Loud and Clear

(click on title to download song, working on how to listen without needing to download, help welcomed.  Imperfect recording - at one point, I forgot the lyrics and paused.  Will update when I have a better version:))

I received a request to share a song I wrote in the spring of 2006.  It is  my 'coming back home' song.  I wrote this song after my divorce, after my exhusband stopped speaking to me, after I stopped filling my life with continuous frenetic activity, after I allowed myself to feel the pain.  This song marks the beginning of finding my way through it, of not running away from it.  It reminds me of how it feels to come back to the present, to drop the sad stories, to connect to the truth of who I am, to be grateful.  I play this song when I forget and I play it as many times as I need to remember.  It always works for me.  I offer it to you and encourage you to find that which nourishes you, that which brings you back to what is true, to that place of love and forgiveness, to your own purest self, that one which can never be blemished.  May we all be happy, may we all feel the warmth of God's love and share it with everyone we meet everywhere we go.

LOUD AND CLEAR

Copyright (c) 2006 Linda Daline Limbaugh

When I stop, when I listen

I can hear you loud and clear.

When I stop, when I quiet,

I can feel you, oh, so near.

When I stop being too busy,

when I take it nice and slow,

when I can see you in everyone I meet,

you're with me everywhere I go.

CHORUS:

You're in my heart, you're in my touch, 

you're in my laugh,  you're in my eyes.

You're in words, you're in my silence,

you're in my joyful cries.

The warmth within me radiates, a smile is on my lips.

Your energy, it fills my sail; I have the strength to steer my ship.

When I'm open to your wisdom, 

when I tire of playing God,

When I stop judging myself and others, 

when I let your love fill me up.

When I stop all the struggle, 

when I learn to let it go,

When I don't  have to have the answers, 

when I have faith to join the flow...

CHORUS  (with slight change) ...you're in my contented sighs...

When I see we're all doing the best we can, 

when I seek first to understand,

When what I have is more than plenty, 

when I reach out to lend a hand,

When I can see you in every bird and bee, every river, every tree,

When I'm connected to that place inside, 

when I can see you in all of humankind, 

I know I'll never be alone.

CHORUS (with slight change)  ...you're in my grateful mind...

But sometimes I can't hear you, 

my thoughts they drown you out,

I get overwhelmed and fearful, 

I want to cry - or scream and shout!

(silence)

But when I stop, when I listen, 

I can hear you loud and clear.

When I stop, when I quiet,

I can feel you, oh, so near.