About My
MUSIC
Welcome to my songs. I hope you find them entertaining but also thought-provoking. I trust you'll enjoy these songs as much as I enjoyed writing them. Below are quick sketches of each.
This is a familiar story. The ultimate little-guy-vs-the-giant scenario. We see it every day. The neighborhood bully throws his considerable weight around, pushing and shoving and intimidating all of the little kids. But bullies are never what they seem to be. And none of them have anything on the original bully, Goliath. None. But it takes a willing "little guy" like David to stop them. Maybe that's me. Maybe that's you. Whoever it is, it takes more than guts and skills to beat bullies. It takes a belief that there is a God ready and able to stand beside you, behind you and before you. David understood that, even in the face of a towering "mountain." He knew that only in God's name could he defeat his bully.
These days, skeptics galore doubt the historicity and credibility of Christianity, the Bible, even about whether Jesus, himself, really lived at all. (I assure you the evidence backs up all of the above). So, this song is a reply to a few of the common reasons skeptics give for their skepticism. (I like to think it does so in an entertaining and engaging way.)
Maybe it's just me, but I often feel like I'm under some sort of invisible attack by spiritual forces. And, even though I've never been one to see demonic beings around every corner, I've come to believe Paul when he wrote that as Christians "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 4:12). So, maybe the first step is to remind ourselves Who is for us.
Most of the time I'm OK in prayer. I can usually sound pretty holy and use all the right "sacred" terminology and all that. But there are times when I want to (no, need to) get deeper in intimacy with God---and I'm not very good at doing that with honesty or with a sense that I've covered all that I mean to express. I suspect most of us are like that. Prayer should be natural, but seldom is. At least, mine seldom is. What if I just wrote Him a letter?
Everyone who loves will know the pain of a lost love. That's the nature of the beast -- and its beauty. "Parting" tenderly reflects that experience in honest, genuine and, ultimately, hopeful words and a hauntingly memorable melody.
Sometimes we have to daydream, right? It's how we choose our friends or who we'd like to become closer to. We want that someone to be someone we like, someone we want to be around. Just as important, we want that person to make us feel better about ourselves.
Many families experience a breakdown in their relationship when a man asserts leadership in sometimes well-meaning but unhealthy and disrespectful ways. This acoustic country ballad describes such a breakdown when a husband's insensitivity to his woman's simple needs for attention and partnership--often leaving him with little but precious family memories.
When God gets hold of someone, the Bible says they become "a new creation." When I think about that, I can see a busy studio, filled with our clumsy efforts at producing a unique piece of art -- something that will amaze, even thrill and inspire other painters. But, despite our best intentions, it never comes out the way we hoped. So we have to bring it to the Master to fix it. We must trust Him to patiently, stroke by stroke, make it into the masterpiece we had intended to create. That's my story.
For Thirty Coins of Silver
Style: Musical theater (2. versions: intense orchestral OR satirical pop)
I don't think of Judas often (probably a good thing), but when I do I picture him as a self-assured, cocky schemer, eventually naively playing right into the hands of the religiously powerful enemies of Jesus. In that sense, Judas is a pitiful but seemingly harmless character. Until he's not. tries to imagine what was on Judas' mind as he struggled to mentally and spiritually process what he had done as the tragic episode unfolds and his rationale is destroyed. In an instant (I assume), he must've realized the enormity of what he had done, of Who it was that he had betrayed. But I have to wonder... was Judas all that different from me? Could I have done what he did? I fear I would. Is it "only by the grace of God" that you and I have been spared the same wretched fate? His mercy shines like a diamond against the backdrop of a Judas Iscariot and his ill-fated "well-conceived" plan. (This song was written for an Easter pageant.)
The Pharisees have always gotten a bad rap as the perpetrators of Jesus' arrest, trial and execution. But Mark 12:18 tells us it was the Sadducees "who say there is no resurrection," either for individuals at death or for all Jews at the end of time. Annas and Caiaphas, the High Priests at the time, were both Sadducees---the bitter rivals of the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin. This song puts a new spin on these mockers as they plot with the sleeping sentries on how to deal with the apostles after their cynicism was turned back on them.
I'm no theologian, but I would guess that when Jesus gasped out the words, "I thirst" as he neared complete exhaustion and death, he wasn't referring only to his physical need for water. Every fiber of Jesus' spirit yearned to re-connect with his Father, with the peace and glory he had always known before his sojourn on earth. I can't claim the intense desperation of Jesus in that moment but like David before him (who's words Jesus had quoted), our humanity often cries out to our Father to "break down those walls of heaven and touch me once again."
I've often heard Christians say something to the effect that "we need to get back to the first-century Church" as if the early years of the faith were times of uncommon peace, harmony, unity and choruses of "Kumbaya" with arms locked together. I don't think so! Can anyone read the New Testament letters of Paul and others without finding constant references -- by implication if not directly -- to internal conflicts, politicking, bickering, accusations and counter-charges and worse? Our sins are displayed most clearly when put alongside the mirror of God's word. That's why as Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi (probably from a jail cell in Rome) he closed with this encouragement: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things" (Phil 2:8, NIV).
There's a reason why the command to "fear not" is found in the Bible nearly 120 times: it's hard for most of us to get the fact that God really does love us -- loves me -- and wants me to focus my attention on Him rather than on what I fear. This song assumes the gentle voice of Jesus, assuring us that He's fully aware of our fragile spirits and He wants desperately for us to learn and believe that "if not a sparrow leaves the sky without my knowing why, then how much more will I remember you?"