Sydney Carter Quotes

Coming and going by the dance, I see That what I am not is a part of me. Dancing is all that I can ever trust, The dance is all I am, the rest is dust. I will believe my bones and live by what Will go on dancing when my bones are not.

Faith is more basic than language or theology. Faith is the response to something which is calling us from the timeless part of our reality. Faith may be encouraged by what has happened in the past, or what is thought to have happened in the past, but the only proof of it is in the future. Scriptures and creeds may come to seem incredible, but faith will still go dancing on. Even though (because it rejects a doctrine) it is now described as "doubt". This, I believe, is the kind of faith that Christ commended.

So what do you believe in? Nothing fixed or final, all the while I travel a miracle. I doubt, and yet I walk upon the water.

Wherever you travel I'll be there, I'll be there Wherever you travel, I'll be there And the creed and the colour And the name won't matter I'll be there.

"With a book and a steeple, with a bell and a key they would bind it forever, but they can't," said he. "Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall, but the light will be shining at the end of it all."

I was hungry and thirsty Were you there, were you there? I was hungry and thirsty, were you there? And the creed and the colour And the name won't matter Were you there?

There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light, for the light is forever and the light it is free, "And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.

There's a light that is shining in the heart of a man, it's the light that was shining when the world began. There's a light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew and a light that is shining, friend, in me and in you.

They are songs which can be sung in a Christian context, but they all had to mean something to me because I was often on the edge of not believing. The songs certainly have not made my fortune, but I am still grateful for the royalties when they come in.

They cut me down And I leapt up high; I am the life That'll never, never die; I'll live in you If you'll live in me — I am the Lord Of the Dance, said he.

I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus. Whether Jesus ever leaped in Galilee to the rhythm of a pipe or drum I do not know. We are told that David danced (and as an act of worship too), so it is not impossible. The fact that many Christians have regarded dancing as a bit ungodly (in a church, at any rate) does not mean that Jesus did. The Shakers didn't...

Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.

"If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?" "But you can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword!" "Will you swear on the Bible?" "I will not!" said he, "For the truth is more holy than the book, to me."

Teach the crippled how to leap,
Throw their crutches on a heap, Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down. Rock, love, carry it away,
Lift the world up by your levity, Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

I danced in the morning When the world was begun, And I danced in the moon And the stars and the sun, And I came down from heaven And I danced on the earth, At Bethlehem I had my birth.