Damascus

Hulvey's "Damascus" traces a believer caught between a distant memory of closeness with God and the noisy present that keeps crowding Him out. The opening lines set the scene: a voice heard somewhere off in the distance, a plea for help to listen even when sight fails. The verses get specific about the struggle — a man tired of hearing his own voice, worried about his heartbeat, driving the interstate with tears on his cheek. The song's central image is sight: the idea that when God shines, a man goes blind, but when his eyes are opened he sees for the first time. That paradox drives the chorus, which asks for eyes to see and wonders whether God's love comes free. Later verses recount a hard place where the world said college and God said no, where the world said stop and God said go, and where the fear of giving everything up gives way to jumping off the deep end and finding yourself swimming rather than falling. By the end, the repeated line about feeling the freedom for the first time turns the wall into a starting block, and the closing lines refuse to keep going through the motions.