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December 10 My Grandma Is In the HospitalHer heart was going too fast, it seems. She seems to be recovering, but keep her in your prayers. She's 92 and her name is "The World's Greatest". December 09 Before You Write Your Next Song, ConsiderSomeone is going to say goodbye to a loved one for the last time today. Before they do they will wake up to the alarm clock playing a song.
Someone is going to say hello to a newborn child today. On the way to the hospital, the radio will play a song.
Someone is going to have a hard day at school and dread the thought of going back to the mocking tomorrow. Tonight, MTV will play a song.
Someone is worried about losing their job today. Tonight, they will go to praise band practice and play a song.
Someone is falling in love. Tonight, they will dance together to a song.
Now go write their song for this day. December 05 Who Wants to Be A Christmas Millionaire?Last night we had our Christmas Party for the St. Louis Songwriters Group. It was great to hang out with everyone!
About halfway through the night folks played Christmas songs they'd written. Which quickly morphed into a sing-a-long time of Christmas standards.
After a few songs JRod said something along the lines of, "Here's another song by Johnny Marks.." It turns out, Johnny Marks wrote dozens of popular Christmas songs, including:
If Mr. Marks had any financial savvy his children's children's children should be set for life, if you catch my drift.
But the best part? December 03 Windows tries to become the new Facebook...Windows Live Spaces may have just overdone themselves with this update. I can't find anything and it made my blog font look all pudgy.
November 27 LyricsWent to Don Poythress' CD recording concert on Tuesday. He has some fantastic songs and I ran into some people who I did not expect to see there. If you're wondering, his worship album is with Integrity and has a country feel to it. Pedal steel, dobros, fiddles, mandolins. It's superb and I highly recommend it.
Don has a way of combining the simple and the profound in his lyrics. I need to do that more. Here is one of my favorites from his song "A Brand New Day": Last night at church the story of the 10 lepers was our focus for our Thanksgiving service. I wrote a song about it a while back and thought it would be appropriate for today:
Ten
Ten lepers healed
from all their spots
only one gave thanks
the nine forgot
(ten lepers healed)
and I wonder
sometimes
which number
am I?
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 18 Every Car Speaks... Today I passed a mom driving her kids in a new Chevy SUV. For a moment, I was embarassed by my car as we sat next to each other at the stop light. But then a strange feeling of pride came over me. My car is a white, 1997 Chevy Lumina my parents bought from Canada with 320,000 kilometers on it (200,000 miles). It was paid off years ago.
The outside has a few rust pimples that are growing. The window frame is bent from when someone tried to break into it. I haven't replaced the passenger side rear view mirror that fell off because it still passes inspection without it.
Inside, the radio buttons stick from Coke I spilled a few years back. The steering wheel is worn down to the rubber from where I put my hands.
There's a makeup bag in the driver side door because my wife puts it on while I drive us to work. Every week trash collects on the floor of the back seat. And every week when I fill up with gas I empty the back seat. And we can't forget the guitar amplifier in the trunk.
I guess my car says:
What does your car say about you? November 14 Wideopen NightToday is the Wideopen concert. It's sold out.
I say "concert", but it's better defined as a night of art by artists of faith. There's an art gallery, animators, photographers and videos. During the concert we have dancers and painters. So it's much more than a concert.
So what am I doing to get ready? I'm hand burning CDs of songs I've written. Mark and Monty have fully produced CDs with pretty art work. I've got a CD written on with a sharpie marker.
5 songs- but I have no idea how much to charge.
November 07 God ChangesGod communicates with people. Even when people change the way they communicate, God speaks.
First he chooses His people. The Israelites. They just happen to speak one of the most precise and exacting languages in the world, called Hebrew. And they have this rich tradition of reciting their history to each other. Their attention to detial is maddening.
Paper is invented and perfected. People start writing on this paper to communicate. So God tells His people to meticulously and redundantly write down what He tells them.
Roads are invented and perfected. Specifically by a huge Roman Empire builds a detailed road system from Ireland to Egypt, covering 2.2 million square miles. Now people are able to communicate across continents. Sounds like an opportune time to send His Son, Jesus. Understandably, His message spreads quickly to the far reaches of that empire.
Books are invented and perfected. A guy named Guttenberg figures out a way to mass produce them. Cue another guy named Luther to translate the Bible into common languages. Now the Bible is in people's hands.
500 years later, the world is still changing how we communicate. First, radio. Then the telephone. Then TV. Now the internet. A globe is no longer a 3 week journey away, but a mouse click away. Humanity is at our fingertips.
And yet, I feel like we have we vastly under-utilized what we can do for God's glory with the tools we have.
More later. November 04 Free Coffee at Starbucks TodayGo vote, people. If not for Democracy, do it for the free Starbucks. Just tell 'em you voted and get a tall coffee pro bono.
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