The new year started off with a slightly-later-than-usual pre-dawn walk up into the valley.  The breeze was nice and the road mostly quiet.  Morning prayer, some monastic podcast, talk, and then the first full song of the year.  You just never quite know what you’ll get when you hit “shuffle” for your downloaded music.  This morning I got “Hope to Carry On” by Rich Mullins.  Apropos for this day and the year that this day brings.  It’s an interesting song: a well-structured song that still feels “rough around the edges” to me because the lyrics are simple, almost praise-songy, and yet far from being as “slick” as one might expect (not that anything Mullins every did was slick).  Here’s Rich singing the song (along with “I Will Sing” at the start:

And here’s the remake by Caedmon’s Call, which was my introduction the song back in something like 1998:

Like I said: a good song for the start of the year.  A simple song that holds you close to the heart of the matter.