Exciting news!

I love how a figurative door can open and I suddenly realize there was a room on the other side I didn't know existed until that moment.  That's what happened last week when I was asked to blog for the Presbyterian Record's online presence.  The website has been renovated and now, under the "Blogs" tab on the main page, you will find a sub-heading "Affiliated blogs".  That's where you will find my pieces as well as those of other affiliated bloggers.  I am grateful for this opportunity that has come my way!  I haven't quite figured out the best way to post.  Should I write one post for both places?  Maybe it would be better to write separate entries for here and there.  Whatever way I work it out you can be sure that I will continue to invite (and welcome!) your comments in either place.  I will continue to express opinions on music - worship music most of the time - and hopefully relate life to faith and music. 

So what song has been going through my head today?  The song it seemed I dreamt all last night:  By faith we see the hand of God, a new hymn (2009) by Stuart Townend, Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty.  If I had to summarize it, I'd say the text was Hebrews chapter 11 set to a very singable tune which is exactly what I've come to expect from this writing team.  You can read the text and download the music by going here.  Better yet, you can hear it at Gettymusic.

A long absence explained

Anyone who is a regular visitor to my blog will have noticed the very lengthy gap between my post in June and the previous post in October. Last spring, it was my intention to record a second CD in July and I did, in fact, have studio time booked to do just that. But in mid-June plans suddenly changed. My family had been living in a side by side (duplex) home for over 12 years and through most of that time, we had really good neighbours. We got along well, respected each other's noise tolerance levels and had a friendly relationship. Two years ago that changed and the noise level became a point of unresolvable tension. My breaking point came with a confrontation that made me realize 'compromise' was not in their vocabulary.

We had planned to move in 2012 and had been keeping an eye on the housing market for awhile, just to know what was out there. Suddenly, our efforts were put into high gear and within 10 weeks we looked, bought, sold and moved. (A note to readers not in my part of the world: it is a seller's market where we live. We bought 1st knowing we would have no trouble selling afterwards; we lived near the U of Manitoba and affordable housing is hard to find.)

Right from the day of our decision, I began to pray that God would lead us to the right home for us. The song that kept coming to me was Don Moen's "God will make a way where there seems to be no way." It became a litany of sorts to get me through a process I knew would be stressful and tedious. The first day we looked at homes, we saw one we really liked. We made an offer and knew we were not the only ones offering so were not really surprised when we didn't get the house. Two days after closing, our agent called us. "You won't believe what happened! The buyer's financing fell through. The house is yours if you want it." Yes! We matched the previously accepted offer and that house is now our home. The amazing thing is that we were not the second offer in line - we were the fifth! God made a way where there seemed to be no way!

Some of the lovely walking paths in the park directly behind our new home.

January - exhilarating?

January is not always exhilarating. In fact, earlier this month I don't think I would have written what I am about to write. One week can make a big difference in a person's outlook though, and here in Winnipeg we have turned a weather corner. Last week, our temperatures were in the minus 30C range with nasty windchill to accompany that. This week, not so much! Add to that the fact that January is nearly over and it all feels good.

I am in the midst of making some concert arrangements for this coming spring, and am definitely planning to record a second CD in July. All these plans are very exhilarating to me, and just to top it off, I'll be attending the Refreshing Winds Conference next week out at CMU. I went to this conference in 2007 and was very inspired by the workshops, the worship, and the speakers. So, all this to say stay tuned for concert dates and a few thoughts on what I saw, heard and experienced at "Refreshing Winds".

Thanks be to God

In my last post, I wrote about an often sung Thanksgiving hymn. Today's hymn uses a traditional Welsh tune, AR HYD Y NOS (better known as "All through the night"), and newer words written by Fred Pratt Green copyright in 1970. You can read all the text by going here. When preparing for the service on October 10th, I checked to see what alternate harmonizations I had to enhance the service. I found a very nice setting by Martin Setchell in Last Verse Extravaganza for Organ (pub. by Kevin Mayhew Ltd. in 2001) that seemed to work well. I was a little puzzled by 2 discordant measures until I realized that the words in this part of verse 3 were: "for the truths that still confound us...thanks be to God." What great harmonic writing! And what an unusual thing to be thankful for - something that confounds us. Or is it so unusual? It is reassuring to me to know that I serve a God who is greater than I and that humans will never know or understand everything in our world.

Thanks be to God!

...For our wants to be supplied.

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. There are many wonderful hymns for harvest thanksgiving and the one that opened St. Andrew's worship yesterday was Come, Ye Thankful People, Come. I always think of my Dad when we sing this because he told me once that he had heard Alberta farmers sing "All is safely gathered in ere the winter storms begin" when their crops were buried under snow and still out in the fields. At choir practice on Weds. that came up in conversation and a couple of the guys figured it was in 1959. That storm hit the whole prairies it seems.

Funny how you can sing a hymn time after time and something new will grab you on a certain occasion. I did remember Dad's story this year too, but what really got my attention was the line, "God, our Maker, doth provide for our wants to be supplied." - Not just our needs, but our wants! We have so much to be thankful for!