Painting Pictures of Egypt

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Painting pictures of Egypt— by Sara Groves

These lyrics are so weighty—I  get all hung up on them like a tar baby when I hear this song.  It is such a fantastic metaphor of psychological and spiritual inertia. How there is a strong gravity magnetizing us to old patterns, a self that is not evolving, a spirit that is not fed.

How we so keenly know where we are isn’t enough, isn’t where we need to end up.  But it peculiarly feels easier to stay where things don’t change...

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend
It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this
CHORUS:
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I"ve learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know
BRIDGE:
If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?

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