Back in May, I posted an essay and a song called “Extraordinary Lives.”
Here’s a little slideshow/video for you…relax and enjoy. Be grateful for the day. Extraordinary Lives, by Phil Cooper and Steve Givens. Copyright 2016, Potter’s Mark Music.
The Creative Spirit: “I’m busy…”
“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” – Galileo Galilei
I was up before dawn today and sitting on the screen porch as the world went from dark to light once again. It does this every day, or so I’m told, although I’m not always there to watch it. Or perhaps I’m up and about but not present enough to notice. This morning, I had scripture across my knee, a pen in my hand and a journal nearby, my favorite posture and attitude for taking in the world around me — silent words, quiet thoughts and the prayer of solitude.
I just finished one of the busiest few weeks of my professional life, orchestrating the logistics and planning behind the second presidential debate of this electoral season, a massive event at my university that attracted thousands of journalists of every ilk and angle and an estimated television viewership of some 60 million. I’m both exhausted and invigorated, honored to have been a part of it all (despite the content and tenor of the candidates, which I have no desire to get into here…) and glad that it’s in my rearview window.
The Creative Spirit: Giving Notice
“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.”
– Mary Oliver
All too often, it seems, we take the world and our role in it all too casually. We wake with a yawn and stumble through our mornings, gulping coffee and rushing to work or elsewhere and paying little to no attention to what’s happening around us. But in fact, there is serious work afoot, always. And the world indeed is broken and in need of mending. There’s work for us to do and there’s a space in our very midst where God is already at work, if we will only sit still long enough to notice.
So I’m giving my notice today. [Read more…] about The Creative Spirit: Giving Notice
New American roots CD out soon
Friends and readers of my blog…
I am pleased to announce that my American roots music band, the Mo Bottom Project, will release our long-anticipated first CD this October. Titled “Well Traveled Road,” the collection is 11 original songs that span some of our favorite musical genres from Americana/folk to bluesy old-time rock ‘n’ roll and are lyrically inspired by the history, landscape and stories of the Missouri River Valley near where we live and grew up. These are stories of out-of-luck farmers, young lovers, old men in even older houses, flooded roads, and the car cruisin’ culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s. (Though not specifically religious, we’d like to think these are songs of faith and redemption…)
The Creative Spirit: An Open, Aware Heart
“Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.” – Ansel Adams
What the great nature photographer Ansel Adams knew and showed us in his haunting, elegant black and white photographs is that there is so much to be seen and experienced in the world if we only slow down and pay attention — not only to the image in front of us but to the light and shadows that surround, encompass and overlay what we see. Adams would hike miles, laden with his heavy equipment and supplies, to get to the perfect place at the perfect time of day. Then it became his job, to paraphrase the renowned words of the poet Mary Oliver, to “stand still and learn to be astonished.”
There’s lesson in that for us somewhere, surely.
[Read more…] about The Creative Spirit: An Open, Aware Heart