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The musical, "Canticle of the Plains," was cowritten by Rich, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker. There were only a handful of performances held (and hopefully Mitch will one day be able to return in his role as "Frank"), but the music was released independently by the Kid Brothers of St. Frank. Following are the lyrics for the soundtrack, with Rich's comments on the play between the songs. The comments were taken from the KTLI interview conducted during the world premier of the musical. For the full text of the interview between Rich and Bob Michaels, go to KTLI's webpage and the "Canticle" information is about half way down.

... in the dialogue prior to this song, we basically spell out that St. Frank is coming back from the civil war. He's not yet St. Frank, he's just Frank. He's coming back from the civil war. And in the civil war, he became very disillusioned with all the talk about justice and goodness and everything, because he's looking at war, and he's going, "This doesn't represent goodness to me." And so he's kinda coming back, he's somewhat disillusioned with the values that he's been raised with, somewhat disillusioned with all of the hoopla of political ... you know how political people use great causes to promote themselves ... and he's coming back to Wichita, and he's crossing the plains. And it's there in the plains, just because of the vastness of them, that he has an encounter with God, that he realizes, he recognizes the frailty of humankind and the vastness of God, and the emptiness of life without God being involved, and in that experience is when he first ... in the script it says ... this is where he first heard God, or more truly, where he first overheard God. And so he sort of recognizes in the prairie winds and in the flora and fauna around him, how creation is constantly pointing to God, and how God is involved in creation, and that's where the first song comes in.

There You Are

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Mitch McVicker
Psalm 61, Psalm 104

I stood on that Cherokee Plain,
And the Cimeron broke free and jumped its banks
All in a rush of life.
The thunderhead roared out its song,
And it gave what was too much for it to hold.
And so must I.

And You light the sun to lead me.
Send the wind to be my guide.
Just the wonder of this prairie,
So lonely and so alive.
And the song the moon is singin'
With the rain and with the fire.

Says there You are.
(There You are)
There You are
In front of me.

The antelopes' white flashing flanks
Sparked in the heart of the Cheyenne breaks,
Only to disappear.
Just like this memory of what once was my home.
And as I move beyond everything I've known,
You pull me near.

And You light the sun to lead me.
Send the wind to be my guide.
Just the wonder of this prairie,
So lonely and so alive.
And the song the moon is singin'
With the rain and with the fire.

Says there You are.
(There You are)
There You are

And Your kingdom sings of a glory.
Of a power that is Yours alone.
And You're the one breathed into the many.
You're faith, You're love, and the hope.
As we lay our hearts before You
Our hands are free to let go.

And there You are.
(There You are)
There You are
In front of me.

The character of Buzz now enters into the play. Buzz is a former slave that Frank meets in Lawrence, Kansas in a burnt-out ruined church that was destroyed when Quantrill raided Lawrence. And, I meet him because Buzz's mother cleans that church in Lawrence, and she hooks me up with Buzz, and Frank and Buzz kind of become soul mates and head off on an epic journey. So together, the two of these guys begin to head west. That's a key thing in the Franciscan movement, is that they would travel not solo, with the understanding of church as something that happens among people as opposed to just an individual effort. Buzz, being a former slave, really loves freedom, so he of course loves the plains. And Buzz's mother just sort of gets the two guys together, and she says that she's always believed that Buzz had a special part to play in the history of the world. And she recognizes in Frank that they could accomplish it together. And she sort of ... in the [original story] St. Francis was commissioned in the ruins of St. Damian and Christ spoke to him from a crucifix and said "rebuild my church which you see is in ruins." And, in our play, Ms. Johnson, who is Buzz's mother, sort of is the voice of Christ and says, "Rebuild the church," because the one she's in has been ruined. And she goes there, because she loves the place, and loves the church. And so she sends them out together. And this song is just Buzz talking about being on the plains. And the plains are sort of a metaphor all through the play of going to that place that is quiet, going to that place that is silent, and encountering God in a sort of un-cushioned way, encountering God in your soul, as opposed to just through your senses.

Cry For Freedom

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Michael Tate
Matthew 20:25-28, Romans 7:5-6, First Peter 4:8-11

I like to pray, out here where there's room to breathe.
Take the air inside of me,
And let the spirit move.
And there's a sea of sage
Where they say a man is made to be
Tough as a young tumbleweed.
Light as cottonwood root.

I want to be that light.
I want to be that tough.
And if this soul of mine could lose
It's weight of pride and take to flight,
I'd rise above and be free, Lord free.
To serve the One who came to be a servant to us all, yeah
And Lord I'm down on my knees
I'm praying for the eyes to see
And ears to hear
This world's cry for freedom

Yeah, Freedom.

And I like to play, out here where there's room to grow.
No fences and no roads.
Everything is new.
And the dawn it breaks,
It heals the hurts that harden me.
So I can stretch and someday reach,
And I may be reached too.

I want to be that broken.
I want to be that strong.
Wake up where the big sky is open,
The wind is blowin',
And my heart sings along.

Singing, Lord I want to be free, Lord free.
To serve the One who came to be
A servant to us all, yeah.
And Lord I'm down on my knees,
And I'm praying for the eyes to see,
And ears to hear
This cry.
Free, Lord free.
Ooh, yeah.

A servant to us all.
He cried for freedom.
He died for freedom.
Yeah, oh.

I cry for freedom
I'd die for freedom

Yeah, freedom.
Yeah, freedom.
Yeah.

Buzz has a pet calf that they take with them, and the calf's name is Luke. And Frank explains as they're taking off that the calf is ... about the four evangelists in the Bible and how ... the four creatures around the throne of God in the book of Revelation, and how medieval theologians took those to be the four gospels, and that the calf represents Luke, which is the priestly or the servant gospel. And that jives with Buzz's character, because Buzz is the character in the musical that is the most servant-like and ... priestly. Buzz is based on Bernard di Quintavalle, who is I think Francis' first disciple. They don't know exactly where they're going. Buzz was planning on going to Texas on a cattle drive, so he just kind of starts heading that way, they get near to Wichita, Kansas, so they drop by to see some old friends of Frank's, and they visit a saloon that Ivory, who is the next important character, is a piano player in the saloon. And he's a childhood friend of Frank's. And Clare happens to be in the saloon there also, and she is also a childhood friend of Frank's. The piano player is not a convert at this point. And when Frank arrives, he's very skeptical about Frank, because when Frank came back from the war, everyone thought that he was crazy, that the war had snapped him. But now he's becoming a little bit of a celebrity, because he's so quirky, and he does talk with animals, and he does live in utter poverty. And Clare is very ... kind of excited and attracted to this, but at this point, Ivory is sort of hostile, at least very skeptical of it, and when Frank and Buzz come in to visit, they begin talking about what they had dreamed of being when they were kids. Ivory had dreamt of being a cowboy, but he never really had the courage to be a cowboy, and he became a piano player in a bar where cowboys come in to drink. And this song is just sort of his looking at his own life and going, "Wow, my life really doesn't amount to as much as I had hoped it would, and I'm not really doing what I dreamed of doing. What I'm really doing is playing piano for guys who do what I dream of doing."

If I Could Make It Work

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Kevin Smith
Job 14:14-15

I sit on a piano stool, and I make up songs for these men
Who come in with dust on their faces and mud on their boots
From these places that I'll never go.
I sleep in a rented bed, with a woman who gives me
What little I get of the love that we'd like to imagine
Is left of the love that we never did know.
I slip out and scribble a note that reads like a million bucks.
It's a four cent nickel for my dime store thief
But it sure reads good

And If I could make it work in life
(Make it work in life)
Like it works on paper.
(Works on paper)
If the love that I describe
(Love that I describe)
Could be anything but words
Then I would wipe my eyes,
I'd dry this ink,
I'd trade my pen in on a pair of wings.
And I would
(I would)
I would fly
(I would fly)
If I could only make it work in life

And at the end of every night, I add up the tips
That account for what might not come down to a thing
That amounts to a life, and the sum of it all
I'm afraid is less than what I know
I need to slip beneath the surface of my forgeries
Where I buried my hopes with sometimes my dreams
Still stir me and steal me away.
And I can still hear Dineh Bikeyah call
Just like when we were kids.
And I could tell you all about it in a song.
But Lord, I wish that

I could make it work in life
(Make it work in life)
Like it works on paper.
(Works on paper)
If the love that I describe
(Love that I describe)
Could be anything but words
Then I would wipe my eyes,
(Wipe my eyes)
I'd dry this ink,
I'd trade my pen in on a pair of wings.
(I would fly)
And I would fly!
If I could only make it work in life.
If I could only make it work in life.

Frank and his new found buddy Buzz come into this bar, they're visiting some old time friends of Frank's childhood. At this point Ivory joins them, because there's something very attractive about [their journey]. And so Frank and Buzz both encourage Ivory and say, "You know you don't have to be afraid; you don't have to be timid about life. You can really plunge into it." And so he decides to join them right then and there. At the end of this song, you know, of course, is the big conversion scene. I think it's more implied, because I generally think conversions are more implied than acted out in real life. So they leave the bar, and they're off, and they're continuing their stay in Wichita when we meet this next character, Clare. And she's based on the actual St. Clare, who was actually a very great friend of St. Francis. They head up to church, because they've been up all night getting converted, and so they decide to go up to the church to ask it's blessing and to leave it theirs, and Clare realizes that she can't really go with them, and that she's also very taken by Frank, but she realizes that there's a romantic interest on her part and possibly on his that might impede either their being able to really focus on Christ and really come into a deeper walk with Him. So she stands back and sings ... this is a prayer that she sings ... that she prays. She kind of steps back away from everybody else and goes off a little bit alone and prays for Frank. Because Frank, Buzz and Ivory have decided to leave, and they don't know exactly where they're going. Frank and Ivory made up this imaginary place when they were young called Dineh Bekeya and it was a place where they were gonna go and be the kings of the cowboys and live wild and free on the range. So they're heading towards this place, wherever it may be, knowing that it isn't real, but hoping that they'll find it. Clare and Frank kind of have this conversation about how Frank would like to stay with her, and she would like him to stay, but they both realize that that is not what they're called to do at this point. So it's kind of Clare's "letting go" song, letting go of that to grab hold of something bigger.
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In Your Hands

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Leigh Bingham-Nash
Proverbs 11:25, Psalm 67, Psalm 119:131-135
Psalm 139 8:12, Second Corinthians 4:6

In Your hands, I know he
Could be a man of peace
So take him now, and lead him on
And though the world would try to tear him down,
Only You can make him strong.

Chains of doubt,
And chains of hate
Never stop a man whose love is free
To sow the seeds of faith.
All the despair of the darkest night
Can't keep his hope from turning this world
Toward the morning light.
I know this world will never understand
Or return the love that he's been born to give.
It's in the giving he receives.
His pardon is in the pardoning.
And in dying he's born again to live.

In the sound of Your voice
He has finally found his joy.
So shine through him, and let him shine
With the light you lit within him
That shadows cannot bind.

Chains of doubt,
Chains of hate
Never stop a man whose love is free
To sow the seeds of faith.
All the despair of the darkest night
Can't keep his hope from turning this world
Toward the morning light.
I know this world will never understand
Or return the love that he's been born to give.
It's in the giving he receives.
His pardon is in the pardoning.
And in dying he's born again to live.

Chains of doubt,
And chains of hate
Never stop a man whose love is free
To sow the seeds of faith.
All the despair of the darkest night
Can't keep his hope from turning this world
Toward the morning light.
I know this world will never understand
Or return the love that he's been born to give.
It's in the giving he receives.
His pardon is in the pardoning.
And in dying he's born again to live.
In Your hands.
In Your hands.

And when she gets done singing, this eagle comes down ... because [Clare and Frank] will be separated ... the Eagle will be able to carry messages between them thereafter, which is also one of the legends around St. Francis. And so then this brings us to the last song in the first act ... you're not sure what's legend and what's ... what's miracle. We just thought it would be really romantic. Plus, it brings in the second of the four creatures that surround the throne of God, which would be the eagle. And the eagle corresponds with Clare, because the eagle is the farthest seeing of the gospels, or it's the gospel of John. It's the farthest reaching ... it begins at the very beginning instead of at the conception or at the birth of Christ, etc., etc. And so the eagle corresponds to Clare, because Clare is a very strong and a very insightful sort of woman, and so the eagle and her kind of work together in all of this. Well anyway, so Clare and Frank's understanding that they have to separate has taken place, and the four guys, they take off on their journey, and this is the first time that you actually see this on stage. Frank's method of, and this is also based on St. Francis, of finding his way around is that he would spin around until he fell down, and then he would get up, and whatever direction he was facing is the direction he would go, because he believed that God always meant for us to go forward, and he would go ... At this point, our three travelers have headed out, and they decide to go to Dineh Bekeya, and they don't know where it is, and they in fact don't even know if it is, but they're going to go there anyway, or at least they're going to go in whatever direction Frank faces when he finishes spinning. And night comes, and Frank is in love with God, and so late at night, he likes to sneak away and sing love songs to God. And, this is the song that concludes the first half.

Heaven Is Waiting

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Mitch McVicker
Genesis 24:42, Matthew 13:44

I don't need no woman to kiss me.
And I don't need no man to stand by my side.
I don't need to slake my thirst with whiskey.
Don't need to shuffle cards to pass the time.
'Cause the stars are bright and silvery.
And with the drag of a lone coyote's whine,
My Savior's calling, and I'm listening.
Time to saddle up my pony and ride.

'Cause heaven is waiting
Just past the horizon.
Just over the mesas.
Across the great divide.
And faith is blazing
This trail that I ride on up this mountain
I'm prayin' I have the strength to climb

I ain't looking for no seven golden cities,
But I know there's a fortune somewhere to find.
There's a peace that I hear whisperin' through the pinyons
And a love that's taller than the ponderosa pines.

And heaven is waiting
Just past the horizon.
Just over the mesas.
Across the great divide.
And faith is blazing
This trail that I ride on up this mountain
I'm prayin' I have the strength to climb

So don't ask for no lengthy explanation
When there ain't no reason quite wild enough.
No words could be as tender.
It's greater than the fears that we imagine.
More than the warmth that we remember.
It's always just beyond the pass
And I must go

'Cause heaven is waiting
Just past the horizon.
Just over the mesas.
Across the great divide.
And faith is blazing
This trail that I ride on up this mountain
I'm prayin' I have the strength to climb

Oh, heaven is waiting
Oh, heaven is waiting
Heaven is waiting

In the first half of the play, what is really happening is the core group is really coming together, and they have finally reached a point where they are really committed to this journey. And this song is a song that Frank sings, a song of commitment, one of those songs when you realize that if you say yes to one thing, you say no to everything else. When you say yes to one spouse, you say no to everybody else. When you say yes to God, you say no to the world ... And Frank is kind of recognizing, "man, my commitment to Christ has to be all-consuming." And he's already kind of made that commitment, he's already acted on that commitment. Now he just is ... sometimes we think of commitment as being this really solemn, kind of heavy duty thing. But in this song, I think ... I get the impression that Frank is more relieved. Sort of like a lot of times the joy that we find when we make a commitment to Christ, I think it just comes from ... that we have resolved a conflict over whether we will follow the world, or whether we will follow the Lord. And anytime you resolve a conflict in your life, you feel some joy. I suppose if you chose to abandon the Lord and follow the world, even then you would feel some relief, just that the conflict was over, even though you will have resolved it in a desperately wrong way. And so this is how the first half ends, is that Frank has been called by God to love Him, he's been called by Christ to rebuild the church, he's been joined by Buzz, who is a soul mate of his. Ivory has joined them, and sort of helped direct what their quest is for; it's for Dineh Bekeya, and Clare has realized that she wants to have the experience of God that Frank has, and in order to experience God fully, she has to discover God on her own, and Frank here kind of sums everything up by singing that song.

[At the beginning of Act 2,] we see Buzz, Ivory and Frank, and they meet a mountain lion. And, you know, it's one of those things where you think you know somebody after you've met them, and you've spent a little bit of time with them, and the longer that you're with them, the more amazed you are by them. And this mountain lion is this ferocious lion, and even people that they've met out on the plains have talked about, "Oh, there's this really ferocious mountain lion." And when they meet him, Frank of course just strikes up a conversation, because that's what he does with animals. And Buzz and Ivory are both a little bit surprised that he actually does talk with it. I mean, they'd heard other people say that they'd seen Frank, but all of a sudden they're talking to this lion, and they begin to talk about kingliness. And the lion talks to them about this one-armed miner named Lefty, who is this really mean guy, and as they're talking with this lion, Lefty comes onto the stage. He's been hunting the lion, because the lion tore his arm off. And the lion did that, because lefty was so strong and so violent, that he thought that if he lost the power of one of his arms, he would look for a higher power. And, of course what happened was when Lefty lost his arm, he became more bitter. And so this next song is a song that Frank sings, because as they're talking with Lefty, they can see how bitter he is, and Lefty has, in spite of the fact that he's been a fairly successful miner, he's never cashed his gold in. He just hoards everything he gets, and so this is a song that Frank sings to him in an attempt to bring him into a greater understand of what life is really about.

Things Even Angels

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Mitch McVicker
Psalm 27:1, Psalm 62:1-2, Isaiah 12
Hebrews 1:12-14, Revelation 7:10-13

Mine eyes have seen the glory of a coming of a time
When we won't search in mines lookin' for gold.
And why are we diggin' in the darkness when the sun is in the sky?
And there's a light that's shinin' in our souls.

Salvation is calling.
Salvation is what we need.
Well it's free and it's falling,
And if you look around I think you'll see

Things even angels,
Things even angels long to look into.
This love God rains down over you.

Things even angels,
(Things even angels)
Things even angels long to look into.
This love God rains down over you.

Oh say can you see by the early light of dawn
What it means to be born, and born again.
Can you feel the earth is shakin'
As He rolls away the stone?
And you know you're gonna follow Him

Salvation is calling.
Salvation will set us free.
Well you know that it was costly,
But it's yours along with all of these

Things even angels,
(Things even angels)
Things even angels long to look into.
This love God rains down over you.

Things even angels,
(Things even angels)
Things even angels long to look into.
This love God rains down over you.
Over you.
Over you.

They are now in the mountain range probably in north-eastern New Mexico. They have loosely followed the Santa Fe trail, but they really were following the sun, because it's a little more proper. Lefty and the mountain lion become good friends. The lion is also one of the four creatures that surround the throne of God. So now we have three of the four creatures that surround the throne of God. And the lion is ... now it depends on whether you're catholic or Protestant. Most of the Catholics take the lion to represent Mark. Most Protestants take the lion to represent Matthew, because Mark is a very active gospel, and so they would say the lion was very active. Matthew has a lot to do with the kingdom of God, and so the Protestant people will say this has to do with kingliness. And that's the take we took on it. And right at this point, right after lefty begins to melt and begins to be converted. And the eagle, John, flies in, and he's got a letter in his beak, and the letter is from Clare. Clare in the meantime, while this message has been sent via the eagle to St. Frank on the trail, she has also been in movement. She has moved to Texas, to Nacogdoches.

Buenas Noches From Nacogdoches

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Leigh Bingham-Nash
Second Thessalonians 3:16-18

There is something I have found
In the hush of the quieting sounds.
On the falling of dusk
And the chirping of crickets
And the slowing fading distance
Of this world that's spinning 'round.
It's spinning upright and then upside down,
And as the night bends to cover the day with her kisses.
It's like a lover's benediction
That I'm sending to you now.
If it can reach past the streets of this town,
Then you might hear the voice of a heart that's been lifted
By the song the night has given.

Buenas noches from Nacogdoches.
From me and from every star God lit in the heart
Of the heavens that hang over Texas.
May your dreams find you in a tangle of fine Spanish angels
Whose halos are bright yellow roses.
Buenas noches.

So this is no lullaby
That I send on the wings of this night.
Wings that flutter as silent as goldenrods blooming.
Bursting from bud into beauty
In a way I can't describe.
In a way that's so changing my life.
That the holds that once held me
Have all now been loosened.
And I can hear the music.

Buenas noches from Nacogdoches.
From me and from every star God lit in the heart
Of the heavens that hang over Texas.
May your dreams find you in a tangle of fine Spanish angels
Whose halos are bright yellow roses.
Buenas noches.

Frank's happy to hear from her and that she has become spiritually alive. And she's decided she wants to meet up with them in their journey, and she wants to know where to do that. And so Frank kind of just says out loud to himself, "Oh, Dineh Bekeya, that's where she can meet us." The minute that Frank says "Dineh Bekeya," Lefty says,"Wow, it's been a long time since I've heard that word." And Ivory says, "What do you mean you know about that word? That was a place that Frank and I made up when we were kids." And Lefty says, "No, Dineh Bekeya is a place just southwest of here. That's where the Navajos call home. Because "Dineh Bekeya" means "land of the people." They're heading to the land between the four sacred mountains. Frank sends the eagle back to Clare then to tell her that. They're all kind of blown away that Dineh Bekeya is a real place. And as they're talking, Ivory, you kind of get the idea that he's a little bit of a flesh pot, and of course he's been trying to work his way through this. But he says to Frank, "Wow, I wish I had a woman coming to meet me in Dineh Bekeya." And Lefty says, "Well, I happen to know about a beautiful woman down there, but you have to have a really big dowry in order to marry her, because that's the way the Navajo would do it. The man would give the dowry for the wife, because they were matriarchal culture. And Ivory says of course, "Well, I have no money," and Lefty says, "Well, I'll give you all of this gold that I've been hoarding all these years, because I no longer want it, and it will do you some good. So they take off for Dineh Bekeya, and on their way there, they run into this band of Navajos, and when they do, Lefty begins to speak with them, and he happens to know these people. And you find out in the conversation that Lefty became bitter, because of Hashti Nashdoi who is the leader of this particular band of Navajos ... He was married to his beautiful daughter, and she had been killed by the Billegana (or the white soldiers) when the Navajos were rounded up and put in Bosque Redondo, a little part of American history not everybody might know. Concentration camps were not invented by Hitler, but I think they've been around for a long time. And these people had escaped, Hashti Nashdoi and his little band of Navajos had escaped from Bosque Redondo and were trying to get back to Dineh Bekeya, and soldiers of course were chasing them. And so Ivory at this point has the gold, and he says to Hashti Nashdoi, who is the leader of the Navajo band ... he says, because Hashti Nashdoi says, "We'll never get back there, because the soldiers are right on us, we have nothing to defend ourselves with, and we're starved." So Ivory says to him, "Well, we have all this gold, and we passed a trading post not too far back. Why don't you go get some food, some blankets, some supplies to fight with, etc. And when he says that, Rhoda, who is this beautiful Indian woman, recognizes the generosity of all this, and she begins to talk with Ivory about "Why would you do something this kind for us, you don't even know us?" And he begins to talk to her about why he would. And in the course of doing this, they fall in love. And so this beautiful Indian woman, this beautiful Navajo woman becomes the fourth creature that surrounds the throne of God. The fourth creature around the throne of God is a human, and so Buzz has his calf, Clare has her eagle, Lefty is there with the mountain lion, and now after all of this time, finally Ivory connects with the gospel that would be the most meaningful to him, which would be the gospel that is most human, which for us Protestants would be Mark, for the orthodox people it would be Matthew, but you know, you gotta make a choice here. So not only are the animals Biblical, that are around the throne of God and therefore represent those things that we've already established, but these characters are now synonymous with their animal creature counterparts. St. Francis is now surrounded by his own band of disciples as it were, much like Jesus had the four gospel writing disciples. So, the song "Love is Strong," represents this new relationship between Rhoda and Ivory. Lefty gave him his gold, and then he gave the gold... actually he sends Lefty and Buzz back to the trading post to get all the stuff, and so they're gone. This gives him the opportunity to spend the day with Rhoda. And this is typical in a musical. They instantly fall in love and it does turn out that she is the beautiful Navajo woman that Lefty was talking about.

Love's As Strong

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Kevin Smith
Song of Solomon 8:6-7, Job 11:7-9

When love has got you in its throes
Even the summer's heat just freezes your soul.
And the sweetest song -
It just clanks along,
And the morning dew just says goodnight,
And leaves your heart undone.
It doesn't do to try and understand.
Nothin' that's as good as love ever made a lot of sense.
Like how the eagles fly
And how the rattlers slide
And what it is that comes to bind a woman and her man.

Love's as strong as death my love.
Unyielding as the grave.
Relentless as the desert sun.
And rivers cannot wash my love away.
Lord, I won't let it wash away.
And many waters cannot quench love.

There ain't nothing left to soothe you with.
Love has marked your soul the way the sun has marked your skin.
And there ain't no way to find no shade
When your soul's the very thing
That feeds the blaze that burns within you.
It just makes your cold heart melt.
The flames that burn as white as the very flames of hell.
So just hold on tight,
'Cause it's a long, wild ride
When you finally find the grace to love another as yourself.

Love's as strong as death my love.
Unyielding as the grave.
Relentless as the desert sun.
And rivers cannot wash my love away, away!
I won't let it wash away.
And many waters, it cannot quench love.

At this point, Buzz returns with Lefty ... from the trading post with guns and blankets and food and everything, and everyone is like happy that they will have something to fight with when the soldiers arrive. Of course, they know that they're all going to be beat, but they still think it's cool that they can fight, except for Frank, and he's ... having come through the civil war, he has begun to question the validity of violence, even in defense. And he's kinda going, "Man, I don't feel so good about this. I don't really ... if we want to follow the example of Christ, if we want to live according to the gospel, don't we need to turn the other cheek?" And of course, Lefty is going, "Turning the other cheek won't do any good." Ivory is going, "Turning the other cheek only means that we will lose everything that we've come to find." And that may work if you're a great mystic, but if you're a regular guy like I am, and you want to have a family, and you want ... blah blah blah blah blah ... turning the other cheek doesn't make a lot of sense." So Frank says, "I need to go pray. I need to go find out what it is I'm supposed to do here. How do I respond to this sort of thing?" So then, when he leaves, the other three guys are going ... Buzz says, "The thing that worries me is that I might turn the other cheek in vain. It doesn't bother me that I might be killed or whatever, but it does bother me that that may have no meaning; it may not change anything. And a life is a terrible thing to waste." But Buzz calls the other guys back to focusing on the character of Christ, and the way he does it is by bringing a focus to the stations of the cross, but looking at ... how did Christ conquer the world? And in the stations of the cross, you see the final suffering of Jesus, and you realize that there is in some bizarre miraculous way, that we do conquer by surrendering, that we do overcome by a method that makes no sense to humankind. So no one is sure at this point exactly how they're going to respond, but they know that whatever their response is, it has to be out of obedience to Christ, and they're looking now to Christ and saying, "If we want to obey you, what would that look like. What did obedience look like in your life." And this is the song that Buzz sings that is about that.

Oh My Lord

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Michael Tate
Philippians 2:6-8, Mark 10:33-34

When I think that the world would rise to condemn You.
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
Well it makes me cry.
You know it makes me tremble.
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
Oh my Jesus, sweet lamb of God

You emptied yourself and became just like us.
Then You set aside Your glory,
And You took up that cross.
Through the crowd, through the cursing soldiers.
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord.
You fell to the ground with the cross upon your shoulders.

Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
Oh my Jesus, oh Man of sorrows
When You saw Your mother standing there upon that road,
Did You feel the pain of the sword that would soon pierce her soul?
Oh my Lord, yeah, oh my Lord
(Oh my Lord, oh my Lord)
Oh my Lord, yeah, oh my Lord
(Oh my Lord, oh my Lord)
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
(Oh my Lord, oh my Lord)

Well a man was made to help carry that weight,
And a woman was moved to wipe the blood from Your face.
And then you fell again,
And You're taking more than a man could take.

You said, "Sisters, sisters. Don't you weep for me."
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord.
And then once again fell down to Your knees.
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord.
Oh my Jesus, God's only one.

Well they stripped off Your clothes.
Then they cast their lots.
Oooh, they stretched out Your arms
And nailed Your hands to that cross.

See a broken heart - it's what made You die.
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord.
And the blood and the water flowed out from Your side.
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord.
Oh my Jesus, Giver of Grace.

You know, gentle hands they took You down
And laid You in that grave scene.
No one believed You'd be back in three short days.

Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
(Oh my Lord, oh my Lord)
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
(Oh my Lord, oh my Lord)
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord
(Oh my Lord, oh my Lord)
Yeah.

When they get done praying, they hear the shriek of Clare's eagle, and the soldiers who are camped very nearby, they also hear the shriek. But when they hear it, they think it's a bugle call and that they're under attack, and so they are trying to get out of their blankets, and they're trying to ... it's of course night, and it throws the entire soldier camp into this massive confusion where they're just firing their rifles in every direction, and when the eagle shrieks, the calf hears it, and also the lion hears it, and they run over to the soldier's camp, which is now in a state of confusion. The lion leaps into this corral of horses, and all the horses run away. Of course, they're terrified of the lion. And so the army has now shot out all of their ammunition. Their horses are gone so they can't retreat. And there is a munitions cart, and someone hooks the calf up to the munitions cart so that they can reload, but the calf takes the munitions further away instead of bringing it toward them. So the army is entirely defeated without anybody having to use any kind of violence. And they're defeated basically by the four creatures, or at least by the first three. What has happened in the meantime, is because the Navajo people revere the eagle, when they hear the eagle shriek, they knew that God was gonna do something. So they surround the army camp, and when light comes up, the army looks out, and they see that they are completely surrounded by a band of Navajos who are now well-fed, who now have ammunition, who are fully equipped for battle, and they assume, "Wow, we're going to be wiped out." And Rhoda, who is the human of the four creatures, then she talks to the army and says, "I talked to Jesus last night, and He told me to tell you that He doesn't like what you're doing, and that you need to back off." And then she says, "I talked to Jesus last night, and He told me He was concerned about you, because you don't know how to be happy. And you are violent against us now, because the war between yourselves has ended. And someday you'll take that violence across the seas. And that won't make you happy. And after that, you will do violence to your own children, and that won't make you happy. You'll never be happy until you learn to love life and quit being violent. And He told me that you probably would never believe me." And then she says, "I talked to Jesus last night, and he told me to ask you if you were hungry, because we have more food than we need to get us back to Dineh Bekeya, so we will leave you what food we don't need. And he told me to ask you if you were cold, because we have more blankets than you have left us people to wrap in them. And we're going to leave you these blankets. And He told me to tell you that we would provide an escort to get you back to Fort Sumner, or Bosque Redondo, because you've made this world a violent world, and He's made you defenseless in it, and we will protect you to get you back to where you belong. But don't bother us anymore. And when she says that the band of Navajos leave to go to Dineh Bekeya. And Rhoda, the beautiful Navajo woman walks back toward the camp where Buzz and Ivory, and now Clare has joined them, because she came with her eagle. And they discover that Frank can't be found anywhere, and they're afraid that he was killed in all the confusion. And they all go out searching for him, no one can find him. They come back, and as they're talking about Frank, he comes back. And they sort of sum up his life. They talk about how he went out to look for Christ, but everywhere he went, he spread Christ. They talk about how he didn't own a thing, but all the resources of the world seemed to be at his disposal. They talked about all those things about Frank, and Frank comes back and joins them. And Clare finally says, "The only thing that I don't get, the only thing that doesn't really make sense, is I thought that we were going to meet between the four sacred mountains." Or, she says, "I thought we were going to meet in Dineh Bekeya." And Frank says, "Well, in a sense we did. Where is Dineh Bekeya?" And she said, "Well, Dineh Bekeya is the land of the people. It's the land between the four sacred mountains." And he says, "Well look around us, and we have four sacred creatures. We have the eagle, we have the human, we have the calf, and we have the lion. And those four creatures surround the throne of God, and they sing 'Holy, holy, holy' and bring worship to Him. And wherever God is, that is really where the land of the people is. That is where we really belong. And when we're close to God, we can come close to one another. And apart from God, we don't have any place; we don't have any dwelling." And so they all begin to recognize what I think is at the core of Franciscan spirituality, that our experience as humans is only as rich as we come close to an experience of God. And this is when Frank sneaks off again, as is his habit, and he wants to go sing love songs to God. And "You Are All" is the last song of the thing, and it's sort of his ... this is based again on another of the prayers of St. Francis. And it's sort of just a closing worship song that he sings and lifts up to God.

You Are All

Rich Mullins, Beaker, and Mitch McVicker
Vocals by Mitch McVicker
Ecclesiastes 3:11, Job 42:2, Second Thessalonians 1:11

And here You are.
Shinin' in a glory that I can see.
When I look beyond myself,
And I fall into the depths
Of Your love that beckons me.

Well, it fills my hungerin' soul with all the riches
That are hidden in the wonders that You do.
And in the words that you have spoken,
There's a word that echoes still.
And I can hear it in the silence of these hills.

Lord, You are all that the world could not be.
You are great and strong.
You are good.
Lord, You are all
And everything that I could ever need.
You are faith.
You are hope.
You are love.
Yes, You are love.
You are peace.
You're my most high,
So now I fall down on my knees and cry,
You are all.

And here we are,
In a light that showers
From things unseen.
Drawn from earth, dropped from the sky,
They have crept into our lives
And called us to believe.
In the one of whom the distant clouds bear witness,
He was wounded.
He was raised and glorified.
And His voice thunders in the heavens,
And it pulses through our veins.
And we can find salvation
In the One, the Name.

Lord, You are all that the world could not be.
You are great and strong.
You are good.
Lord, You are all,
And everything that I could ever need.
You are faith.
You are hope.
You are love.
Yes, You are love.
You are peace.
You're my most high,
So now I fall down on my knees and cry.
You are all.

Lord, You are all that the world could not be.
You are great and strong.
You are good.
Lord, You are all,
And everything that I could ever need.
You are faith.
You are hope.
You are love.
Yes, You are love.
You are peace.
You're my most high,
So now I fall down on my knees and cry.
You are all.

The play ends there. He is not a saint at the end of the show. It does not cover that. Of course, that happens much later in history. There are two ways of looking at saints. One is a saint as being someone who has been through this life and now lives in the presence of God, and that's all involved in the communion of saints from the apostles creed. And there's also the sense in which because we ... "saint" means "holy" or "sanctified" or "set apart," and I think there is a very real sense in which each of us should look at our own lives as being a life set apart unto God, and so there is I think a valid sense in which sainthood is not something ... there is that sense in which anyone who is a Christian, anyone who has been claimed by Christ is in a sense a saint, and the idea is that we should live as if we were ... whether or not we have achieved holiness, and whether or not we have experienced some sanctifying thing, I guess, to put it in sort of Nazarene terms ... "Whether or not we would call ourselves a saint, it's a good thing to live as if we were." The author, Jerry Bridges says that if you recognize that you're in the pursuit of holiness, then you're probably not really in it, because you shed yourself of all of that recognition and all of those things if you really are in the midst of it.