In your eyes

Love, I get so lost, sometimes
days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
when I want to run away
I drive off in my car
but whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are

All my instincts, they return
and the grand façade, so soon will burn
without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

In your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches

In your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes
oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light
the heat I see in your eyes

Love, I don't like to see so much pain
so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

And all my instincts, they return
and the grand façade, so soon will burn
without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

In your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches

In your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes
oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light,
the heat I see in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes

— Peter Gabriel
Audio

Greek-American singer/songwriter Jimmy Santis told us, when he performed at our Christian youth camp many years ago, that Peter Gabriel, with whom he did some work in the U.K. and who is of Armenian Orthodox heritage, wrote this song with the Theotokos in mind. I've read other interpretations of where this song came from, and no one else has ever brought up this idea. It could just have come from Jimmy's enthusiasm for Christ, or he could have some insider information from a fellow Christian whose inner life remains opaque to the world. In any case, since I was in the room when Jimmy Santis divulged this (he also performed the song for us), I have never fogotten it. I know what he means about the eyes on the ikon of the Theotokos of Vladimir, which is the image posted above. I believe this is a love song to a woman, but that on another level it is also a devotional song to the Woman who is the birth-giver of the God-Man.