Church Songs

I have been involved in writing music now for over 30 years. It started when I was a kid, before I had even learned an instrument. I would use two cassette decks and sing my song ideas onto them. I’d sing a melody line on one, then play it back while recording on the other and add parts as I went along, back and forth, trying to piece things together.

For many of us who are caught up in this behavior of song writing, it is somewhat pathological. When a song starts humming in the mind, you either get it out or you get a little crazy. It’s hard to concentrate on other things. It’s like having a radio playing loudly in one ear while someone tries to talk to you in the other. It really is a compulsion, and it can be a good one if properly managed.

I’ve lost track of how many songs I’ve written over the years. People ask me sometimes, and I honestly have no idea. It’s in the hundreds. I’ve recorded a few things along the way, but I’ve never been very happy with the results. Some friends are helping me do some things now with new gear that has finally become financially accessible. But it’s still very, VERY challenging to produce anything even half way decent. My talent has some pretty severe limits.

Over the past fifteen years I’ve primarily written songs for use in churches. For those of you who don’t go to church, this might seem a little odd. I know when I was a kid, I thought all those songs we sang in church had always just sort of been there. Didn’t God write those songs? But the fact is that song writing for Church use is a long and honorable tradition. Artists have done it all throughout history, people like Bach and Handel, John Newton, Charles Wesley and W.C. Handy. And Hank Williams Sr.

Hank saw the light, at least for a little while, and he wrote about it. It’s what he did.

And there are moderns still writing for the Church. Contemporary artists like Phil Wickham, Chris Tomlin, the Fee brothers, Darlene Zschech and many others who are doing the best they can to tap into melodies and song structure that clicks with the contemporary heart and mind, while still communicating eternal truth. Other artists are trying to express their hearts in relationship to God, people like John Mark McMillan and Jon Foreman and David Crowder, who are great artists and very gifted musicians.

I’ve been drawn into this tradition, and I enjoy it. Especially the music for churches. There’s a great sense of accomplishment when you write something, like a prayer set to music, and you lead people with it and they learn it and take it to heart. You become a kind of Cyrano de Bergerac between people and God. It’s very different in some ways than a performance oriented approach to music, but I love it.

It’s an honor.


Psalm 33:3
Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2011

Definition

Pilot asked Jesus, “What is truth?” It seems to have been a rhetorical question. Pilot’s answer to his own question would have probably been, “Truth is whatever I need it to be” or “Truth is what works for me.”

How about...
    “Truth is what is.” Given some contexts, you might say, “Truth is what is, independent of what we think or know about what is.” Einstein would have agreed with that, I think. If and/or how we know what is, well, that’s a different subject. But if something is, then its existence isn’t shaped by what we think or know about it. If it’s physical, and we touch it in some way, say to measure it, or whatever, then maybe it is shaped by our touch. But to measure it in our minds doesn’t change anything except, maybe, our minds.

So I think about God. God said, “I AM.” Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.”

We can talk about God being there or not, but in the end, it doesn’t matter what we think or say about it. Our “experience” of God (or non experience) may be subjective by degrees, but God is not subjective. God is either real or not.  God exists or does not exist as a person or a thing (though not a physical thing, unless some people are right, thinking the universe is a "god"). If God is “there,” then God isn’t shaped by our opinions anymore than the Grand Canyon is. We can talk subjectively all day long about whether or not we think the Grand Canyon is a beautiful thing or a big, ugly hole in the ground. But arguing about whether or not it’s there wouldn’t change whether or not it’s there. That would be the kind of empty philosophy that makes people want to stay as far away from philosophy classes as possible. It’s either there or it’s not. Opinions don’t matter. It’s not subjective. It just is. Or it isn’t.

I remember once (and I hate to admit this), I was watching the old Sally Jesse Raphael show. She had some overbearing “religious” people on with some carny show types who were completely over the top and she just let them at each other. The conflict was the point of the show. It was quite entertaining in a despicable sort of way. But Sally herself became frustrated with the “religious” people. They were, after all, kind of idiotic. And, in her frustration, Sally put her face right up in the camera and said something like, “I will NOT believe in a hateful, vengeful God.”

I get what she was saying. I get what a lot of people are saying when they try to define God. They want God, if God exists, to be a certain way. They have some personal ideal that’s subjective. And on an emotional level this is understandable. If you’ve been hurt a lot, you want a “god” who will stop the hurt. If you’re full of doubt, you want a “god” who will affirm your thoughts against doubt.

But if God is there, if God is, God can’t be defined by what has been created. God can only be discovered in some way. If God exists, and I believe God exists, our discovery of God does not change God’s nature. God is not whatever we want God to be. If God is there, then God is the one who does the defining.

God is not defined by us. We are defined by God.


Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2010

Hoax

When I was a child, I was sitting in my Grandfather’s living room. He lived in the city of Detroit, where he had come to find work many years before. All of my memories of my grandfather are from after he retired. We would visit my grandparents at their house in Detroit constantly. I would watch my grandpa drink Maalox right out of the bottle, constantly sipping it all day long, to keep his stomach in check.

This same grandfather, so the story goes, was once asked to play banjo and fiddle (that’s “violin” for you arteests) for the Grand Ole Opry in Tennessee, but he refused because it didn’t pay enough to support his large family. But he still pulled out his fiddle and banjo on occasion and played a little something for us kids, which I absolutely loved. But it was hard to get him to do it. He’d say, “My author-rye-tiss is given me trouble,” and that was the end of it.

So. I was sitting with Grandpa, watching TV, and a commercial came on for the brand new Disney World in Florida. I was transfixed. I wanted to head out there immediately and take up permanent residence. But when the commercial was over, Grandpa turned to me to say something, which he didn’t do very often. He just didn’t talk much. But he turned to me and said, “I don’t believe it! It’s a bunch a nonsense! Cain’t be no such thing as that Disney World! They’s a bunch of liars!”

For a moment I was startled, shaken up by the idea that I had somehow been duped by “The Powers That Be.” For a moment I took the word of my grandpa that Disney World wasn’t there and we were all being cruelly misguided by someone higher up than us. Considering that my life’s goal at that moment was to get to the fabled Land of Disney, this was quite disturbing.

But then I settled down and realized, for the first time, that my grandpa was just wrong.

I was not foolhardy enough to try and correct him. But years later I tried to make sense of what he said, and what I think is that Disney World was just too much for him. He had been born in 1899. He had been through the Great Depression. The world he grew up in was just so far removed from the images on the TV of Disney World that he simply could not even imagine a place like that existing. All of the colors and rides and music. All of those smiling people. It was just too much. So he dismissed it.

It seems to me that a lot of us do this with a lot of things. Some people dismiss joy and peace because it’s too far from their experience. Some people dismiss love and hope and forgiveness for the same reason. But just because we can’t imagine something doesn’t mean it’s not possible or true.

I have been to Disney World. It’s really there. Honest. And it’s amazing.

I just wish my grandfather could have seen it.

Ephesians 3:20-21
Peace to you.

And yes, that really is a guy from Kiss singing "When You Wish Upon A Star."


© LW Publishing 2010

Ambitious

“Why is the world like this?” said the man in the grey flannel suit. “People are crazy,” he added, as he was wheeled into the emergency room. He had been shot. There was blood all over his nice, pressed suit, mostly where the bullet had gone in, near his heart, but not in his heart. There was that to be thankful for. But his suit had been torn open, tearing off the buttons, along with his shirt and t-shirt. His chest was bare except for blood and bandages.

The man who drove him to the hospital was pushing the gurney. He said, “Oh yeah. I know what you mean. I really do!”

Grey Flannel thought about it for a moment as they parked him and began processing him. The bleeding had been stopped on the way to the hospital and he had been given some pain killer. It put him in a contemplative mood. He finally responded, “We’re supposed to pretend it doesn’t matter. But it matters a lot, doesn’t it? Why people want things, what they do to get them, it does matter. Right?”

Gurney Man kept talking with Grey Flannel, trying to keep him calm. He said, “I heard a man once describe a Christian leader he knew as ‘ambitious.’ And he was right, I think. This guy, he was ambitious. Like a lot of people.”

Grey Flannel was with him on this. He knew what he was getting at. He said, “Yeah. I know a lot of guys in business who are that way. It’s how they survive. It’s how they get ahead and beat out the competition.”

Grey Flannel said, “Well. Ambition is really just wanting, isn’t it? It’s about wanting a lot of something. Which can be good or bad. Sometimes you can even get good from bad, you know?” He had to stop talking here to answer some questions for the doctor. They also asked Grey Flannel some things, then they started to move him again. Gurney Man stayed with him as they were wheeling him down the hall.

Gurney Man said, “This Christian leader, he was really concerned with what his dad thought about him. He was really concerned that he measure up because his dad didn’t seem to like him enough. And then he got to where he wanted affirmation from other people he looked up to. And this drove his ambition. He wanted to impress people. And he did it. That’s what drove him to do most of what he did. But the thing is, he did a lot of good along the way. He accomplished a lot of good, and that’s what you have to think about. You have to think about the good. Protect it even. And realize that the man doesn’t even know himself.”

Grey Flannel said, “Oh. I get it now. I get it. I know who you’re talking about, right? You’re talking about the guy who put this bullet in my chest, aren’t you?”

Gurney Man said, “I’m just saying. He’s doing a lot of good. His motives might be off a bit, but he’s doing good things. And what have you done? You just got in the way, that’s all. You just got in the way. Sure, this was a little over the top, but if you stop the man, you could stop a lot of good.”

Grey Flannel said, “So, how long have you been in on this? His voice started to tremble with anger. “You’re with him right? How long have you been feeding his ambition to get what you want?”

Gurney Man just smiled at him, with pity. It was clear that Grey Flannel just didn’t get it. Probably never would. So Gurney Man let him go. Let them patch him up. He’d survive. That’s what chumps were good at. Surviving. Not thriving.

They pushed Grey Flannel through some swinging doors and he was gone.

Gurney Man thought to himself: Let him live with his ethics and such. See how far it gets him. What good will it accomplish. Nothing.

Gurney Man walked away.




Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2010