Music

All Signs Point to the House of God

Steve · October 30, 2025 · 2 Comments

We just kept following the signs.

Sue Givens at Monet’s famous lily pond bridge.

One day near the end of September, Sue and I and our good friends, John and Karen, spent the morning walking through Claude Monet’s famous garden in Giverny, a small village in France’s Normandy region where the Epte flows into the Seine and where the impressionist master lived and worked from 1883 until his death in 1926. It’s the one with the water lilies and the green footbridge crossing the small pond, of course. No doubt you’ve seen the pictures.

While there, we followed the signs, first through the tunnel under the road to the water lily pond and then back through the tunnel to the rest of his gardens and home. It was an exquisite, unhurried morning in an unforgettable place. As we made our way back through the village’s main street, the aptly named Rue Claude Monet, we kept seeing flyers advertising “daily piano concerts” in the village church. We decided to follow the signs, which isn’t very hard to do in a town with one main road.

We arrived at the Church of Sainte-Radegonde, where Monet is buried and where the daily classical “improvisational” piano concert was advertised featuring someone named Hughes Reiner. Not knowing what to expect, we ducked into the dimly lit church and waited for our eyes to adjust before finding a seat among a handful of others. It quickly became evident to all of us that we had been dropped into the middle of something very special.

Reiner, it turned out, is a rather famous pianist, composer, opera singer, choirmaster, and conductor who lives locally but who has played all over France and Europe. Without much classical music knowledge, I don’t have many words for what we heard but it was certainly as exceptional as his resume was long. He was truly an extraordinary, intricate (and fast) pianist, and we sat mesmerized by his playing, with not a note of music in front of him.

As we were about to leave, I noticed an ornate, calligraphed sign near one of the side walls of the church. It was, of course, written in French, so I had no idea what it said. John snapped a photo and loaded it into an app that translated it in seconds. He passed me his phone and I read:

You have entered this house.
The house of God.
Whoever you are, He welcomes you.
With your joys, your sorrows.
Your successes, your failures.
Your hopes, your disappointments.
Be welcome.
Generations before you have loved this place,
have contributed to building it, to making it beautiful.
They prayed here.
Respect the peaceful silence.
If you are a believer, pray.
If you seek, reflect.
If you doubt, ask for light.
If you suffer, ask for strength.
If you are joyful, give thanks.
And may you remain here.
Whoever you are, He welcomes you.
Welcome Him. too.

The translation as I repeat it here may not be complete or perfect, but the moment was transcendent, a simple reward for following and reading the signs. It was a reminder that God gives us these signs on a daily basis, wherever we are, if only our eyes are open wide enough to see and read.

A Song of Hope and Peace for the New Year

Steve · December 29, 2024 · 4 Comments

from left, Phil Cooper, Steve Givens and John Caravelli

Happy New Year’s to all of you who take the time to read my posts from time to time or visit my website. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to engage in this ministry of creativity and sharing of the good news of God’s love and presence in our lives. I hope and pray that something I create helps bring you just a little closer to this truth.

As we conclude 2024 and look forward to the coming New Year, I am praying for more peace in the world, in our nation and in our communities. St. Teresa of Calcutta once said, “Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” This year, amidst whatever disunity, fear and confusion enters our lives, let’s all remember to live our lives high on the mountain of God’s love and hope for the world. Let’s remember that, in the end, we all belong to one another, whether we agree with one another or not.

Over the past few weeks, my musical collaborators and I composed and recorded “New Lang Syne,” a song of hope and peace for the New Year. It’s a new take on “Old Lang Syne,” with new lyrics and music by me and my friends John Caravelli and Phil Cooper. The lyrics are below and a music video is available at the link below.

See you in 2025.

Steve

New Lang Syne
Traditional, with new words and music by John Caravelli,
Phil Cooper and Steve Givens

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Should old, dear friends escape our thoughts
and memories fade from our minds
Should all our early days be dimmed
And our pasts be left behind.

For all those days now gone, my friend,
For all those days now gone,
Let’s raise a glass to kindness still
For the sake of days now gone.

And when our hope begins to fade
And if our faith is stilled.
Let’s find that kindness deep within
And share it with the world.

For anger never serves us well
And hate divides our souls
And war, it never ends all wars
But leaves us weaker still.

If all the lives around us
are not seen in God’s own light
We cast such shadows at the risk
thinking we alone are right.

Our freedom lives in loving those
Who we have never known.
And peace lives deeply in our hearts
When it is not ours alone.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Right in Front of Our Eyes

Steve · July 6, 2023 · 8 Comments

Once when I was a boy I was trying to find something — I don’t remember now what it was — but this thing ended up being right there on the table in front of me. My father laughed as he pointed it out to me and said, “If it had been a snake, it would have bitten you.”

As a child, that metaphor scared me a little. What IF it had been a snake? What IF I hadn’t seen it there on the table, hiding among my father’s copies of National Geographic and Organic Gardening, slithering toward me between his overflowing ashtray and transistor radio? I learned to look closely around me for the things I was searching for before I started asking for help. Lesson learned: pay attention to the obvious and the close at hand.

In our search for God, sometimes the same thing happens. We miss the obvious moments and occurrences of the Divine because we’re frantically searching for something “out there,” something that is big and splashy and without-a-doubt “God,” when all the time there are these small, ordinary experiences that we’re missing, hidden among the ordinary stuff of life.

Finding God in our daily lives does not require special abilities or tools. We do not have to be particularly holy, although focusing our minds on the holy around us can be a good place to begin. What is required is our intention — a desire and willingness to pay attention to the life we have been given and find God already there waiting for us, beckoning to us, laughing at us and saying, “If I had been a snake…”

I recently wrote a new song on this theme, this idea that God is “right there,” always in front of our eyes. God doesn’t hide from us. God is always waiting to be found, always delighted when we slow down, pay attention and utter those sacred words: “Ah…there you are.”

Here are the lyrics to the song, and a new video is below (you may have to scroll a little). Thanks to my musical collaborator Phil Cooper for the beautiful piano arrangement and to my talented daughter, Jenny, for creating the vocal arrangement and singing with me. In the midst of the creation of this song I found God again — in the act of creation, in the gift of words and music, in the chemistry that happens when we gather together to create something new.

There you are, there you are
in the green that clothes the trees
There you are, there you are
in the very least of these.

Some days I rise but do not waken.
Sometimes I look but fail to see.
And still, you move and catch my eye
A flash of red, a moment fleeting.

In all the noise I cannot hear you.
In all my words I miss your voice.
And still, a whisper fills my head
A gentle beating, inside of me.

Today I saw you on the street
With all you own spread out around you.
And still, a spirit in your smile
A soul on fire, a gift before me.

There You Are
Words and music by Steve Givens
© 2023 Potter’s Mark Music

Gathering Around the Fire

Steve · December 8, 2022 · Leave a Comment

A Christmas Message and Video

For two thousand years, Christians have gathered around fires, in churches and in their homes to retell the story of the Incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ. They have passed on the good news to each other — and especially to their children — that God decided He needed to be with us, needed to become one of us.

We believe the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem to be true history. But it’s also a powerful message for us still today. It challenges us to live differently because of Christ who now lives in and with us. We still need this Incarnated Jesus, just as God knew we would. We need a walking, breathing, working-with-us Jesus. Otherwise, he remains a word on a page of old parchment, an unfulfilled promise, an old story that’s nice to listen to but never quite seems real.

This Christmas, when the family gathers around the tree or the fire, make sure the story of Jesus doesn’t get lost in the piles of wrapping paper. Begin your celebration with the story that changed us forever.

Over the past several weeks, my musical collaborators (John Caravelli and Phil Cooper) and I gathered in my studio to write, arrange and record a new song that tells the story of Christmas and the Incarnation through the lens of John the Evangelist and the poetic and epic words of the first chapter of his gospel — “In the beginning was the Word…”

TO VIEW THE VIDEO, scroll down a little…or click here to go directly to YouTube.

Here are the lyrics:

From ancient days a story’s told
A message hopeful from the cold.
Around the fire, we huddle close
The Word of God — a child, chose.

Through this Word all things were made
Without this child, no light arrays.
In him was life and light for all
A light so bright that darkness falls.

The Word became flesh and moved into our lives
And the flesh became grace and saw through our disguise
The grace was a spark that lifted us higher
That dances and burns within us around the fire.

Still today, the Word remains
Alive each day, the kingdom reigns.
In all creation, all time and place
For every heart, a gift of grace.

Again we gather ‘round the fire
A family joined by God’s desire.
We celebrate that holy night
And live our way into the light.

A Post-Thanksgiving Call to Awareness and Gratitude

Steve · November 26, 2022 · 2 Comments

Dear friends,

On this ordinary day just a few days past the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I write to share a reminder (in words and in the video below) that faith requires an ongoing commitment to this idea of Thanksgiving — to awareness and living with our eyes wide open to our blessings. Above all, to gratitude.

We are called to recognize the holy when God puts it right before our eyes. It should be our life’s work to pay attention. I’m reminded of the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

God says to us: “Listen carefully. Become more aware of the world around you, of the people and circumstances and challenges that I place in your lives. I will meet you there in these ordinary things and then I will make the ordinary extraordinary for you. I will change you.”

Below is new video (created yesterday) of an older song by me and my colleague Phil Cooper. Enjoy.