the floorboards under my feet
If you aren’t in the fire or the wind anymore
I’ll look for the grace in the hinge of the door
I’m done with the high, I’m okay with the low
Finding the hope in the things that grow slow

Life has a way but just breaking the skin
Scraping the places where the pride had been thin
I thought I was falling, just losing the lead
But I was just being planted like a common seed

The radio dial and our holy kind of mercy in a stranger’s smile
I’m trading the ecstasy for something that scales
Like the steady, quiet pulse of the ordinary days
It’s the laundry on the line, it’s the grease on the hands
It’s the way the old oak tree stubbornly stands
I spent so long looking for a rift in the sky
I miss the salvation that was passing me by

The sun’s coming up just like it always does
It isn’t a miracle, it just is what it was
And that’s enough for me
Yeah, that’s enough for me
Just a quiet cup of coffee and a place to be

Hear it, and own the record, on Bandcamp.

The First Liturgy