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Easter music

3/29/2013

I've been reflecting a bit on this season, which comes around once a year. As I write this, I'm really enjoying the holiday podcast from Under the Radar, which features some excellent music for the weekend season. You can listen to the whole podcast here: Radar Radio Easter Special

As I grow older, I really value the cycles of the Christian calendar, which reminds me of the incredible story of salvation that I'm part of. Reading scripture, it becomes more and more clear to me that everything in the Bible is about Jesus. Take the psalms for example. I was reading Psalm 146, and check out what it says (ESV):

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
3 Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.
5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord

This is essentially a treatise on the incredible story of redemption. The focus starts out on God and his worthiness of of praise, then contrasts it with humanity's inability to save, and returns to an exposition of God's saving character.

As believers, our trust is not in princes or earthly sons of men (vs. 3), but in the heavenly Son of Man, who is the God of Jacob (vs. 5).

What an incredible gift! The same one "who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry" (vs. 6-7) is our Savior.

But wait, the list goes on! He frees the prisoners (7), gives sight to the blind, encourages the disheartened, loves the righteous (8), watches over travelers, upholds those in difficult broken circumstances, and destroys the wicked (9).

I don't know about you, but this is super encouraging to me - it's a reminder not only of God's glorious character, but of my own inability to save myself. But God has done what I cannot, through his death on the cross and his resurrection. He truly is the one "who keeps faith forever," and that's why I can live in joy and righteousness.

Indeed, the Lord WILL reign forever, enthroned in his city, Zion, for all eternity and to all generations. Praise the Lord!

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Australia

3/22/2013

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I've been in Australia (affectionately known by locals as Oz or 'stralia) for almost 3 weeks, and so far it's been fabulous. People are friendly, food is good and I've already seen 2 incredible fireworks displays, helped manage a kid's bouncing tower, found a cool church, and even got some work done on my thesis and related linguistics research.

Canberra is where I'm living, the little-known capital of the country, and the first set of fireworks were for the centenary celebration. The capitol was built 100 years ago to administrate the large country, where people come for government jobs and university and not much else. It feels more like a country town, which I like.

At the moment, though, I'm visiting some friends in Brisbane, north of Sydney (and therefore warmer than Canberra, as closer to the equator). The Davies family were in Ghana with SIL at the same time as my family, and we got to know them and their two sons pretty well. I haven't seen them in 6 years or so, and it's good to be able to spend the weekend with them.

EDIT: You can read up on a friend's breakdown of the weekend HERE.

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Feature: Anthony Guyer

3/11/2013

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Anthony "Tony" Guyer was one of the first people I worked with when starting to play music. Over the years we've worked together on numerous projects and I've always valued his ear and his feedback. He continues to build his business Forgotten Genre Productions, based in Lancaster, PA.

Tony and I have connections that go farther back than our music ventures, though. His family and mine both work for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Like I spent time growing up in Ghana, West Africa, Tony and his brothers grew up in another country - it just happened to be one on the other side of the world: Papua New Guinea. When the Guyers took a home assignment in Lancaster and we were back temporarily from Africa our two families would often reconnect.

In 2006 when I started writing and performing in the Lancaster area, my parents mentioned that Tony was back from road-managing bands out of Nashville, including The Waiting, Smalltown Poets, and Sixpence None the Richer. I got in touch with him to see if he was still interested in music, and found a kindred spirit - someone interested in creating and recording music that would touch people's lives.

For this album, Tony lent me some of his recording equipment for tracking drums and some initial percussion at the Crossway Church property in Lancaster, back in 2010-2011. Then when I was in India I got in touch with him to see if he'd be able to record strings. I put him in touch with Yolanda and Sophia, sent him the tracks to record to, and was able to pick up the files from him when I visited the US over the summer. Easy as pie. If you're in the Lancaster area and want to do some recording or just want to meet up and learn from him, check out his Forgotten Genre Facebook page.

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This Lamp - a few words about the song

3/5/2013

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Sorry for the lack of posting recently - I am on a short (two-month) trip to Australia, and will be continuing to work on my thesis and music and such while I'm here. I only just arrived on Friday March 1st, so it's taken me a few days to get settled. More on that later. For now, here are some thoughts about a song on the new album called "This Lamp", which you can listen to on the left.

"This Lamp" is a popular song among people who have heard me play it live, I think in part because of the groove and the simple words, as well as the images that the words evoke. It comes across as a simple love song, which is good in one way, but not so good in another. We should be clear here: this song is not about a girl.

It may be shocking to some that there are other kinds of love besides romantic love, but that is clearly the case. The kind of love I feel for my parents, for my brothers and sisters, for my friends, and (hopefully one day for my) children - this is not romantic love. And the love that this song in particular talks about is the desire for a relationship that one of the participants left.

I like to tell people that this is the story of an abandoned house, one that once was occupied but now remains empty. Empty, that is, except for the house itself, and the things that make a comfortable home so important to all of us - warmth, light, companionship. Of course this makes it a metaphor for something much larger, but I'll let you connect the dots on your own.

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Easter music

Australia

Feature: Anthony Guyer

This Lamp - a few words about the song

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