"Footprints", also known as "Footprints in the Sand", is a popular allegorical text written in prose.
Content
This popular text describes an experience in which a person is walking on a beach with God. They leave two sets of footprints in the sand behind them. Looking back, the tracks represent various stages of the speaker's life. At various points, the two trails dwindle to one, especially at the lowest and most hopeless moments of the person's life. When questioning God, believing that the Lord must have abandoned his love during those times, God gives the explanation: "During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
Authorship and origins
The original authorship of the poem is disputed, with a number of people claiming to have penned it. In 2008, Rachel Aviv in a Poetry Foundation article discusses the four most prominent claims. Later that year, another survey of the competing claims was published by The Washington Post.
Margaret Fishback (Antolini), whose light verse appeared regularly in popular American magazines from the 1930s to the 1960s, had no connection to "Footprints," although her name confusingly resembles that of one claimed author, Canadian Margaret Fishback Powers, who says she wrote the poem on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, in mid-October, 1964. Powers is among the contenders who have resorted to litigation in hopes of establishing a claim.
Carolyn Carty also claims to have written the poem in 1963, at 6 years old, after a Sunday school teacher, to whom she was related. She is known to be a hostile contender of the "Footprints" poem and declines to be interviewed for it to this day, although she commonly writes letters to those who write about the poem online.
Mary Stevenson is also a purported author of the poem circa 1936.
Powers published an autobiography in 1993 ; a Stevenson biography was published in 1995 ; and a collection of poetry by Carty with a claim to authorship of Footprints was published in 2004. (See pg 77 for the claim.)
Possible 19th century origins
Aviv suggests that the source of this poem is the opening paragraph of Charles Haddon Spurgeon's 1880 sermon "The Education of the Sons of God".
He wrote:
And did you ever walk out upon that lonely desert island upon which you were wrecked, and say, “I am alone, â€" alone, â€" alone, â€" nobody was ever here before meâ€? And did you suddenly pull up short as you noticed, in the sand, the footprints of a man? I remember right well passing through that experience; and when I looked, lo! it was not merely the footprints of a man that I saw, but I thought I knew whose feet had left those imprints; they were the marks of One who had been crucified, for there was the print of the nails. So I thought to myself, “If he has been here, it is a desert island no longer."
In 1883, a hymn by English poet Jetty Vogel expressed the concept of looking back on one's life "At the Portal" using a pathway metaphor, including looking at one's footprints as they stayed (and strayed) from "the way". The hymn also introduces the notion of angel footsteps alongside, but lacks the "I carried you" concept critical to the modern Footprints work.
June Hadden Hobbs suggested that its origins lie in Mary B. C. Slade's 1871 hymn "Footsteps of Jesus" as "almost surely the source of the notion that Jesus's footprints have narrative significance that influences the way believers conduct their life stories .... it allows Jesus and a believer to inhabit the same space at the same time. [...] Jesus travels the path of the believer, instead of the other way round".
However, the above were preceded by May Riley Smith's poem, "If", published (without attribution) in the Indianapolis Journal in 1869. One stanza of this poem describes God's footprints in sand alongside a boy's:
If I could know those little feet were shod in sandals wrought of light in better lands,
And that the foot-prints of a tender God ran side by side with his, in golden sands,
I could bow cheerfullly, and kiss the rod, since Benny was in wiser, safer hands.
Smith's poem was widely republished over the subsequent half-century by many North American newspapers and in poetry anthologies.
Possible 20th century origins
Chicago area poet Lucille Veneklasen frequently submitted poems to the Chicago Tribune newspaper in the 1940s and 1950s; one entitled "Footprints" was published in the Tribune in late 1958:
I walked the road to sorrow--a road so dark with care, so lonely, I was certain that no one else was there.
But suddenly around me were beams of light, stretched wide; and then I saw that someone was walking by my side.
And when I turned to notice this road which I had trod, I saw two sets of footprints--My own... and those of God.
Veneklasen's poem later appeared occasionally in newspaper obituaries, commonly lacking attribution, and often with the deceased substituted for "I".
Early documentable history
The earliest known formally dated publications of any variants of the poem are from 1978, with three different descriptions of the person and also the setting. The first to appear in July, 1978, in a small Iowa town newspaper, is a very concise (six-sentence) version featuring an "elderly man" and "rocky roads". There is no attribution for this piece, and this version does not seem to have appeared subsequently in any publication.
The second, and likely most influential early appearance, was in a September, 1978, issue of Evangel, a then semi-monthly Church of God publication. This version is very similar to the "Carty" version but is credited to "Author Unknown--(Submitted by Billy Walker)".
A third version appeared in October, 1978, in a small California town paper, featuring a "young woman" and a "sandy pathway" in a "desert wilderness". This version does not appear to have re-emerged later.
The "Evangel" piece may be the progenitor of three re-appearances in syndicated columns by Christian televangelist Robert Schuller in March, 1979, advice columnist Ann Landers in July, 1979, and humorist Erma Bombeck in July, 1980. The Ann Landers column indicates that the correspondent who provided the poem, claims to have carried a tattered copy around "for years" with no further explanation of its publication source. Ann re-ran the piece in late February, 1982, in response to reader demands, and noted that it had also appeared in Reader's Digest in the meantime.
During the 1980 United States presidential campaign, then-candidate Ronald Reagan used a variant of Footprints--featuring Mr. Reagan as the human--as the closing lines in an August speech to 15,000 evangelical leaders in a Dallas, Texas, arena. President Reagan used Footprints again in a speech given at the annual National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 1981.
Influence
Several songs have been based on the poem.
In 1981, Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia of Buckner & Garcia wrote backing music for the poem, which was recorded by Edgel Groves. It hit #1 on both the U.S. Country chart and the Christian and Country Gospel chart, and was the most requested song of American radio DJs in 1981.
In 1983, Cristy Lane released country gospel version of the song called "Footprints in the Sand". The song peaked at #64 on Billboard's U.S. Country chart and #30 on the U.S. Christian chart.
In 1984, Ken Brown published a version of the poem in rhyme and rhythm as opposed to the more commonly known free form versions popular today.
In 1994, English singer Chris de Burgh included a summary of the poem as the fourth stanza in his song "Snows of New York" in the album This Way Up: In my dream we walked, you and I to the shore / Leaving footprints by the sea / And when there was just one set of prints in the sand / That was when you carried me.
Larry Norman released an album named after the poem in 1994, which was a major influence for the entire record. He had 16 tracks on the album, with "If You Don't Love My Lord" being the most popular track.
Per Magnusson, David Kreuger, Richard Page, and Simon Cowell wrote a song based on the poem, called "Footprints in the Sand", which was recorded by Leona Lewis. It appears on Lewis's debut album Spirit. Another song inspired by the poem called "Footprints" was recorded by Dancehall/Reggae group T.O.K.
The poem is parodied in the Half Man Half Biscuit song "Footprints", off the 1993 album This Leaden Pall. In the song, the Lord explains the fact that there is only one set of footprints this way: "During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, that must have been when I was appearing on . . . Junior Kick Start!"
The poem was also used in the memorial service for Air France Flight 447 on 3 June 2009.
See also
- Third Man factor
References
External links
- Who wrote Footprints?
