Everyday Mystics Episode 1: Play Steinberg
Some floods destroy. Others carry us somewhere we never expected to go. In the first episode of Everyday Mystics, Play Steinberg’s journey through grief, addiction, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and queer identity asks what it means to keep building an ark when the waters rise and whether the very thing that threatens to overwhelm us might also become a flood of love.
SHOW NOTES
[1] Play is an incredible artist, composer and teacher. Run don’t walk to their substack to read their current writings. Also, their webtoon,“Father, Mother, God” is a gorgeous graphic comic about their relationship with their parents and the Divine.
[2] Miriam begins by referencing the biblical story about the Flood in Genesis 6-9
[3] Play mentions their connection to Buddhist Sangha. Sangha means community of people who practice Buddhism. Typically this term is used to refer to a monastery, Buddhist objects/refuges, the fourfold community (laypeople, nuns and monks) or in Western society it tends to mean the group of people who meditate and study the dharma/Buddhist teachings together.
[4] SO…. is Play Jewish, Christian, Buddhist? How can they be all the things at the same time? It all comes down to how one sees identity. Is it enough for you that Play is born Jewish? Do they need to be raised Jewish or practice Judaism to the exclusion of all other faiths? Not for Play. And not for us at Judaism Unbound, either. Play, like all of us, draws their practice from the multitude of life experiences, weaving and integrating them to form a life of meaning. Play, just happens to be exposed to a multitude of faith communities, and so their path is broader than most.
[5] When Play says they don’t want to deny God three times and be like Peter, perhaps you had a different reference for a three fold denial of faith. In Judaism, we often hear that when a seeker chooses to convert, they must approach the rabbi on three separate occasions and be denied before being accepted into study for conversion. In this story - we hear seeking - Play denying that particular path to God, while also deeply striving for belonging and nearness to the Divine.
[6] A church picnic on Tisha B’Av? Now, that’s dualism. Tisha B’Av is a holy fast day in Jewish practice where we lament, sit on the floor, weep, read Ecclesiastes and mourn for the destruction of the Second Temple and the many martyrs and sufferings of the Jewish people.
[7] Play talks about going to Divorce Camp. Divorce and Discovery was founded by Rabbi Deborah Newbrun as an act to reimagine the communal response and care for those going through divorce. You can learn more about the retreat here. For Jewish resources on divorce, you can read this ritual for separation, Judaism Your Way , Jews Get Divorce and The Adventure Rabbi offer direct support, and since you’re a podcast person, you might enjoy the podcast, The Jewish Divorce Podcast.
[8] Play tells the story of the two sets of tablets. In the Talmud, Baba Batra 14b we read, “the broken fragments of the first tablets were placed in the Ark alongside the second whole tablets." This is a often taught as a symbol of God’s forgiveness and humility. In healing circles and communities, this is taught as a metaphor for our own lives, we carry both the broken and the whole with us. Each component is considered holy.
[9] During the festival of Sukkot, we are commanded to build a Sukkah, a temporary shelter that is susceptible to the elements, where we can eat and sleep and be present to the physical realities of our internal life. An apt place for a personal revelation. Shownotes
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MIRIAM: When we recount the biblical story of Noah and the flood, we think of Noah and his family building the great big ark. The animals processing in pairs. A gentle dove with a peaceful message of possibility. Little fisher price smiling giraffes and elephants …It’s down right jovial, and once you start humming “rise and shine give god your glory, glory.” You’ve got yourself an ear worm you can’t shake. We rarely dwell on the less savory components of the story. You know, the fact that the flood kills everything and everyone but the ark and it’s guests. The blood shed and loss of life. A wrathful deity so disgusted with their own creation, that they’d rather wash it all away than believe that humanity was worthy of redemption.
This is where Christians, Muslims and Jews can agree. This God of Genesis, this God is an angry, vengeful God. I suppose that’s slightly better than cosmic indifference. We can agree that flooding the world was probably not a healthy way of handling God’s anger and we may also be able to agree that there have been times at work,in marriage, in friendship, in our bodies, in our country, where we wanted to just burn the whole thing down, wipe it from our lives - destroy this precious thing with our righteous anger. After all, that’s what God does.
After the flood, forgiveness is offered in seven forms:
1. The drying of land
2. The Dove
3. The welcoming of animals back on to the land
4. The Rainbow
5. The acceptance of sacrifice
6. The commitment to never do it again
7. The offering of laws
Noah, in gratitude, builds an altar to God, and then we read God’s response:
וַיָּ֣רַח יְהֹוָה֮ אֶת־רֵ֣יחַ הַנִּיחֹ֒חַ֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהֹוָ֜ה אֶל־לִבּ֗וֹ לֹֽא־אֹ֠סִ֠ף לְקַלֵּ֨ל ע֤וֹד אֶת־הָֽאֲדָמָה֙ בַּעֲב֣וּר הָֽאָדָ֔ם כִּ֠י יֵ֣צֶר לֵ֧ב הָאָדָ֛ם רַ֖ע מִנְּעֻרָ֑יו וְלֹֽא־אֹסִ֥ף ע֛וֹד לְהַכּ֥וֹת אֶת־כׇּל־חַ֖י כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִֽׂיתִי׃
“And God smelled the sweet fragrance and God said in God’s heart, “I’ll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I’ll never again kill off all living things as I’ve just done.”
Acceptance for the exact same reason God decided to destroy them all in the first place. What God loves about us is also what God hates about us. It’s natural to just to want chuck this whole part of the story out or surrender the good parts to someone else, to another faith, extricate ourselves from the wrestling that Judaism demands of us to reconcile this angry, passionate God, who writhes in pain and acts out in anger over the suffering in our world. Part of being a person of faith is to walk back and forth through these emotions, to struggle and wrestle with condemning God, the world, our systems AND forgiving God, the world, our systems. Working through the exhaustion with the righteous anger into paths of peace and love and compassion and round about again, getting us closer and closer towards an eschatology that denounces transactional relationships and breathes in a humanity that we can believe in. This is a story about a person named Play, who built ark after ark, in flood after flood, searching in every possible place for a sense of the Divine that is loving and whole. Play was born Jewish, but not raised as a Jew. And over the course of their life, across traditions and faith communities, they have encounters with God that are unfathomable for most of us. This is both one of the most Jewish stories you will ever hear, and also the most complicated of stories to integrate. Play is not one thing. Just like God. Or Judaism. Our world. The flood and arks in our lives are not just one thing. In a world that understands what it means to flood; to swim in the pain and loss of the moment, we look for leaders who know how to navigate the unknowable waters. Not just a Noah, who understands how to build a boat. But a mystic, a leader of compassion for our time, one who believes and spends every ounce of their life in pursuit of love. Our mystic, today, for our time, is Play.
Welcome to Everyday Mystics, where we believe that the story of Moses awakening to his call through a burning bush that could not be consumed, is not just a one of a kind, once upon a time story, but rather a map for our own lives. Each of us has a story or stories of untold wonder that break and shape the humans we become. We call these people, everyday mystics. In this podcast we tell stories of Jewish people who stumble across burning bushes and come away seeing Judaism differently. I’m Miriam Terlinchamp, and these are stories of the moments when the everyday becomes sacred, the familiar becomes mysterious, and Judaism becomes beautifully unbound.
A brief content warning for our listeners. This episode contains mentions of addiction, depression and suicide.
There is a version of spiritual seeking that sounds very orderly. You have questions. You find a tradition. The tradition gives you answers. Eventually, you find your way home. That is not Play’s story. Play has been Catholic. Buddhist. Jewish. And for one stretch of their life, Play was becoming more Jewish while simultaneously getting saved by evangelical Christians. Not metaphorically saved. Actually saved.
PLAY: Basically, when I arrived, um, in Tahoe, I had walked out of my marriage, and I figured out I had to get sober. And I ended up walking in pretty quickly to the rooms of 12-step recovery. And, um, I walked away from my Buddhist sangha gradually over time, partly because I felt a little bit like I'd lost the sangha in the divorce, which isn't really true, but that was sort of the emotional tenor. It was just like, "I don't really wanna be navigating this shared community with my ex-wife right now." Um, and yet I really needed and craved some kind of spiritual community, and I wanted them to be in person. And honestly, in a small mountain town in this country, what's on offer is evangelical Christianity. That's, like, what's there.
MIRIAM: Play did not seem like the most obvious candidate for an evangelical Bible study. Play is queer. Play spent years practicing Tibetan Buddhism. And, at this juncture, while checking out the evangelical bible study, Play was simultaneously studying Judaism. Play loved the Jewish approach to scripture with all it’s layers and contradictions and arguments. Yet, at the evangelical bible study, these women read the Bible literally. Play went anyway.
PLAY: I was just craving connection and study and being in a space where people had a shared focus on the divine. And, um, I kinda forced my way into, into the Bible study, even though, you know, everyone there is super Christian and super straight and not at all interested in, um, reading scripture through layers of, um, multiple layers of meaning. It was a very, very literal kind of setting of this is what it means. We take it at face value. The words mean what the words mean, period. And, you know, the idea of allegory or metaphor or symbolism or multiple layers of, of, of potentially contradictory meaning existing at the same time like we do in Judaism, like we do in Buddhism, like that was not on the table. And yet I would show up and I would say, "Well, Tibetan Buddhism would say this, and Judaism would say this." And they would kind of love what I was bringing, but also really they were just waiting for me to stop with all that.
MIRIAM: They were waiting for Play to become Christian. And, if possible, straight. Play knew that. Play also knew that these women could pray. Not recite prayers. Pray. Close their eyes, open their hearts and simply talk to God. Like it was the easiest most natural practice in the world. And Play needed that kind of connection to God. Because underneath this strange theological experiment, something much more serious was happening.
PLAY: I was struggling. I was in early sobriety. Um, my mental health was in a really tough place. My mom was still alive, but, um, I was kind of in this downward decline where I'd stopped all these psychiatric medications I'd been on, then gotten sober, then stopped some more psychiatric meds I was just bottoming out. I was getting, I was entering a place that was rougher and rougher and I could see that it was becoming dangerous.
MIRIAM: The women in Bible study asked Play a question. Play, do you want to accept Jesus? Do you want to be saved?
PLAY: I was in this really, really deep conflict where I wanted to be able to accept love in whatever container and form it came in because I so desperately needed love, and also I was really chafing at the apparent restrictions and confines of being in a frankly entirely conservative and fundamentalist evangelical setting where they were, they were honestly just waiting for me to become straight and marry a Christian guy. And my, my, my bridge-building towards them wasn't really met with very much bridge-building towards me. So it felt like salvation was very, very intimately tied up with defeat. And so when they asked me did I wanna be saved, um, I said, "No, no thank you," you know? But in the same breath, I kind of said, "Ask me again," you know? Cause I was really desperate. I was like, "I-- But at the same time, like, what, let's see what I say next."
MIRIAM: They did. And Play said no again. Two denials. Driving home, Play suddenly thought of another person who had been asked three times whether he knew Jesus. The apostle Peter. Some quick context for our Jewish listeners, or those with less familiarity with the Christian Gospels. During Jesus’s lifetime, on the final night of his life, Jesus foretold that all his followers would abandon him. But, his apostle Peter insisted that even if every one else left Jesus, Peter would never deny him. And Jesus responded, “Before the rooster crows tonight, you will deny me three times.” And… that’s exactly what happens. When Jesus was arrested and put on trial, Peter was asked on three separate occasions if he knew Jesus, and Peter said no each time. At this point in our story, Play had denied Jesus two times.
PLAY: Something in me just went, "Yeah, that's-- You're not gonna pull a Peter." And it was like me and God made this handshake agreement where, where God said, "You won't deny me three times." And I said, "Yep, that's true. I won't deny you three times." And that, then it was just clear, like, "Okay, here's your mission. Be ready because you better believe you're gonna get asked again if you keep hanging out with these people." Like, "The third, the third time is coming."
MIRIAM: And then, one Sunday morning, a rabbi told Play to go to church. Sort of.
PLAY: I had a daily reader that I was working with at the time that was, um, based on the weekly parsha, and it was commentary on the parsha through the lens of 12-step recovery, so this really beautiful daily reflection. And I read this quote from a rabbi who basically said When I was young and full of life and enthusiasm, I thought I had to convert the whole world to God, but I failed. I couldn't do that. So I thought I had to convert my town to God, but I failed at that. And I thought I had to convert my family, and I failed at that. And I realized finally I had to convert myself to God, and even at that, I'm failing. And it's a Sunday morning. It's July 24th, 25th, something like 25th, I think. I read this reading, and I just went, "Oh," I cursed. "Oh, God, I have to go to church. I have to go to church this morning. This rabbi is telling me to go to church."
MIRIAM: So Play goes to church. And of course, on this particular Sunday, the pastor does something he almost never does. An altar call, where people are invited to come up to the front and accept Jesus as their savior. The third invitation.
PLAY: I could just feel myself shrinking down in my chair, like wanting to disappear, knowing that I had to stand up because I'd made this deal with God. I'd made this deal, like it or not, ready or not, you're not gonna deny me three times, whatever form that comes in. So he finishes the altar call, and I'm in the way back, and I stood up. And my friends are all, "Oh, everyone's so excited," and I'm just going, "Oh my God, what am I doing? This is the last thing I wanted. Don't wanna do this, don't wanna do this, don't wanna do this, don't wanna be here. Can't believe this is happening."
MIRIAM: Sunday morning, Play gets saved. Tuesday morning, Play’s phone rings. It's their aunt.
PLAY: You know how it is when someone calls you and you just know what they're gonna say. It was my aunt, my mom's sister, and I saw that I was on a curvy part of Route 20, California Route 20. There's no shoulder. It's windy. It's, uh, hilly. And I answer the phone, and I already know she's gonna tell me. And she says, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I'm driving." She said, "Pull over." And I said, "Well, hang on, you know, there's nowhere to pull over." And I'm just driving. Probably took a minute or two minutes of driving down this road until I could find enough shoulder to pull over. And the whole time she's sitting there on speakerphone waiting for me to pull over, and I'm just driving knowing that as soon as I pull over, she's gonna tell me my mom is dead. And I finally pull over and it's, you know, it's not enough shoulder to really be off the road, so every car that goes by, my little car is shaking while I'm sitting there on the side of the road. And sure enough, she says, "Your mom's dead."
MIRIAM: She had taken her own life. Play’s father had also died by suicide. When that happened, Play drank and used drugs to survive their grief. This time they were exactly eight months sober.
PLAY: My first call was to my baby brother. My second call was to my sponsor. And I texted this whole group of church ladies and said, "Hey, my mom took her life. Please keep me in your prayers." And when I think about it and I talk about and I contextualize the way that getting saved features in my story They saved me that year. They saved me from dying in those moments.
MIRIAM: This is where the phrase “being saved" gets complicated in Play’s story. Because they save Play, but they don’t love all of Play, and Play still doesn't believe everything that these Christians believe. Their community still doesn't have room for the fullness of all of Play’s identities. But when Play needed people to help keep them alive, the church community was there.
PLAY: When I talk about Jesus saves, yeah, Jesus kept me alive in 2022. You know? Jesus kept me alive, and there was this bridge that the church created for me that got me through my mom's passing onto more and more firm ground theologically speaking, where I could build a life of devotion and prayer for myself and community for myself that actually is supportive and nurturing of all of me. But they played a pivotal role, and it's hard for me to find The willingness to want to even talk about that and go there because it feels so complex and fraught but it is a piece, it is a piece of my path and my story.
MIRIAM: A few weeks later, Play gets baptized in Donner Lake at the church picnic. Which also just happened to be on Tisha B'Av. A day of lament, fasting and grief in the Jewish holy day calendar.
PLAY: It was Tisha B'Av. It's literally the saddest day of the Jewish year, and you know, people are going like, "Congratulations. This is so fantastic. I'm so excited. How have you been since we saw you? How have you been since we saw you get saved at church two weeks ago?" And I'm like, "Yeah, well, two days after that my mom killed herself, so it's been a little rough, but you know, nice to be here." It was Tisha B'Av. It was also a feast day in the Tibetan Buddhist calendar, and it's, you know, church picnic, baptism in Donner Lake, and I'm like, "How do I hold all of this together?" So I fasted at the picnic. That was kind of my way of nodding to my Jewish lineage to say, "Yeah, this is, this is a celebratory day in the Christian perspective. This is kind of a tragic and really sad, and also I don't even know what's happening to my life. This is an unrecognizable transformation for me as a person, and also I don't really wanna just thumb my nose at my, at my Jewish ancestry." So I went to this picnic and got baptized and fasted all day. It was just this really non-dual moment of, okay, we're holding all of this at once and, and I don't have to understand it to walk it, and f- the weave will come together.
MIRIAM: “I don't have to understand it to walk it.” That's important. Because the weave had not come together yet. Everything still stood in it’s own silos. Judaism over here. Christianity over there. Gender identity. Sexual identity. Art. All of them independent compartments that had yet to learn how to integrate with one another. A few months after the baptism, Play went to something called Divorce and Discovery. Or, as everyone called it, Divorce Camp. A Jewish retreat built to counteract a simple observation: We get married in community. We get divorced alone.
PLAY: Divorce camp was this place where I was suddenly in this idyllic Jewish community atmosphere, and there were people from all different walks of Judaism and all different backgrounds, and what we had in common was this experience of divorce, this experience of a huge rift and loss in our lives, and that was this universal connector that superseded our Jewish backgrounds and what we knew or didn't know.
MIRIAM: Play starts encountering Jewish ritual almost backwards. Not as ancient practices learned first as a child and then applied to life as they grow older. The natural progression of observing tradition, and then shifting it creatively to meet the moment. Rather, Play encounters these rituals for the first time already transformed around the thing being lived through.
PLAY: My first experience of a mikvah was at divorce camp. My first experience of Tashlich was at divorce camp. I have a whole story about that. My first experience of Havdalah was at divorce camp. So it was not just learning how you actually separate Shabbat from the rest of the week, but how you separate your married life from the rest of your life to come. So it was all so rich and so layered. It just felt like, oh, I'm the most Jewish I've ever been, even while sort of secretly but not secretly being Christian at the same time.
MIRIAM: At Divorce Camp, Play learns a teaching about two sets of tablets. According to Jewish tradition, when Moses came down from the mountain and shattered the first tablets of the Ten Commandments, those broken pieces weren't thrown away. They were carried along with the new tablets. Broken and whole, together in the ark.
PLAY: It became this really rich metaphor for, for tending to and considering our brokenness to be sacred, and not trying to shut the door on the past, you know, and wish it never happened, or regret the past and wish to shut the door on it.
MIRIAM: During a workshop, Play is invited to write their own psalm. A prayer from inside the wreckage.
PLAY: What can I say? You know all things, yet you humor me as I stumble toward you, failing to recognize this landscape, the holy rubble of my life, wrapped tightly here inside your ark Teach me to love as you love, infinitely and unimpeded. Let me see this flood as a shower of blessings. Fill me to overflowing until I can no longer distinguish me from you Outside of time and space you abide and have already done this. Yet you wait patiently while I wander in the desert that is your innermost heart.
MIRIAM: “Let me see this flood as a shower of blessings.” Play knew something about floods. Grief could be a flood. Depression could be a flood. Divorce. Addiction. Losing a parent. Scratch that. Losing parentS in unfathomably complicated and painful ways. For much of Play's life, being flooded meant something was wrong, it meant that they were overwhelmed by the reality of life, holding on for dear life. But now, they were asking a different question. What if the flood wasn't only something to survive?
PLAY: Typically, when I think about being flooded in my life emotionally, it has connotations of negativity and fear. It's being flooded by depression and overwhelm or panic or grief, or I'm just too sensitive and I don't think I belong in this world. I am not cut out to walk through this like everybody else. So there's this sense of the flood being too much, washing away all ability to withstand. Um, and definitely in, in the Psalm from Divorce Camp, there's this sense of can I see this-- posing the question, can I see this flood as a shower of blessings? Can I learn to experience whatever happens as a blessing, as opposed to draw the conclusion that this is an obstacle or that this is a setback?
MIRIAM: A few weeks after Divorce Camp, Play builds their first sukkah. It's mostly their back porch, decorated with branches. Play brings out a sleeping bag. They’re going to eat there, pray there, sleep there. And one night, inside this very Jewish space, Play opens the Christian Bible to Revelation. Because, of course.
PLAY: I'm in my sukkah. I'm studying Revelation, this, you know, this prophetic book of the end of the world. And then I realized I haven't prayed. Let me pray before I really get into my study. And so I s- I k- kind of put the, put the Bible down and kind of aroused my posture, got a little more upright, and closed my eyes, and I said a prayer. And there was just something about the prayer as I heard myself saying it that I kind of just keyed in, oh, this isn't, this is not an ordinary prayer.
MIRIAM: Play writes down what they can remember. And slowly realizes: This isn't a prayer. It's a song. And Play doesn't feel like they’re writing it. They feel like they’re receiving it.
PLAY: A space started to open up That went on for several days, where essentially I was surrendering into receiving each line of this song. Um, it was as if I had to do a certain amount of God wrestling and handing over of my attachment to self and my attachment to knowing how things are, how things are gonna go, how things should be. Just handing all of that over in order to surrender into a space of receptivity, of God's love, however you wanna conceive of that. Of course, in this moment, this was happening in a really Christian and really Jewish container at the same time. I'm in, I'm in a sukkah, which is a Jewish thing, and I'm having this divine experience that the Christians would have described as a blessing of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jews might talk about it as a blessing of the Shekhinah, you know, maybe. I don't even know. It's hard to find Jewish language that really wraps around this experience. But the experience transcends my ability to put words to it.
MIRIAM: And then came the flood.
PLAY: For days I was just walking around feeling like I was under a waterfall of blessings, just in this downpour of divine love, that it was like liquid light. It was geometric. It was psychedelic, but without psychedelics. I would close my eyes, and I would see patterns, and I would see these kind of fractal geometric shapes all made out of light that also had this feeling of just being under a deluge, under a waterfall of blessings. And that deluge didn't really stop until I landed the last line of the song, and then it was like, "Okay, I don't have to..." You know, God is saying, "I don't have to hold your head under the waterfall anymore. You got it. Now just, just keep singing the song. Just keep handing it over. Just keep surrendering."
MIRIAM: Months earlier, Play had written a prayer: Let me see this flood as a shower of blessings. And then, sitting inside a sukkah, studying the Christian Book of Revelation, this newly baptized, increasingly Jewish, longtime Buddhist person felt the flood arrive. We want to share a portion of what Play received in that flood. You can listen to the full song after the show credits, but for this point in our episode, we want you to experience the raw, perfect voice of Play, someone who exists beyond any singular container, and continues to make themselves available to receive the love, wonder and mystery of whatever the Divine sends their way. Listener, this part is precious. It’s not a story about a story, but rather the product of a mystical experience translated into music, it’s called the Surrender Song.
PLAY SINGS:
Of all the names there are to call you, I knew not your name.
Of all the ways there are to follow, I knew not the way.
Without a will to comprehend you, I knew not a thing.
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
MIRIAM: There are floods that consume everything, drowning us with grief and pain so viciously that even the concept of rising out of our suffering can feel like an insurmountable feat. And, too, there are floods of love, of vision, of possibility, that crowd out the suffering, not so different than a bush that can not be consumed, a flood of mystical energy that shocks you into clarity. Life is both a receiving and an offering to the Source, navigating versions of bloodletting as a price to live in through and beyond the flood waters. Play, the mystic, reminds us that God. Shechinah. Adonai. Loves our sea legs. And that the boat we build in our lifetimes, serves as a reminder that we have oceans within us, we know how to take the waters, one wave at a time, until, emerging into our fullest selves, we breathe air once again.
Big thanks to Play for sharing their story. Play Steinberg is a mapmaker and meaning-maker, drawing connections, queering boundaries and transcending limits wherever they go. Check out the show notes to find links to Play’s work, including a comic series which powerfully tells their story. Thank you to our generous sponsors, Barbara and Mathew Loonin for making Everyday Mystics possible. Everyday Mystics is a production of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future, and part of the family of podcasts of Judaism Unbound, hosted by me, Miriam Terlinchamp, produced by Joey Taylor, sound engineering by Justin Newton, original podcast music by Ric Hordinski and art by Katie Kaestner. As always, we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at hello@judaismunbound.com if you have a story that you’d like to share.
SURRENDER SONG:
Of all the names there are to call you, I knew not your name.
Of all the ways there are to follow, I knew not the way.
Without a will to comprehend you, I knew not a thing.
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
Of all the prayers that I could offer, I can only sing:
May all the time that I denied you be an offering
Of all that I have yet to learn, to make of You my King.
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
Oh Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
You’ve brought me to a place beyond the things I thought I knew
An unexpected grace, to dedicate my life to you…
Oh make of me a hollow reed, held gently in your hand.
A sword of wisdom, cutting through my need to understand.
Please bless me into usefulness, my life at your Command,
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
Oh Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
I came to you with nothing but the willingness to start. (swallow)
You softly whispered to me that You’d tear my world apart.
Now even in the darkness, You illuminate my heart.
My Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
Oh Lord, I surrender completely at your feet.
