sunday inspiration [the lower lights]

Here's a little intro to a band I've recently discovered (and by "I've discovered" I really mean "my friend Carlie discovered it and told me about it"). I'm a huge fan of music with that folk feel and of hymns, but almost always on a separate level. Sometimes people will suggest a band that plays Christian music, but it's never something I really get into. Hymns, to me, are something that should stay fairly simple in their delivery, and just seek to bring the spirit to the audience. So while those Christian groups are great and everything, when it comes to things I listen to on Sunday I stick to my MoTab pandora station, you know?

This band I've taken to recently, however, does a beautiful job of combing the genre I love with the hymns I love, and playing them in a very reverent way. I would highly recommend giving them a listen. Of course, there are still some songs that I wouldn't listen to on Sunday because they're a little too upbeat for my taste, but I love listening to them at other times throughout the week.

Here's a little summary:




And then of course there's their name, "The Lower Lights", which comes from the hymn "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy". That song in and of itself has a pretty powerful message:


Brightly beams our Father's mercy
From his lighthouse evermore,
But to us he gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore

Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

Dark the night of sin has settled;
Loud the angry billows roar.
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.

Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save.


And with that, I invite you to give The Lower Lights a listen sometime, and to try to be a lower light yourself.