Gulu: The Moving Pictures

I believe I’ve used the word “beautiful” more over the past two weeks to describe what I saw and experienced in Gulu and the Acholi than I have my whole life over. And part of me wishes for a new, better, more powerful – or just different – adjective.

But the truth is, no other word does them justice.

Watch:

more about "Acholi Church on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

The first video above (created by the brilliant Stephen Proctor of gi*inc) is just a splinter from the Sunday church service we attended (to which some incredible Faithful’s walked 50 miles). It portrays the simple honesty and incomparable joy inherent in their worship. It was unequivocally the most vibrant celebration I’ve ever seen happen among the people of God on any given Sunday. The Acholi know joy.

more about "I Need You More (Mocha Club, Uganda) …", posted with vodpod

This second is a piece Stephen put together using only flip camera footage, which captured the reality of their beautiful light and tuned me in to my shadowy life. I still can’t avoid tears when I see it and remember their perfect faces.

To be sure, True Light is brighter than it ever was, and “Beauty” has never been more perfectly defined.

THE Blog: The Africa that Changed Me

This has been such a difficult blog to write. I want so much to share everything about Gulu and the Acholi people, but feel a need to give you the brightest highlights and keep the rest to myself until it rises to the surface of circumstance. Not because it’s not worth sharing, but because I fear in sharing it without context, it might lose power. I don’t know, but I don’t yet want to take the risk. I am certain, though, that as time moves us forward, stories will be shared as they relate to circumstances and my experience will prove itself something beyond time.

Grace - a Women of Hope - with me after the meeting.

For now, I’ll share the part that changed me at my core.

God began something early on that I knew would break me by week’s end. Traveling with a team of artists and musicians whose experience and notoriety far exceeds my own, I confess the desire to prove myself equal. Though my stage and audience are considerably smaller, I wanted to clarify that “I’m just as good.” Quite shameful on its own, even more in light of where we were and why.

So on Sunday, after an indescribable morning church service attended by 150+ Acholi from distances as far as 50 miles, we went to the Home of Love to spend the afternoon sharing music, playing our own guitar-based American songs as the kids giggled with delight, and watching them sing and dance to their own rhythms and melodies. It was both beautiful and terrible, mostly because after sharing my own song and declaring it utterly suckful, I sunk into myself and allowed pride to overwhelm me.

That evening as I prayed and scoured the Word for some kind of encouragement or affirmation, a promise from God that I am, indeed, good enough for both my team and the Acholi, God slapped me across the face saying, “Who exactly do you think you are? Why on earth would your songs matter more here than mine, and why should I share my glory and honor and approval with you? Have you learned nothing of these people? Do you still not realize that they recognize and crave what’s eternal, and the only eternal thing you can offer them is Me and whatever comes from Me? I brought you here to love them with My love, to serve them, to give of yourself without condition and for My glory, that they may see Christ. And here, still, you seek an ego massage.”

I cried myself to sleep that night, overwhelmed but determined to put myself away. There really was no other choice. God is right: whatever I give, in song or deed, if not for and to Him is utterly without and will waste away and be forgotten. And so I would spend the rest of my time seeking only to be a tool. Whether He spoke to or through or around or about me didn’t matter, so long as I was surrendered to Him and lifting Him up. Even if that meant just shutting up.

Monday was a new day. We went back to the school to share songs with the kids and paint their handprints on a mural, and as we sang together and taught the kids American praise songs with all the motions, I felt a clean wave of liberty wash over me. What mattered was that I engaged. Whether or not my vocal or guitar playing abilities were up to par wasn’t the point. They loved that I was there, and so I was ALL there.

And on Tuesday – our last day – Missy, Genevieve, and I had the extreme honor of attending the Women of Hope meeting and sharing songs and the Word with 200+ women living with HIV/AIDS who meet weekly to hear Scripture and to love, encourage, and comfort one another. They sang their welcoming song when we arrived, and I was immediately asked to sing a couple songs, which I did with relish. They applauded, but I think by the end of the second they were ready for the Word. My English songs may have sounded pretty, but still unintelligible to a group of women who don’t speak my language.

So, after being asked to “give the message,” Missy and Genevieve each read to the women from the Psalms. What’s beautiful about these people is that when they ask for the Word of God, they aren’t asking for a sermon. They believe the Word speaks for Himself, so they read the Word together and applaud and celebrate God for His goodness in teaching them. They don’t need all our hoopla of exegesis and application.

When Missy and Genevieve finished, I was invited back up. I wasn’t sure if they wanted more songs or more of the Bible, so I asked. And, to my good humiliation, they made abundantly clear they did not, in fact, want more music, but more of the Word.

So, having just been over this with God, I said, “Sounds good.” And I began to read from Isaiah 54. I’m not sure why I chose that passage, and I admit I was unsure whether it would mean anything to them. But the day we arrived I remember reading it and thinking, “this is for these people.” For a people who’ve been torn by war for 23 years, ravaged by disease and poverty, homeless and so often hopeless.

So I read to the women.

“Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD. “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband—the LORD Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; 
he is called the God of all the earth. The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness 
I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. “To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. “O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children’s peace. In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you. See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the LORD.”

As they heard the chapter in their own language, I watched something amazing happen. Throughout the reading, women cheered and hollered and shouted their “Hallelujah!”s and “AMEN!”s. One woman in the front kept looking at me with tearful eyes, smiling and giving a thumbs-up, apparently pleased with the passage.

And afterwards, when the women gathered to hug us Mzungus (white people) and introduce themselves, many explained their cheers. They are barren women, sick with HIV/AIDS and unable to conceive, abandoned by their husbands and scorned by society, riddled with worry about their children’s futures. They said these verses were indeed from God, a gift for them. They celebrate and revel in the promise of an Eternal Husband, a Redeemer who re-purposes the sick woman’s life, who Fathers her children and establishes them in peace and righteousness, protecting them from danger, terror, and even death.

I was moved to tears, overcome with gratitude to God for letting me deliver good news that day. It was as if clouds opened up and He pointed down and said, “See! I told you!”

I was even more moved when, in thanks to me (for what?), the Women of Hope gave me a new Acholi name.

“Amaro-Rwot.”

Which means,

“I love God.”

Missing [my other home] Gulu

I can’t recall ever taking so long or expending so much energy and patience to write a blog. But what I want to tell about Gulu – and more specifically about my experience and why I’ll hopefully never be the same – deserves more time, more editing, more energy. I want to give you the best of what they gave me, with as few errors or potholes of distraction as possible.  

Or maybe I’m just an obsessively compulsive perfectionist. Wink, wink. 

Either way, until THE blog is ready, I’ll share a few pearls I’ve threaded into a necklace I intend to wear daily.

The Acholi people (the largest tribe in the country, who occupy most of Northern Uganda, and who have for the past two years enjoyed the first tastes of peace after a 23 year civil war waged by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army) are eager and generous with their love and kindness. From daily half-a-block walks to and from the internet cafe marked by countless toothy grins and “How are you? I’m fine!”s, to giggling children who are simply overcome with joy by the fact that Mzungus (white people) want to hear them sing their songs and dance their dances, their love is an effortless and unconditional kind unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They expect and want nothing but a genuine smile. 

Having all lost so much and so many to terror, violence, disease, and disaster, they know how fleeting a moment can be and embrace each with ferocious joy. It’s hard not to define them as a dizzyingly happy people, because it’s rare to see anyone without a smile. Even when they’re feeling ill and asking for prayer, they do it with a smile.

But still, you know they carry the burden of recent history and understand in a special way that life can change or end at any second, so if this one is good, it ought to be celebrated. And celebrate they do. 

For me, just being an observer among them for a week was liberating. It may be because the economy won’t allow for it, or more likely because they just know better than to waste time with such pettiness, the Acholi have little time and patience for vanity. Clothes don’t match and are rarely perfectly clean. Cosmetics are an expensive luxury, one most refuse in favor of covering their feet or feeding their families. Self-expression through fashion or hair style seems unlikely, as their clothing is either the “imported” castaways from America’s thrift stores or made from cheap materials; and most men, women, and children alike wear short or shaved hair. It’s better to keep away lice and other bugginess. And deoderant? What’s deoderant? 

I can’t describe how freeing it was to be among people who aren’t silently analyzing my fashion choices or checking my legs to see if they’re shaved. It was nice to know that if, after a long day of painting, my Secret was all worn off, no one would notice much less care. I’m white, so I’m going to I stand out. Any details beyond that aren’t worth following.

What’s more, I saw in them a desire simply to show us they’re kind and warm, forward-moving and modern; That they’re cheerful and can find beauty and humor in nearly anything; That they’re resourceful and creative, hard working, intelligent, and most of all good. They love and crave God and His goodness. They have much more to offer than war. They want to learn and teach. They want to create.

Above all, they are a community-driven people. They’ve all lost family and friends to war, so they ferociously grip the relationships they now have as a life source. It was rare to see anyone walking anywhere alone. And in the evenings, when most Americans are holed up in their giant homes on acres of “private property” watching fake lives play out on flat screen TVs, safe from the annoying distractions of other humans, the Acholi are hanging out and enjoying one another. One evening, we saw a group of at least 50 people gathered around one small TV for a major soccer event! They don’t go home until the restaurant’s generator is turned off and they’re sent away. And whether they’ve known you for years or you’re meeting for the first time, they treat you as a kindred soul and intimate friend. Even the Mzungus.

The children are no different. Whether walking home from school in groups, navigating the market for dinner, giving you the tour of their school or orphanage, or selling sugar cane across the street, they’re quick to extend a hand to shake and even quicker to offer a wide grin to a stranger. I guess, to them, no one is a stranger.

Quite simply, they want to love and be loved.

They were concerned not with appearances – with impressing us with fancy clothes or fresh scents, huge hotel suites, or five-star meals (though they did an incredible job at making our stay as comfortable and upscale as possible within the context of their culture) – but with making us, the Mzungus, feel welcome, comfortable, and at home. 

And I did. I felt as at home with them as I ever have in America.

Toward the end of the week I took a moment to sit down with Judith, one of the hotel staff who seemed to rather enjoy my silliness and my inability to speak their language correctly despite both our efforts. She thought my self-depricating jokes were hilarious. She liked that I wore crazy-looking shirts. And, pulling me aside, she said, ‘Miss Ahh-mee, you are very down to ground. Most Mzungus don’t like us…they think we’re bad and useless, just full of war and disease. But you…I like you. And I like that you like me.” I told her she was quite easy to like, and she liked that too. We both decided we were soul sisters, and that one of us – most likely me – was just born the wrong color and on the wrong continent. 

One of our team later told me that Judith told him I’m actually African.

And recalling that makes me miss my other home, my other family, even more.

The Good

I don’t know about you, but it’s really easy for me to spiral from one not-totally-optimistic thought down into a pit of pessimism. I sometimes wonder if that’s my spiritual gift: the ability to see the dark side of anything. I think I get it from my mom. My dad would tell her, “you’re such a pessimist!” and she’d respond saying, “No, I’m a realist.”

For the record, I think she was a bit of a pessimistic realist. Or, in other common words we all understand: a cynic.

I inherited that glory. Or maybe I just adopted it because it came so naturally. Either way, I have a particularly advanced skill for finding something to complain about anything. If I play a really great show, I’ll dwell on the one less-than perfect song. Or the size of the non-crowd.

If I make a sizable deposit into the bank account one day and have to pay for a vandalized car window the next, instead of thanking God for His provision I find myself cynically nodding along, thinking “of course I made that deposit just in time to spend it on something stupid.”

When my husband generously and very deliberately does something he knows I’ll appreciate (like pull weeds and clear our entire “courtyard” of unruly greenery), I’m more prone to wondering why he didn’t empty the dishwasher too.

It’s true. I’m a bad wife.

But here’s what I’m learning. Joy – true, unadulterated and impenetrable joy – is in the small things. In having a husband who appreciates my dark and light.One who knows what I appreciate and makes the effort to do it, even though he doesn’t have to.

It’s in having the most perfect dog in the universe. No, seriously. Of all the crazy, mean, biting, angry, out-of-control abandoned canines we could have taken in, we got the one everybody else is jealous of. The one who cuddles, hugs, doesn’t bark, and came to us completely potty trained and house-ready.

It’s in having a guitar that makes beautiful sounds, even though its player isn’t as good as she would be if she practiced a little more.

In having the time to read books and enjoy the story.

It’s in having a car at all.

It’s in playing songs that five people appreciate and relate to. Writing songs that people “get”…that people actually take in and enjoy, because for whatever reason, they find hope in the melody and lyric. And that creates a relationship, a bond. And in the community that creates.

It’s in knowing that I know that I know that what I’m doing – whether it’s being a wife, or a stepmom, or a babysitter, or a musician, or a dreamer – is what I was created to do. And that, even when I’m discouraged by the “progress” others are making in my industry while I stand by wondering what I’m missing…

…Even when I’m disillusioned by the back-to-high-school popularity contest inherent in it all…

…Even when I’m broken down and tired, wondering when or if my time will come….

…I am doing something no one else can do, simply because these songs, these words, these melodies – they’re the outflow of my heart and my soul and my perspectives.

That doesn’t make them special or particularly wonderful, or worthy of being heard. It just makes them unique. They’re mine and no one else’s.

And I’m reminded that each of us – me, included – have a very specific and unique purpose during the few short years we live. And if I am living and doing as I was designed to live and do, then I am becoming what I am meant to be.

And it’s in a really good, strong, perfectly flavored cup of piping hot coffee.

See.

It’s the small things. The good in the mud that makes it worth playing in.

The Heights of Success

Yesterday morning, as I ate some cereal, drank some (delicious) coffee, and perused Little Rock’s local-yokel magazine, Soiree, reading about “women to watch” in the area, I got to thinking about success.

I suppose it was a natural progression of thought springing from the definitions given by the watchable women, most of whom agreed success was tied either to greater levels of wealth or power in the ever-changing, dangerous organism that is capitalism at work.

And perhaps it had a little to do with the fact that I was waking up from a two day stint in Little Rock, where I gave two of what I’d consider my best concerts ever.

Neither was particularly “well attended.” One was a private concert for the men and women served by Little Rock’s Union Rescue Mission, and followed a couple hours of serving them dinner and hearing some incredible life stories. Including the kiddos, there may have been fifty people hanging out on the lawn in the balmy evening heat to listen to me sing and talk. The second concert was   open to the public but predominantly attended by young people ranging from 13 to 16 in age. Again, when all was said and done, numbers counted and all, there were probably about 50 of us hanging out for the evening.

But wow. As I drove away this morning, I felt pretty successful.

After the concert on the lawn for the URM, one woman wrote and passed me a note about her experience. She said she couldn’t explain it in a conversation, because she’d end up crying her way through. But in her note, she spoke of the lost years she lived as a prostitute and drug addict, which were odd juxtaposed to her upbringing under a Baptist minister. She appreciated what she called “fearless” songs; songs that look at the darker, harsher, deeper sides of life – sides so many people can’t relate to, much less discuss, much less publically. She appreciated the “real”ness of it. And while thanking me for being usable in Lord’s hands, I was quietly thanking God for affirming me and my passion. And what a gift it was to go back to the Dorcas House today and spend a bit more time with those women who spend their days overcoming.

The second concert was equally encouraging, though in different ways. Like I said, it was for youth. Teenagers who don’t have a lot of money to either buy CDs or join Mocha Club. Teenagers who typically don’t appreciate the deeper things as much as we old soul’s do. Teenagers who might have been humoring their youth pastor by sitting quietly through my concert. But these guys…they were fun. They were generous. And they gave of themselves. They came and served with me at the URM. And after the concert, they gave up their money for bigger things. Many of them joined Mocha Club, and set the age of selflessness just a couple years younger. Many wanted to buy CDs and purchase jewelry or bags created by women rescued from sex slavery, but only having the money for one, chose to be part of the rescue efforts. And a few of them even let me sign their arms…and thought THEY got away with the best end of the deal.

Yeah.

As I look back over the last couple days, I feel lucky. I feel affirmed. I feel hopeful. I feel an overwhelming sense of awe as leaves take form on the branches of trees that were mere seeds in my palm just a few years ago. And I know I’m moving in the right direction and tilling the right soil when I am part of the passing out of Hope to people who know to grab hold of it, or am able to facilitate – or just watch! – young people stepping into the role of giver while most of their peers remain content simply to receive.

Indeed, money or no money, tour bus or no tour bus, arena or no arena, fame or no fame…Tonight, I am satisfied in my soul and in want of nothing.

I Am Waiting…

I’ve been feeling a bit dry and weary lately. I knew it was coming. In fact, just two weeks ago, while applying makeup and thinking about how happy and up I was, I thought to myself, “Well, it can’t last long. Contentment is the surest route to spiritual discontentment.” God is quick to rid us of our self-sufficiency and remind us of our need for Him.

It brought to mind the title of Sixpence None the Richer’s last studio album, ‘Divine Discontent.’ I don’t believe God longs for us to be unhappy. But I do believe He longs for us to be hungry; To never be satisfied with anything less than everything He has to give…which flows from infinite abundance.

I’ve been struggling a lot with direction, purpose, satisfaction, and motivation. I am anxious to be on the road full time, especially since I so wholly believe this upcoming tour is worth every ounce of energy it might take to fill the calendar. But at the same time, as I continue to bang my head against brick walls and look for ways to scale them, I can’t help but question it all and wonder if it’s God’s idea or mine; if it’s a timing issue; if it’s a calling issue. If it’s a pride issue.

So, as any good American Christian should, I’ve scoured all available resources, re-read four month’s worth of daily devotions by Oswald Chambers and CS Lewis, looked for bits of wisdom online and in old textbooks and commentaries and new devotionals…

…And I’ve been left sorely wanting.

It seems despite their great wisdom, they are all still human.

Today, as I read an enlightening but not inspiring daily dose of TableTalk, my mind took me to a conversation I had with the director of the Village of Hope in Gulu, Uganda (where I’ll be spending the month of October), who told me she would love for me to teach Bible studies to the women in the Village, but advised me to leave the “materials” here in the States, because these women are hungry for the Word, and only the Word.

That’s where I am right now. I’m weary and dissatisfied with ‘daily devotionals’ and daily bible verses and daily this or that. I’m still starving after scarfing down my daily bread, ill-proportioned as it is by the Bible Society of America, or whoever it is who decides what’s enough to meet my daily needs.

My needs have become hourly, and utterly insatiable.

I crave more of the Word; I need it to be Pure of human additives.

And so…like David, I choose to wait. To meditate on His goodness day and night, to remember His faithfulness through seasons of drought and abundance, to write His law of love on my heart and on my mind, to carry His gospel as my torch in a dark night, and believe with every ounce of faith I have, trusting He will help my unbelief.

And I will wait for Him to move me forward, basking in the pure, simple richness of His presence until He does.

The Trappings of the Trade

There are things you inevitably learn about yourself as you navigate the fields and forests of your passions and dreams. Both exciting and discouraging truths that dress the path ahead like flower petals for a bride or stones under the toes of a weary traveler.

If you must know, it was never my dream to be a professional touring and recording artist. Granted, I was raised in an unusually musical family who traveled around giving concerts at various churches, etc. And I readily – if with some embarrassment – confess that I spent countless hours in front of a mirror, hair brush in hand, lip-syncing my own video to Michael W. Smith’s “Place in this World” and DC Talk’s “The Hardway” among others.

But it never occurred to me that one day I’d actually be making records like they did and traveling to hundreds of venues to share the songs live and impact lives the way Jennifer Knapp’s live performance changed mine.

So when I jumped into the circus five years ago, with glitter in my eyes and butterflies dancing in my belly, I honestly had no clue what I was diving into. Indeed, we’ve all heard rumors about the role image plays in the lives of entertainers, even – perhaps especially – for those in the Christian market. But it’s become a rather disheartening reality as the years have gone by.

And for those of us who already struggle with body image and have battled self-hate and eating disorders for years, I dare say it’s an even greater obstacle. A true thorn in the flesh.

Still, these struggles, the sifting and navigating through endless forests to come out only to find another straight ahead, produce that promised endurance and faith, the hope and purpose. Between forests, you rediscover passion and decipher detailed purpose…it’s where you find your “calling”; that ever-elusive will of God for your life.

For me, it’s come in the form of a passion for Africa that was planted as a tiny mustard seed and has grown so powerful to overcome want for anything else. Passion for one group of People has morphed into a passion for people in general, for relationship.

And it’s grown from there into a passion for simplicity. A desire to escape the trappings of the road to fame and fortune in favor of a less-traveled path (for artists and audience alike) dusted with scents of selflessness and service, of doing much with little to make an eternal impact, if utterly unnoticed on earth. A path along which travelers are more interested in knowing than being known, in falling into a role of support and carriage rather than a role of fame and celebrity.

I don’t want fame or fortune or anything of the sort. It’s not what I seek, and it boils in my veins when I’m told it ought to be. I only to pass on passion for Good and Truth. To join with Christ in the building of a generation who’ll serve the next and the next after that. To find where God is working and dig into the dirt to plant seeds and dig wells, rather than waiting and hoping for Him to join in my missions. If lived for anything less, my life is lived in vain.

It’s not a popular opinion. I’ve met many a friendly supporter whose lone goal is to shake me from my lunacy and re-set my focus on the “right” things…like “enlarging my audience” and “getting my face in front of as many people possible” and compromising not only passion but art for the sake of a “Brighter” future. They long for me to set my gaze on the American dream, and make promises that with what talent I’ve been given, I can certainly do it!

They fail to understand that, at heart, I’m not an American. Not by blood; only by location. I’m a Christian by blood, and my home is elsewhere.

So their banter has only steadied my foothold and hardened my resolve to continue doing what I’m doing, chasing the heavenly dreams I’ve been given, trusting that if I join in God’s work, the stage and audience will grow, because He is the One who gave me a song, a voice, a stage, a passion, a promise, and a purpose within His plans that will come to pass.

Surely He will provide the intended audience and take me where I’m meant to go…providing everything I’ll need along the way.

The 22 Lyrics Game

I got this from a few friends on facebook and decided it’d be a fun, if random, way to waste 10 minutes. I’ll post the answers in a few days…Til then, guess away!

Here’s the set-up:
Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 22 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly.
Step 4: For those reading this, looking the lyrics up on a search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game, post your own!

1. Where the road is dark and the seed is sowed
2. Oh refuge of my hardened heart
3. Oh my love, can’t you see
4. Yeah, I’m flat-busted, wild-eyed and free
5. All alone we go on day after day
6. Please don’t hate me mama
7. Complications, my claim to fame
8. My moon, my man’s a changeable land
9. It’s hard to say what you mean to me
10. Barakthi Lemakom Akher Kol Kah Maher
11. Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
12. Certainly I wish it, know I wanna hold your digits
13. Summer stretching on the grass
14. Some sunny day, Baby, when everything seems ok Baby…
15. There’ll be girls across the nation that’ll eat this up
16. You gotta help me out
17. Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
18. No regrets, coyote
19. If to distance lands I scatter
20. I will not make the same mistakes that you did
21. I’m sitting here alone within my room
22. I took my bucket down to the well

Have at it, folks!

The Randomness: A Generalized Update

I’ve got a cold, so this may be random. But hey, what can you do with a cloudy braid but write a blog about everything?

I just read a blog entitled “The Music Debate” about the place of “secular” music in the church. Interesting. It got me thinking about the calling card of so many mid-90’s bands: “We’re not a ‘christian’ band; we’re christians IN a band.” I remember MXPX going on about it – mostly cause they were being hounded by Christians who didn’t appreciate their not-all-about-God music. I guess I didn’t really have a problem with it. What I had a problem with were the people who said, “I’m a musician who happens to be a Christian.” Cause that’s backward, to me.

Here’s why: Whatever I am, and whatever I do, I am identified by and with Christ. His blood runs in my veins; His DNA is imprinted on my genes; His priorities are my priorities, His values are my values; His new law of love and service and self-sacrifice are written on my heart. God is growing Christ in me to make me who I really am. At my very core, by definition, I belong to Christ and am identified as His.

So really, my faith is not just another part of who I am. It is the filter through which every other identifying factor is sifted. My belief system is a product of my faith. My politics are a product of my faith. My songs are all tempered – or salted, as it were – by my faith. The way I relate to people is filtered by Him who lives at my center. Indeed, whether I’m singing about my husband, hurting because of a broken relationship, angry about work, or overjoyed by an opportunity, I am doing so as a Believer, just as I’m doing so as a ‘Courts.’ Just as my family DNA has an effect on everything I do and say, so does Christ’s. It’s who I am…not just what I’m about.

So, in the end, I’m not an artist who happens to be a Christian. I am a Christian who happens to be an artist, a wife, a friend, a sister, a dog owner, a writer, a thinker. Whatever I am is primarily identified by Christ in me.

It’s just an interesting thread to follow.

Here’s another thread to follow: I’m a little bit obsessed with ebay and craigslist right now. Since our desktop PC crashed and now lives, unplugged and utterly useless, in our closet, I have been scouring tax-free sales lists for sweet deals on iMacs. Indeed, when I decided to buy my first laptop two years ago, I bought an Apple iBook G3 which solidified my committment to Macs. Then, when its screen started acting funny, I bought my second mac, a PowerBook G4 which I’ve upgraded to the max (it runs on Leopard with a 1.5gHz processor – the best of its kind – and at 1.25gb, is maxed out Ram) and am currently typing on. I love it. It’s given me some trouble for sure – not two months after I bought it, I had to get a new hard drive and dc-in…but I blame that entirely on an evil ebay seller who neglected to tell me the facts about the machine. Still, it’s a dream.

And so, as I peruse the cybersales looking for an iMac desktop, I inevitably get sidetracked by the oh-so-cheap $85 350gb external hard drive, and the $400 Dell gaming pc which Paul would love, Love, LOVE but about which I’m understandably wary, since our now-dead PC was a dream machine when we bought it, but which failed to make it through one itty bitty viral attack. So while I like the “cheap” factor, I hate the “PC” factor.

The worst part about our PC dying is the fact that I cannot access our 10gb of iTunes music, and can’t transfer what’s currently on the iPod to my de-lovely powerbook. Why? Because my iPod is formatted for PC, not mac, and because apple is totally anal about people not sharing music. So I’ve spent the last few sick days importing all our CDs onto my powerbook. I’m currently importing Fleetwood Mac’s “Say You Will.” Good music, for sure.

I think that’s all I’ve got for right now.

Except one more thing: I really can’t wait for next Wednesday when voting will be over, the campaigns done, and we won’t have to listen to any more drivel from either side. At this point, I don’t really care who wins; I just want to get on with life.

Can I get an AMEN!

NEW REVIEW AND INTERVIEW in Wrecked for the Ordinary

The Following review and interview was written by Mariah Secrest for Wrecked for the Ordinary, an online magazine featuring articles about life, faith, culture, and arts. You can read the full review and interview in its original format here.

Voices in Culture: Amy Courts

by Mariah Secrest

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Amy Courts is one of those musicians whose songs you can put on repeat, and hours later still be enjoying the tunes like you were playing them for the first time. After doing just that, I found myself intrigued by the depth that ebbed just below the current of solid progressive rock. Amy’s voice swells with a ringing resonance, spreading out to the most delicate of edges—a perfect contrast of power and intricacy. Her sweetly ornamented stylings add a tinge of silver lining to the shadowy undercurrents of melancholy underneath.

If you get the chance to hear her in person, you will discover that Amy is fully present in her live show, revealing how much her craft comes straight from her heart. Her songs are a candid expression of life as it is and life as it could be—containing the type of honesty and lucidity that made me suspect she would be a perfect person to sit down with and just talk about life. So I did just that.

I discovered that Amy moved to Nashville after college on a whim, essentially having no semblance of a music career in place when she came. But her background in guitar and poetry fused together as she began to garner attention from the music community. Now just a few short years later, she has completed an EP as well as her debut full-length album and has been featured in such publications as Christianity Today and CCM Magazine, who referred to her as a female “Derek Webb.”

I would venture to say that the resemblance to Derek Webb is not merely musical. Amy, like Derek, is also deeply committed to world justice and front-line involvement with current affairs. She advocates for the improvement of conditions in Africa, even giving away her CD to those who join the African relief agency she partners with. But she also is involved at the local level, believing that relational interaction is so crucial to really understanding the scope of service and community. She volunteers for the Sudanese Center for Refugees in Nashville, hoping that this will eventually prepare her to go to Africa herself.

Read further for a glimpse of conversation with Amy.

WRECKED: Your CD “These Cold and Rusted Lungs” was released this past summer, and is already generating a lot of attention. What’s been most exciting to you?

AMY: Well, I have to be honest: seeing the review post to CCM Magazine’s website calling me a “female Derek Webb” was the high point of a few months! He’s one of my absolute favorite writers and artists, with such an inspiring set of work that I was flattered and quite humbled to be compared favorably to him. Other than that, I think just seeing the process come together from start to finish – and seeing finances and songs and production and players blend to create such an awesome album that so closely reflects my heart and music – is terribly exciting. I loved making my EP, but this was a whole new level cause it was my heart and soul on the line. It’s relieving to be able to feel proud of it, and to know others are already getting something out of it.

WRECKED: You’re a big advocate for Mocha Club. For our readers who are unfamiliar with Mocha Club, can you explain what it is and the incentive you’re offering to encourage people to participate?

AMY: Mocha Club is an amazing African Aid orginazation with projects all over the African continent developing orphanages, universities, medical facilities, and rescue villages to bring people out of poverty and disease and equip them with the resources they need to rebuild themselves and their countries from the inside-out. But what set Mocha Club apart to me – given the hundreds of Aid organizations out there who’re serving Africa – is that they do all this with just $7 per month: the cost of two mochas. When I learned that $7 could provide 7 people with clean water for one year, and provides 2 Angolan farmers with seed and farming supplies for an entire crop season, and pays for life-saving Malaria and AIDS treatments for multiple people, I knew they were the organization I wanted to partner with. It brings the need – and the ability to make a MAJOR difference in peoples’ lives – to a child’s level and leaves no one with an excuse not to be part of the effort. We’re called by God to care for the orphan and the widow; Mocha Club makes it irresistably simple by asking for just $7 per month. And they do so much with that money.

WRECKED: If it weren’t for music, what would you be doing with your time?

AMY: You know, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about gifts vs. talents. I’ve thought for a long time that my music was my gift, and without it I’d have nothing to do and be useless to the Kingdom. But it’s been encouraging to realize that my spiritual gifts – mercy, evangelism, and exhortation – can be exercised in so many ways, and right now they’re best exercised and most effective through song. But down the road, if I decide my time is over for music-in-the-public-eye (though I’m sure I’ll always be a musician in some capacity), I know my gifts will be effective elsewhere. And right now, my growing passion for Africa and specifically Uganda makes me believe we’ll end up living in Africa and serving the Kingdom there. At least, that’s where my dreams take me when I let go of the reigns…

WRECKED: What stories stand out in your mind from people you’ve come in contact with, that make the difficult challenges of music worth it to you?

AMY: I’ve had so many great experiences talking with people after concerts and hearing about how some song or songs really spoke what they were feeling or thinking. And it’s such a humbling realization to know that we’re not alone in our frustrations and hopes, but also that God would use me – me! – to reach others…that makes all the frustration and sleeplessness of touring, all the energy poured out in writing a song from the depths of who I am worth every drop of sweat.

WRECKED: What has music in general, and your music in particular, taught you about the nature of God?

AMY: That God is a relational Being. He has existed for eternity past as Three-in-One, the God-head persons of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and that’s how He created us to relate to each other, and it’s He relates with me now. Not on a slave/master level, or even on a Mentor/learner level. But on a Creator/Created level…and I think there’s so much more intimacy in that thought, because it implies He knows exactly who I am in and out, because He made me. He knows my flaws and strengths, every minute detail, and He longs to share the details of Himself with me. And so we relate. And, as with any relationship involving humans, we butt heads, there’s tension, frustration, joy and peace. But in the end, whatever it is we’re doing boils down to simply being in relationship. In writing and singing and listening to music, that’s the greatest Truth and greatest hope I’ve found: God’s not about me being perfect; He’s about me being His.

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Amy Courts is an artist whose music gets into your head and whose conviction gets into your soul, fusing art and action into a powerful force of culture. To learn more, visit her official website or MySpace.