seize the day top
Carolyn Arends
(from I Can Hear You - 1995)
For years I've been asked what the phrase "lei de dei" (as featured in this song) means. I always tell people that it's Latin for "Jesus loves you". This is not true. I mean, it is true that Jesus loves you, but it is not true that "lei de dei" is Latin to that effect, or that it is Latin at all.
"Carpe diem" is, however, Latin for Seize the Day. It's an exhortation to make the most of every moment, and for the Believer it takes on special meaning with the knowledge that, if what we do today counts in God's kingdom, it counts for eternity. I think this is at least part of what Jesus had in mind when He told us we could live life abundantly.
Mac Powell (from the band Third Day) drove up from Atlanta in an ice storm (in true carpe diem fashion) to lend his soulful voice to the live version.
I know a girl who was schooled in Manhattan
She reads dusty books and learns phrases in Latin
She is an author, or maybe a poet
A genius but it's just this world doesn't know it
She works on her novel most every day
If you laugh she will say
chorus:
Seize the day, seize whatever you can
'Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand
Seize the day, pray for grace from God's hand
Then nothing will stand in your way
Seize the day
Well I know a doctor, a fine young physician
Left his six-figure job for a mission position
He's healing the sick in an African clinic
He works in the dirt and writes home to the cynics
He says "We work through the night so most every day
As we watch the sun rise we can say
chorus
Well I know a man who's been doing some thinking
He's as bitter and cold as the whiskey he's drinking
He's talking 'bout fear, about chances not taken
If you listen to him you can hear his heart breaking
He says "One day you're a boy and the next day you're dead
I wish way back when someone had said
chorus
Well one thing I've noticed, wherever I wander
Everyone's got a dream he can follow or squander
You can do what you will with the days you are given
I'm trying to spend mine on the business of living
So I'm singing my songs off of any old stage
You can laugh if you want, I'll still say
chorus