"Wounded" Live Performance

Here's a performance of "Wounded (Song For The Orphans)" in a noisy coffee house - August 2008.

Monday...Ummm....I mean Saturday Song Stories: "Wounded (Song for the Orphans)"

Last Spring as I was finishing up in the studio, a man named Junior Andrews came to our church. Junior is the director of an Organization called Village of Hope in Lilongwe Malawi. Junior spoke of children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The situation in Africa is at epidemic proportions. On that morning, Junior showed pictures. He said names. He explained individual situations. These were children that were just as real as my own.

The website www.un.org estimates that there are between 850,000 and 1.2 million AIDS orpahns in Malawi alone. The government can only afford to throw $250 000 at the problem.

I have to admit, I can't relate to this scope of need. A million children with no parents. How is that possible in a world like ours?

I went home that morning overwhelmed, so I picked up my guitar. The only way that I can explain it is that within 20 minutes this song had erupted. I felt that day that even though I wasn't able to give a home to an orphan, I could offer this. How powerful is a song? Can it make a difference? I pray each time that I perform it that it will be a tool in God's hands.

I also have a brother that is passionate about orphans in Mexico. I have seen the compassion of God reflected in my brother Rick's eyes as he speaks of real children who have been rescued, and the many more that need care.

And that compassion is essentially what this song is about. God cares for these "little wounded souls" and commissions us to be the hands that deliver his practical care. I guess as I worte this song, I pictured God reaching out to a street child in Malawi, picking him up, and whispering to him "In my house there are no orphans."

Why I like Coffee Shops...

Although I am not a historian, I believe that the concept of a coffee house originated in Turkey. There's an old Turkish proverb that goes something like this:

"The real reason that people go to coffee houses is not for the coffee, nor for the music. Those are just excuses. People go to connect with one another."

I spent this past Friday night playing a coffee house concert in Bay Roberts. It was a great time. Although, at those sorts of events, the musician is clearly the background music, that's alright. The point of these types of venues is connection. It was a great night, and it was great to meet some new friends.

"This Too Shall Be Made Right" - By Derek Webb

This is such a great song that I had to share it with you.

Song Story Will Be A Bit Late This Week

Hey everyone...Sorry to tell you, but this week's installment of the Saturday Song Story is going to be coming on Monday, September 29th.

Here's why. I'm going to be playing in the Port De Grave area on Friday night at an outreach event there, at Ascension Collegiate...sort of a coffee house thing. Feel free to drop by and have a coffee. You can get the event details by clicking here.

So, Michelle and I won't be getting back until late Saturday night, hence the lack of Song Stories for this week. Talk to you on Monday!

A great Idea... Noise Trade

I wanted to get you to check out a great site I stumbled across called Noise Trade. You can pay what you want for music on the site, or you can get albums for free by recommending them to five friends. It's a great idea, and in a lot of ways, it is how the new music industry is going to have to run as the physical CD trade gives way to digital downloads.

You can check out a lot of great music that you might not be able to get in stores. I recommend Derek Webb's album, "The Ringing Bell". The song "Savior on Capital Hill" is worth the $$ or effort to get the album.

Props to Derek Webb for trusting fans. He has a new fan in me.

Saturday Song Stories - "Dress Myself"

I've never performed Dress Myself live. It's actually the only one on "Hope" that has never been crowd-tested. I'm not sure why...maybe because it's the artsy song on the album (every album needs an artsy 3/4 time song). But I don't think that's the reason. I've never been afraid of taking risks in front of a crowd.

Maybe it's because the meaning that I'm trying to get across in "Dress Myself" is a bit more veiled than most of the others. Or maybe because the opening imagery, of Jesus wrapping a towel around his waist as He washes the disciples feet, is more dusty than sacred (Religion tends to favor the images of Jesus that are not dusty). But then that's in essence what Jesus did. He, being divine, walked our dirty roads and stepped in things that could hardly be called sacred. He was God with dirty feet.

And yet He took the time to model the attitude that we need to have, by washing the feet of his disciples... "feet that have pounded the earth, propelled by a restless heart." The chorus says, "No servant greater than his master, yet I've pursued prominence. You were humiliated for me. I will dress myself in humility". The song is essentially about conforming our attitude to be like our savior's, despite the dusty roads that we have to walk.

When I brought this song into the studio, I had no idea what it would turn out to be. But I think that it turned out to be one of my favorites on the album. Maybe I should start playing it live.

Comments...

Alright...my site meter thingy tells me that I have a pretty loyal readership. There are people literally from all over the world who are actually reading this blog, and I am grateful for that.

So, how about this...why not leave me some feedback? That way I don't get tired of my own voice. Even if you have nothing intelligent to say, say it anyway. I'd love for my readers to join in on the conversation.

Saturday Song Stories - "Create In Me"

As odd as this might sound..."Create in Me" was inspired by the writings of a man with a pretty brutal past. This man, being in a position of authority, used his power to lure another man's wife to sleep with him. After his adulterous affair with this woman, she revealed to him that she was pregnant. So in a desperate attempt to cover it up, he ended up arranging the murder of his mistress' husband. Sounds like the storyline to a daytime soap.

It's actually the story of David...the king of Israel. After this dirty laundry had been laid out, he wrote Psalm 51, with the words "Create in me a clean heart." By stating that he needed God to create a clean heart in him, I think he was implying that there had never been one there before. Whatever was there previous to this, exhibited itself in lust, illicit sex, murder, deceit. Call it what you will, it needed to be replaced, and the replacement had to be fashioned from nothing.

The second verse of "Create in Me", at first glance, seems to not necessarily fit with the rest of the song. The first verse speaks of the need for our souls to be awaked to the truth of Christ, and how the "Man of Sorrows" (Jesus), gave so much to pave the way for that awakening.

But the second verse speaks of the need for us to be agents of restoration in relationships, and feed orphans and touch lepers, a theme that is not explicit elsewhere in the song. I took the song in this direction, because I see a huge connection between us having a new heart, and us feeling compelled to do the things in our world such as feed the hungry, be agents of restoration, and touch those that are without the warmth of human relationship. How can our heart be recreated if we have no desire to bring good news to fruition in the lives of people in practical ways. The Bible is full of commands to take care of those that have lost the ability to care for themselves.

Alright, enough preaching...

By entering your email in the "Join My Mailing List" widget in the sidebar to the left, you will get access to a free download of "Create in Me" along with a couple of other songs from the album. Hope you enjoy.

Contest Winner...

Last week I told you that if you could answer a very simple question, you would have a chance to win a copy of Hope Will Rise.

The question was, "What did I see going a different direction?" And the answer is...

HER REFLECTION.

Alison Sheppard is now the proud owner of her very own copy of Hope Will Rise.

(Wait a couple of years and put the CD on eBay. My Mom will buy it from you.)

Saturday Song Stories - "Oddity"

[od-i-tee]
1. an odd or remarkably unusual person, thing, or event.
2. the quality of being odd; singularity, strangeness, or eccentricity.
3. an odd characteristic or trait; peculiarity.

When I perform Oddity live, I invariably have someone come to me and either say, "I loved that Odyssey song", or "What in the world does oddity mean?"

This song was originally recorded for the Hope In The Midst of a Storm album, a fundraiser for the Janeway Children's Hospital in St. John's. I wanted to contribute this one in particular because of the message.

Have you ever know anyone with a disease like cancer. My father is bravely fighting a battle with cancer at the moment. It's not a fair disease. In fact, there are few things that make sense in our world. There are so many diseases, inhumanities, hurts, frustrations and disappointments, that they become the norm. Pain and hatred sometimes seem like the patterns of this world. We've adapted to their presence, so much so that we do nothing and then justify our inaction.

Then love comes on the scene. I'm not talking about love that is prepackaged by the media, or a false love like "I love Tim Horton's" (Which I do, by the way). I'm talking about a love that is pure and rich and bottomless...so much so that it is an irregularity in the pattern of this world. In the way that our humanity operates, God's love can only be considered an oddity.

"You took a criminal heart and you gave it reprieve, You took a barren soul and you helped it conceive...This love is an oddity, this grace an anomaly, and I've never seen anything like this before."