Get a Goat?

I know, I know. An odd thing to see on a Monday morning, eh? Well, from now until Tuesday at midnight, some of the bloggers involved in the 40Day Fast are trying to help raise money, through WorldVision, to help and buy goats for families in need. "A goat nourishes a family with fresh milk, cheese, and yogurt, and can offer a much-needed income boost by providing offspring and extra dairy products for sale at the market. " So click on the above link if you want to help out with five or ten bucks today.

In other news, thanks to all of you who have prayed for me and sent encouraging notes this weekend. I'm still a bit woozy and I have a really cool neck bandage, so I'm not spending much time on the computer, but your support has been awesome. Although, I'm sure my wife and family needed it more. They weren't the ones that got to sleep all weekend.

I Did finish Harry Potter. It was excellent. I also watched a bulk of the episodes of a show called Firefly, which a lot of you had suggested. It, too, is great. It's a weird cross between sci-fi and western. I attempted to explain it to Alison to which she replied: "Do they time travel on a saddle?" Ah, if only...

And unfortunately, I can't time travel either, and I have to go back to work. My session today should be a little shorter, though, so that will be nice. Pray I make it all the way through! Thanks guys, and again, if you have a minute and a few bucks, let's try and help out those less fortunate today.

T.G.I.F.

Last September I wrote this piece about a weird lump I felt in my shoulder. Long story short, I have some swollen lymph nodes that, as of last September anyway, aren't cancer, but aren't good. Tomorrow (Friday) morning I'm getting them taken out.

They say it's routine, and it's an outpatient thing, but that it will be fairly invasive and that I'll be out of commission for a few days. To be honest, I'm kind of excited. I haven't started reading Harry yet, been saving it for this weekend (but I'll probably get a running start tonight...) It will be the first real three days in a row I've had off in well over a year. Throw in some pain medicine and the in-laws in town to help out with the kids and I'm sold.

But I would really appreciate your prayers. I'm not nervous or worried yet, but I know I will be by the time I'm back in a hospital and stuff's getting hooked up to me. They'll be running all the tests on what they get out, as well, so I'm really hoping it still comes back ok.

You guys have been so amazing to me and my family and my friends over the past few years, and I already appreciate your support tomorrow. Thanks guys.

deep and wide

Tonight I laid in bed with my iPod, something I never do. I heard a Phil Collins song on the radio tonight, I don’t remember which one, and it di d something to me. It was so simple and open and beautiful and sort of cheesy and I loved it. Tonight I listened to Genesis, Tears for Fears, Tears for Fears and Tears for Fears again. The same three songs. The ones with the groove and the soul. I can’t get enough.

Tonight music moved me. Music pays my bills. Music feeds my family. Music is the feel of the strings and the wood under my fingers. But I lose the music. It turns into a job and what was almost in my hand is back flying in the wind like a kite.

Tonight I am almost touching it again. To list the songs and the artists does no justice. It’s the feeling I’ve found. The moment when hope is restored. The beauty of the melody resting with the groove. The dance, the shift, the feeling that life is here.

Life is rhythm. We lay down and we rise. Our hearts beat. We lose the groove and we stumble, we flail. We lose the questions and only find anger and fear.

We lose each other and only find ourselves. And ourselves are not enough. There is no harmony alone. And no rhythm.

But God is in the rhythm. He knew the dark needed the light. He knew the ocean needed the land. He knew the woman needed the man. The melody and the harmony. The kick and the snare. The hand and the drum. The tension and the release. The grave and the sky.

Tonight I’m writing because I have to. For this moment I have found what I have lost. I worry all the time. Will the songs come? Will I have something to say? Will people want to hear? Will they buy and listen and pay our bills?

Yes.

The songs will come. The heart always has things to say that people want to hear. Need to hear. Will believe in and lift up and support. Because when the heart really speaks, and when the fingers and the hands are fluent in rhythm and melody, we listen. We always have and we always will.

We feel it. The music that moves us goes beyond our frontal lobes and our language. It goes straight into the bloodstream. It wrenches our gut and grabs our heart. The Minor falls and the Major lifts. The baffled King composes “Hallelujah�.

As I write this I listen to an unfinished piece over and over again. Cason and B.J. in Cason’s bedroom back when we were single and in a band. Every morning I wake up angry. Cason and I share a vent and their creation wakes me up before I want. They’re listening loud. And now this tiny, little screen shows a picture Cason must have attached, the cover art I miss so dearly.

Germany. Cason in a black stocking cap, in profile. B.J. looking at the camera with a gentle smile. He always sees right through me, knows how much I want his respect. He is older than I am and found the groove years before me. His kindness and belief in me give me strength to fight, to carve my words and my melodies and my spirit.

I hear this unfinished piece, the pulse and the ascending harp line. They title it “Harpoon�. I don’t know why. It’s as unfinished as my children are. Beautiful, like them, but only because I hear their reflection in it.

Music is a dead language if you don’t have people you love.

Music is real like love. You hold it like love. You can lose it like love. It is an echo of love. Maybe we like the sad love songs because they make us hope that tomorrow we’ll grab ahold of what always seems just outside our grasp.

Tonight I’ve found my old friends in the rhythm, my wife in the hope of a melody, my girls in the lilt and the twirl.

Tonight I’ve found God in the groove. The pulse that is always there beneath me, above me, behind me, before me, waiting for me to ride within its heartbreaking, breathtaking, dark and beautiful waves.

Deep and wide…

Deep and wide…

Deep and wide…

Tastes like school

I've been set up over at Sputnik studios for a month or so now, and it has flown by. It has been so great to have a place to work and to be around other folks who do what I do.

I'm the youngest of the three guys that work over there by a good decade or so and I obviously have the least amount of knowledge, skill and experience. I feel like it's an amazing time in my life to be there, though. I'm just smart enough to know that I don't know much, and I'm surrounded by a couple of great guys who are constantly showing me new things.

The gear collection there is pretty fantastic and I'm able to use pieces I've only seen or read about before. Actually, a lot of them have been used ON me before, as I played and sang, but never BY me. It's amazing to hear the differences between this mic and that, this pre amp and that pre amp. I would have gone to college if it was like this.

It's kind of nuts because I feel my recordings are getting exponentially better daily, which means I already regret decisions I made last week on the project I'm doing right now. Not that they were bad, just that now I know better about one little aspect of something. But it's exciting to hear such a quick change in what I'm doing. And it inspires so much creativity. To be able to really hear and understand what you're doing allows you so much more room to paint.

I'm hoping I'll still be able to work here by the time I start a new record. I can't imagine a better environment to find the right melodies, the grooves that feel just right. I want my music to feel as big as the sky above the ocean, and maybe I am where I am right now to learn how to do just that.

There is a Single on iTunes

So you can click RIGHT HERE to find your way to the new Caedmon's single on iTunes. The song is called "There is a Reason". Randall and I wrote it, Cliff sings the lead, and the chorus has two bass guitars in harmony that I can't believe the band let me get away with.

You may want to wait for the album, but if you can't, we'd love for you to grab it and give it a listen. Maybe leave a nice review (if you like it, of course...)