Bless This House

from Dressed For Class by Rabbi James Stone Goodman

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lyrics

Bless This House

Please surprise me
Lift me off somewhere new
Send me a roundabout way
A common journey
One I would not have taken
If not for this if not for that
Too far out of my perimeter
I might not go with you

Bless this house Bless this house

Use your own words the idiosyncratic ones
The ones that tumble in your head
Don’t tell me too much
Smuggle in an organizing notion
Sneak it past the guardians of equanimity
First line of defense the ones
Who speak way loftier than me

Bless this house Bless this house

They snatch away the lowly the uninspired
Their standard high language and gesture
Only tortured Southern drunks in heaven aspire to
And the circle of intellectuals from Detroit
Who sit and discourse
Always alert to cliché the inelegant
Excessive and symbolically over-fleshed

Bless this house Bless this house

They guard my perimeter like coyotes on the hunt
My teachers the owl-eyed Reines
In his work shirt and heavy boots
Dr. Lehman who speaks slowly
Draws on five six civilizations
Dr. Fish roaming through the texts of a dozen
Libraries on three continents
They’re a tough gang to penetrate
Be thoughtful push your ideas
The best you can
They are merciless on language

Bless this house Bless this house

Be a thinker a word maven
Sweet singer of the unconventional soul
And remember Mihaly chewing on a pipe
Will be standing in the final circle
He will be saying this something he said
Or I might have put it there

I need meaning it completes me

Bless this house Bless this house