I am embarking on a quest. It's a strange road ahead. It's twisty and leads into a dark wood. Earlier this year I was called down from a calling. I was leading some of God's folk in gathered worship from week to week for nearly 5 years. It was a beautiful time and comfortable. I made eternal friends there and found joy and nourishment. But the clock, unforeseen, was a'tickin'. And the door was creaking shut. There before me was a fork in the road. One way was clear as the summer sky. It was easy to see where it led. The other way, well, I already told you. It's twisty and leads into a dark wood.
But I don't venture alone. I am haunted by a Voice that keeps on calling. It's there somewhere, beyond the wood. It draws me. I am not sure of much, but I do know this: it calls me to lead my family and it calls me to make music. So that's the plan. I'm charting my course with the tools at hand and it's bound to be scary and certain to be fun. I'm hoping to share deep laughter and sweet tears and to create some songs along the way. Songs that seek to echo that Voice. And as we go along I aim to catch others up in it. To join us in an adventure when our paths cross.
That's where you come in. I want to share with you my stories and my songs, and I want to hear yours too. I try to write songs that I like to hear. Songs that draw my heart away from myself and into the wild, past the trees and rivers and mountain ranges to where the veil is thin. If we wait there long enough the wind might just kick up and give us a fleeting view of the world beyond. It's a lofty goal, nigh unattainable, but it's fun to try.
So I try to linger near the sources of truth and goodness and beauty and grace and wonder and it just so happens that it's all there in a Holy Book. Words uttered by the Holy Voice. This Voice is the river I try to draw from, and like any other river it has branches. Some of these branches are unexpected and dangerous. But because they are fed by the pure source I want to make the journey there too. The water is sweet and the view is amazing.
Ok I'm getting all goopy. Straight up, I write what I read about and what I enjoy. I find that in Scripture and in anything that draws me to the God of Scripture and His Son. Things like theology, nature, family and fantasy. Particularly fantasy. Nothing else seems to have that quality, that ring of truth that cuts like a knife to the heart, like a sub-created realm of myth and magic. If God is sovereign then surely his story is woven throughout the tales.
So I write where I am and what I see, and so far that means songs about the love of God and of Jesus and songs about the hobbit love of pipe-weed and wizards. See what I mean about a strange road?
Princes Merida said, "Legends are lessons, they run with truths" and I agree. C.S. Lewis in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe reminds us that not only is there Deep Magic from the dawn of time where pagans and devil worshippers have their way, but that there is Deeper Magic from before the dawn of time, where all things submit to God and His Son...even death. J.R.R. Tolkien put it this way, "God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused."
That ought keep me busy for a while. This is what I try to write and what I'd love share. Want to join me?
It's a dangerous thing, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to. - Bilbo Baggins
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