Day by Day

There is a wonderful song in Godspell which takes up the prayer of St. Richard of Chichester

Day by day, day by day,
O, dear Lord, three things I pray:
to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly,
follow thee more nearly, day by day.

This poem takes a different way of living day by day. It casts a critical eye over the society in which economic growth has become a dominant value, in which the principal role in which people are cast is that of consumer, and in which the poverty of the world is easily overlooked.

As John V. Taylor said: “The word ‘poverty’ has come to sound so negative and extreme in our ears that I prefer the word ‘simplicity’, because it puts the emphasis on the right points…Our enemy is not possessions but excess. Our battle-cry is not ‘nothing!’ but ‘enough!'”

Taylor in his great book "Enough is Enough", gave voice against the pursuit of perpetual material growth in a finite world; against the growing gap between rich and poor; and against unjust trading arrangements between nations.

How do we want to live our life? What is a good life?

Day by Day

Biding time, passing the hours
Count the time: day by day
Solomon’s glory: wild flowers
Now the sky is turning grey

Take each moment as it comes
Daily pursuits: just work and feed
Blind the eyes, don’t see the slums
Close the ears to cries of need

Consume, and buy, greed is good
Grow population, grow the wealth
Rotten the oak, hollow the wood
Fattened rich, we have no health

And when distraught, come and pray
And fear what justice now will day