We’ve just uploaded the sheet music for our song about global poverty and the value and sanctity of each life made in God’s image. You can download it – together with the mp3 audio, accompanying PPT visuals, chord sheet and story behind the song, from our songs page
Liz Baddaley – the song-writer – tells us a bit about the inspiration behind this special song:
I first learnt the word ‘nmoshka’* when I visited my friend Laura in Bangladesh. Most people in the country greet each other with the standard Muslim greeting, but Christians and Hindu’s still use the traditional Bengali greeting ‘nmoshka’. It means, ‘I greet the holy one I see in you’.
Onthe streets of Dhaka, one of the most crowded, and poorest, cities of the world, the sheer number of people is overwhelming. And yet each one of these fifteen million faces is unique – each one of them mirrors a unique part of God’s image. And this is true of every person on the planet too; even as six billion approaches seven billion – each is a unique child of God, a distinct image-bearer.
That’s why for me, this greeting ‘nmoshka’ somehow encapsulated the struggle to love the poor not just as aconcept, or once you got to connect with someone specific, but also as you scanned the faces in the crowds. Around it grew my response to Bangladesh its present suffering, and all that was stolen from it through British colonial oppression… its thousands of forgotten slum dwellers and its beauty.
* ‘nmoshka’ is an English phonetic spelling of the Bengali greeting – for which there is no direct English word. Interestingly, Indian culture also
retains this greeting in the related word, ‘namaste’.