March 2006

here’s a question that’s on my mind tonight. i’d love to hear your thoughts on why you choose the way you do.

which is better?

(1.) a friend who always cheers you on, sometimes to the point of either ignoring or minimizing your limitations, or
(2.) a friend who offers encouragement, but tempers it with a “realistic” assesment of your limitations.

just got off the phone with my good friend, paul. besides being a great hang - he’s one of the funniest people i know - paul is a very genuine person. paul is a fellow musician. we used to serve on staff together in the music department at our former church. even though we now live in different states, we still keep in regular contact. he is one of my biggest supporters. paul has the gift of encouragement. i hope that i provide half the encouragement to him as i receive.

we all need people who believe in us. people who have confidence that we can acheive our dreams. confidence in us and sometimes confidence for us. the world is full of naysayers, am i right? i’m painfully aware of my own shortcomings and the apparent limits of my talent and giftedness. a lot of times, paul doesn’t seem to be aware of those limits in me. sometimes after taking a beating with paul’s encouragement club, i hang up the phone actually believing that i can acheive more. because i know, love and respect paul, i tend to respect what he says about me.

what do you think?

A friend recently turned me on to the music of singer-songwriter, Imogen Heap. A standout track from her latest CD is called “Hide and Seek”. This track has been in several movies and TV. Besides an absolutely beautiful melody, what stands out immediately about the track is the lush “a capella” vocal arrangement.

After seeing her perform this song on one of the late shows (I can’t remember which one….maybe it was Late Call Tonight with Conan David Kimmel), I noticed that she was using a midi keyboard and some sort of outboard device to create the vocal “harmonies”. In reality it was her voice multiplied and pitchshifted in real-time. Very cool.

I got curious as to exactly how she created this track. So, I googled it. (On a side note: how funny is it that google is now a common verb?) Anyway, if you’re curious about this kind of stuff like I am, here’s a link to an interview with Imogen Heap on DragonFire. Enjoy!

Thanks to an insightful post on Tales By The Fire, I decided to rename my vox “mostly music”. I definitely want to connect with other musicians, so maybe this will draw more of the right people.

Any fellow musician voxers, please leave a comment. I’d love to check out your blogs and music as well. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post some of my new music here soon…..

For you smart technical people…what’s the best way for us to make music available through Vox? As of now, we can only send people away from voxtropolis to myspace or whatever. thoughts?

I had a great time last night at our second monthly songwriter’s community. Thanks for organizing and hosting, Nate. Again, a small group. But, I have to say that selfishly they both have been smashing successes as far as I’m concerned.

I decided that I’m going to use the open mic as a deadline to have something new every month. This is going to be my plan of discipline to keep writing and being creative. So I sang my latest song “Chasing the Daylight” this time. I received some fairly good feedback on the song. Now I need to get it recorded…

….oh, and I heard a rough mix of “Waiting” that Nate Fancher is producing for me. He’s done some really great stuff to fill out the arrangement of the song. It has some cool Nate Fancher-ness to it. Can’t wait to be able to post it and give it to the world (or at least my mom).

that’s it for now….

We have a new tradition which my wife and I really look forward to. Every Tuesday several of our neighbor friends come over to watch American Idol. We’re addicted. Too far gone. We Tivo it and then start it late to miss the commercial breaks…

Anyway, Reality TV Magazine has reported possible evidence that American Idol is staged. Has the order that the contestants will be “voted” off already been decided? Read the scoop…..right…..HERE.

What do you think?

Okay, here’s a confession that’s perhaps easier to make in the blogosphere than in real life…I rarely get excited about reading the bible. There are plenty of times that I’m drawn to this or that new spiritual book because I might gain some new bit of insight or be moved or compelled in some way. Why don’t I have the same anticipation about reading the scriptures? What am I missing?

Does anyone else have this problem? If so, what are some ways to cultivate a bigger appetite for the bible?

I wonder if there are any voxtropolis voices that do not subscribe to the Christian faith. I personally hope that this becomes a community that is welcoming of and attractive to people of all faiths (or no faith, for that matter).

What are some of your ideas for creating that kind of community here?

Also, for anyone involved in the administration of voxtropolis - I understand that we’re currently in beta-test mode here. I assume we’ll go public with it at some point. What plans are there to get the word out?

This post is especially for my friend Bill, but also anyone interested in cafes, coffeehouses, restaurants, etc. as a new location and strategy for advancing the Kingdom. An alternative to church that bypasses the barriers and stigmas attached to churches. (Although not all of them, we’ve earned those stigmas for the most part. That’s another discussion, though…)

Anyway, I realized yesterday that I’d forgotten really how I’d made it voxtropolis in the first place except that it was through at some point signing up on an email list maintainted by Alex McManus. I decided to spend some time reviewing Alex’s blog, called “Into the Mystic”, in order to remind myself what I’m now a part of. The “Search for the Mystic” thread is facinating and extremely exciting to me. I have a feeling I’m starting on a journey that will have large implications for my future as well as for my family’s future. Highly recommended reading there…

Now, back to Bill….one post in particular I think will be intriguing to you as a cafe owner, Bill. You can follow the link here. It’s called “Voxtropolis Cafe”, and it sort of bullet-points Alex’s strategy of establishing connection points for a face-to-face component of the voxtropolis community.

Keep me in the loop on what you think about it….

“There is nothing keeping you from putting your life in the hands of God today. That’s pretty freeing. ‘Cause a lot of you got issues that you can’t control, don’t you? Some of you are hoping that this conference lasts 6 or 8 more months so you won’t have to go back to work. Because there are people there that are controlling you. Your future destiny - on a human level - is in their hands. And they can make decisions, right or wrong about you, and you have very little recourse. That’s crazy isn’t it? Some of your family situations are pressing in on you. Some of your circumstances are pressing in on you, and they’re forcing you into certain kinds of responses.

But here’s the thing: Nothing on the planet can stop you or stop me from saying to God today, “Here’s all of me. My whole life. Everything I am and I’m about. I want to put that in Your hands.” Nobody can stop you. No pastor. No church staff. No circumstance. No illness. No sickness. No hardship. No difficulty. No death. No darkness. No tunnel. No hole. No depression. No kids. No wife. No husband. No one can stop you at the end of the day. Now, at the end of the day, we can say, “Well, I would have put my life in Your hands God, except for whatever, whatever whatever…” But at the end of the day there’s nothing that can stop us from saying, “I have control over this decision. I’m in Your hands God. You just do with me whatever you want.”

And this is the greatest part. When you put your life in God’s hands, there is nothing that can stop God from using You in His plans. Nothing. Not even death can stop God from using you in His plans if your life is in His hands. As a footnote: see the Son of God, Jesus Christ.”

 —Louie Giglio, excerpt taken from his message “Simply Worship”

Have you ever noticed that, in the movies, a microphone always produces feedback when the person talking is nervous?

(this was originally posted on my xanga blog on May 29, 2005)

…I had one of those awesome private worship experiences this past weekend. On Friday, I was sitting at the piano at my house running through the worship set for Sunday morning. One of the songs in the set is “Whole World in His Hands” by Tim Hughes. The words to the chorus:

He’s got the whole world in His hands
He’s got the whole world in His hands
I’ll fear no evil for You are with me
Strong to deliver, mighty to save
He’s got the whole world in His hands

After singing through the song, I felt like just vamping through the chorus progression and talking to God. As a result, He kind of prompted me to read Psalm 91. I started to incorporate some of the phrases from the Psalm into a sort of ad lib melody based loosely on the song. A couple of phrases that really stuck with me: “We can rest in the shadow of the Almighty;” “He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.”

Now, to the really cool part….as I was singing “He’s got the whole world in His hands” all of the sudden the truth hit home that God’s watching over our little daughter in China. There are a lot of details that we don’t know yet - how long we have yet to wait, what part of the country she’ll be from, even whether or not she’s been born yet. But, God knows these details. He’s watching over her right now. I was just flooded with emotion when He made that connection for me.

That’s the cool thing about spending time in worship with God. It’s such a personal experience. I was able to briefly share that story this morning in our corporate worship time after we sang that song. As I was relating my experience, I also realized one more thing….my particular application of the truth of that song was only one out of about 300 going on at once in that corporate moment this morning.

God (the I AM) is truly awesome…….

. . .for the past few years. But recently, finding myself in a dry spell, I’ve taken some of that pressure off. Lately I’m just trying to write whatever comes out. I’m having fun and it’s helping me work through feelings, frustrations, fears, etc. In fact, it strikes me that this must be what David felt like. No holds barred. Lettin’ ‘er rip, if you will.

Here’s a bit that I wrote today. Maybe I can post a link once it’s recorded. . .

Chasing the Daylight (thanks Erwin!)

Wasting the daylight
Hiding from your fears
Abandoning your dreams
Wasting the daylight

Oh, you used to be alive
Oh, you can come alive again

Let’s chase the daylight
Staring down our fears
Embracing our dreams
Chasing the daylight

Oh, I used to be alive
Oh, I want to come alive again
Oh, I used to be alive
Oh, I want to come alive again

Abundant life
What’s the meaning?
Abundant life
Is there some for me?

Oh, I used to be alive
Oh, I want to come alive again
Oh, I used to be alive
Oh, I want to come alive again

As a songwriter, I’m currently finding inspiration in experimenting with different guitar tunings. I find that it gets me out of familiar patterns - both chordally and melodically. Half the time, I’m not even immediately sure EXACTLY what chord I’m playing. It kind of forces me to turn my left brain off and go with the right side for awhile…

Here’s the tuning I’m really digging right now: C G D G B D (low to high)

Any other songwriters care to share ways that you are inspired to get out of familiar patterns?