Fine Line Between Ripe and Rotten

I bit into a banana this morning and realized it was still a bit green. Not bad, really, but not very sweet. It wasn’t quite done ripening. It got me to thinking. When does ripening cross over to rotting?

Isn’t it interesting that the same process that does the ripening, without the harvest (or consumption), will eventually turn the fruit into mush.

I’m a firm (haha) believer that we as created beings cannot create anything, only take creation and rearrange it. Like the old joke about the scientist telling God he can create life, and then reaching for a pile of dirt to begin, God stops him and says, “Hey, make your own dirt”.

As a result, I see things like writing and melody creation as a series of puzzles with different pieces. We’ve got letters, and words, and notes and chords and ideas. We don’t create rhymes and emotional moments, we assemble them from our tool kit and inventories of old. Ideas aren’t created, they’re discovered. Melodies aren’t spun, they’re deciphered. Add the Holy Spirit and only then, true synergy happens. Something greater than the sum of the puzzle pieces.

I reminisce, fondly, of my green banana plucked from its ultimate potential, so early in life, only to become a poor-man’s brunch. I see another one ripening on the counter, and if protected from my a-peeling hands, one day it might be arbitrarily referred to as a rotten banana.

When will be at its optimum sweetness and firmness? One day it might be at the perfect state where it as sweet as it can be, and still firm enough to eat without triggering a repulsive reaction. Too early, and we’re cheated of the ultimate flavor; The design standard! Too late, and were deprived altogether.

I can’t help but assume that there’s a word picture there. Another clue to this never ending puzzle we call life.

Or... its just a banana?

Faith vs. Reason

In a recent facebook debate, Chuck Cannon asked the question, “Does God Have free will?” This sparked an ongoing debate which quickly turned to the question, “Does God exist?”, etc.

Then the question of faith vs. reason. I always think its strange that the two are sometimes presented as polar opposites.

Here is part of Chuck’s response that seem applicable to songwriting:

Chuck Cannon commented on his status:

I am a songwriter.

I have no idea what I am going to write next. I can be in the middle of a song and have no idea what the next line is going to be. I have no way of "knowing" if the lines I write are the right ones.

But I have "faith" that I can write songs. That faith has been supported by "reason" ... I have actually made money writing songs and have had people (besides friends and family) tell me my songs are good.

But the only way I will ever write another one is to have faith that I can ...

If I just sit on my ass and have "faith" nothing will happen. (Yes, I have empirical evidence!) So I spend an enormous amount of time reading ... looking for ideas. I write off movie tickets because I find so many ideas there ... I listen to people and how they say things ... what they love ... who they love ... what they believe ...

But once I'm in the middle of a song, "reason" plays a huge role ... I analyze ... I use dictionaries, a thesaurus, quotation books ... my old harmony textbooks for musical ideas ... different instruments ... different co-writers ...

poets and mathematicians ...

they are both at work in my brain ...

so faith and reason feed on each other in my world all the time ... i bet in your world too ...

and tomorrow I can get up and crank my tractor and move some gravel around on my driveway or I can stay right here in my studio and see if a song shows up ...

fate has brought me to this moment of choice ...

and my choices have brought me to this fate ...

Peace ~ Chuck"

A Hymn For Me

O self, myself
In unimpressive wonder
Consider all
Alone, thy hand hath made
You’ll feel the scars
You’ll see the waste and plunder
No pow’r throughout
Your universe displayed

Then cries my soul
Without your Saviour, see
How small thou art
How small thou art
Then cries my soul
Without your Saviour, see
How small thou art
How small thou art

An Army of Paper Saints

At lunchtime on Thursday, I was skimming on facebook when I IM’d Eva, a cowriter of mine in Houston. We recently started working on a song, and I’ve been pretty remiss in working on it. I wanted to tell her I’ve been thinking about it, which I have, but to be honest, not that much.

In the process of the conversation, I told her I had another idea for a worship song. No title, not even a hook; Only an idea.

The idea is coming together in authenticity. Real with one another in the Church. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a new idea, but I’ve been feeling led to write it.

I love working with Eva. She’s a walking, talking, emailing vessel of the Holy Spirit. We bounced a few ideas back and forth and she said she’d pray about it and write down some ideas.

At that moment I had a thought and typed two words in the box and hit send “Paper Saints”.

She replied, “tell me about that. I replied something like, ”not real saints, just 2 dimensional cut-outs of what a saint is supposed to look like“.

She started a file and just before I went back to work, I typed this into the file:

We come with needs unspoken
for fear of being exposed
And though the circle be unbroken
we unfold into an army of paper saints.

That evening, I sat at he piano and started playing around.. 5 minutes later I had a chorus. I went online and opened the file. She had copied my im onto the page and had started a verse.

I started typing.. she came online and she started praying.. then the words flowed, and by Friday morning, most of the lyric was done. I went in the studio on Saturday morning.. and by the next day we had a work tape done.

I gotta tell you, when the Holy Spirit is on board, writing the song’s just a matter of holding the pen, laying your hand on the keyboard, and most importantly, getting out of the way.

If you’d like to give it a listen, you can check it out here.

The Challenge of "WHY?"

I was driving to an early call-time last Sunday morning.. Before sunrise. Dark-thirty. I flipped on the radio.. NPR.. talk-interview show. Some guy was explaining his take on the meaning of life. Between my thoughts of “I need coffee” and “where am I?”, I started listening to the conversation. The guy was saying, “...the important question to ask and answer about anything you do is, ‘Why?’ ”

Now, unless you’ve never contemplated the meaning of life before, you know this is the pertinent question. I’ve asked it many times as I sat down to plan. The 5 year plan. The career plan. The family plan.. The house plan...

It’s important, I get it.

But in the middle of my pompous, eye-rolling-head-nod, it suddenly dawned on me that in many areas of my life I had gone a long time without revisiting that question.

Why do I work where I work? Why do I do what I do? Why do I live where I live? Why? Why? Why?

Sure, I asked these questions at critical times when I started my job, nurtured my job skills, was house-hunting, etc.

It rarely occurs to me that I need to revisit those areas (and other areas) and ask the question again.

In Michigan, there are many people who are having to ask these questions again, out of necessity. In other words, the are looking for new jobs, careers, and houses.. because they lost the ones they had.

For myself, I still have a job, a career, a house.. but are the reasons I chose them still the same as today’s reasons?

Answer: NO!

Time to re-evaluate.. in fact, its always time to re-evaluate... actually, maybe its the wrong word... The word evaluate indicates something that can be accomplished, and I’m beginning to wonder if the process is much more dynamic than I ever assumed..


Use me while you can.

Normal vs. Paranormal? Natural vs. Miraculous?

I was reading today a quote that said there is nothing paranormal except our limited knowledge of nature. That’s what the quote said..

I can relate to that statement because of an experience I had a few years ago.

You may remember an asteroid belt that ended up flying through our atmosphere a few years back. Many got up and laid outside in the early morning to watch it go through the atmosphere.

I was driving about 5 miles south of my house, in broad daylight, when something caught my eye to the left. I turned my head in time to see a fireball in the sky. Thing is, it appeared to be the size of the Sun (my perspective).

But this was not normal.. it was paranormal. Here’s why. It was high in the atmosphere, so it was quite large, but it was moving across the sky as if it were a jet 200 feet above the ground.

It lasted 2 seconds at most.. took 2 seconds to fly from the horizon on my left to the horizon on my right. So fast, in fact, that by the time everyone in the car looked it was gone.

My idea of normal was shattered. It laid in pieces on the floor of that minivan.

Seriously, Up to this time, the nearest I’d come to Paranormal was Teflon®. (I mean, how is that surface dry yet feel wet? It has to dry out eventually, right? Just sayin’...)

As a Christian I’ve heard (and talked) about miraculous things all my life. Friends who are healed from a non-operable cancer. People who testify of an Angel’s presence who led them through a mind-field. Miraculous circumstances that freed people from prison.

All those things. You know, when we feel God’s presence. We ‘see’ Him working in people’s lives.

But Paranormal? Physical aberrations that seem impossible? Something you can touch? Aren’t these things paranormal? Why don’t these miraculous things of the faith amaze me.. humble me.. bring me to my knees?

Have I become numb to the supernatural, because its not paranormal? I’ve realized that I’m pretty much still a skeptic to these things. I’m a Thomas. A doubter. Do people really see these things? Are they using them as a way to make their story more significant or impacting? Were those people really healed or just misdiagnosed to begin with.

Even as I write this I have a fear coursing through my arm that people are going to be disappointed in me for expressing these feelings... that I’m somehow not holding up my end of the story. I’m not trusting in what people tell me, or that I’m denying the working, maybe even the existence of God.

I don’t. I know what I know. I feel what I feel. I’m a witness to his miraculous hand in my life and others... but unless I remind myself that those things I know, feel, and witness are not natural, ordinary things, I begin to classify them as normal, and they become something I take for granted, or worse something I don’t even recognize as the hand of God working in my life and the life of others.

Then I see a fireball the size of a football field rocket 1,000 miles in 2 seconds and realize how small I am in this unbelievable, ordered creation and I realize that there is nothing miraculous except my limited knowledge of God’s omnipotent hand at the wheel of His creation. My limited recognition of His incomprehensible love for us and His desire to have us be an integral part of its fruition.

Performance Royalties for Performers on Radio

The proposed measure in the Senate calls for a performance royalty to be paid to the artists for airplay.

Whether you know it or not, artists are currently not compensated for terrestrial radio airplay of their music. Writers and publishers are compensated, but the owners of the recordings are not.

To my knowledge, the royalty is 1/2 cent per play, to be added to the current royalty to then be distributed to the artists.

The NAB response is that local radio stations can not afford such an increase, and would have to suspend local news coverage, weather and all kinds of other services just to pay these (inferred greedy) artists for the use of their music. They even created the phrase PERFORMANCE TAX to gather public opinion against it.

Well, lets do some math.
If a radio station plays 15 songs an hour (I challenge you to find one that plays that many), 168 hours a week, 4.3 weeks a month.. or 10,836 songs a month.

10,836 songs a month! That’s a lot of songs.. That sounds like a lot of money, right?

At 1/2 cent each... the bill comes to $54.18 a month.



If an artist’s music helps to generate an audience... which sells advertising... which pays the bills, don’t you think that artist should get a penny every couple times his song gets played?

If there’s a better and cheaper way for a station to generate listeners, I say they should go for it. Music sounds like a bargain, to me.

Seriously. How much bad news do we have to give up for 55 bucks a month?