Words Written in Red
The Power of the Scriptures
Brooks and Dunn’s song Believe released in 2005 is at the heart of being Christian.
The song describes the narrator’s upbringing. He met a neighbor named “Old man Wrigley.” This old man was in the navy, served in the war, and “lost his wife, lost his baby.” The narrator once asked him, “how you keep from goin’ crazy?”
Old man Wrigley shared that he would see his wife and son soon. Then Old man Wrigley said, “I raise my hands, bow my head, I’m findin’ more and more truth in the words written in red. They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see…I believe.”
The narrator then shares a time in college when his mother called to let him know that Old Man Wrigley had died. He reminisces of the days when he learned wisdom from Wrigley and heard that old voice say, “I’m finding more and more truth in the words written in red.”
In the last stanza of the song, the narrator shares that he “can’t quote the book, the chapter or the verse” but he is “more and more convinced the longer” that he lives that he is “finding more and more truth in the words written in red.”
It was only in 1899 that many publishers began printing Jesus’s words in red lettering. Since then, nearly every Bible has Jesus’s words printed in red.
Is there an Old man Wrigley in our lives? This could be someone who has challenged us to consider “more and more truth in the words written in red.” Is there someone who has helped us to believe “in the words written in red”?
Brooks and Dunn’s country song Believe helps us to step back and reflect because “there’s more to life than just what I can see…I believe.”
Here is a link to the song, Believe, if interested in hearing it.
Fr. Luke Daghir
Great song! Thanks for sharing. Father.
Beautiful!