FROM THE AIR AND FROM THE LIGHT

1992. Airdre Luka is Dale and Heather Hancock's "miracle baby", born after many years of a marriage without children. I had wanted to write a song for her baptism, hadn't done it at the time (lack of time? unready?), but finally wrote this song for the baptism of another child - Jordan Yeomans. Airdre = of/from the air, Luka = of/from the light. Where "Father Welcomes" celebrates the coming home, family images, this focuses on creation, and especially the new creation (2 Cor.5:17). From a St Stephen's Youth Camp (Tania Newhouse?): v.1 CREATION from materials / elements — air, light, water, ground v.2 CREATION of child — from God's love and human love v.3 CREATION / Birth X2 — 1) natural 2) baptism v.4 NEW CREATION i.Death > life ii.natural > Spirit iii. Time > eternal iiii. Devil > God I started work on it one early morning in January when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I've done this quite often, and I believe it's God who wakes me up on these occasions, with some particular task in mind. (To the person who believes in God, this kind of explanation of such occurrences seems perfectly natural. Others may think the person is slightly bonkers. I'm often a bit reluctant to talk about such "leading" by the Holy Spirit - I like being seen as sane and reasonable, and anyway, it is often practised as a kind of spiritual one-upmanship, e.g. "This is how God led me - I must be more important than you!" Still, there are many people I meet at "the right time", books or movies I'm led to read or see, music I'm led to hear. Spooky? Of course, but the world belongs to God, and God's Spirit is always coming up with new tricks.)