can i get a AMEN!

I’ve written here on more than a couple of occasions that I am not a Christian.  Pretty easy to tell from the title of my blog…

Deist. Not a Christian.  I also have Buddhist tendencies and go to a UU Church.

However, [comma... pause]

I loves me some gospel music!  I love it.  I don’t know what it is.  Maybe the blues feel of most gospel music.  Just how loud it is.  Or maybe it’s the feeling it evokes.

I was talking with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago about favorite music and he felt the same way.  He loves gospel music.  And he too said, it’s the feeling that he gets from listening to it.  And although he isn’t a Christian either and hardly agrees with any of the lyrics, he can get behind the feeling that this kind of music brings to the soul.

So last night Emmie was showing me the video of a very young and very talented Rhema Marvanne.  And hearing this little seven year old girl belt out “Amazing Grace” reminded me of something I ran across last year called “How Sweet the Sound”, which is a gospel choir competition.  So I looked up the website and it turns out last night the competition had three hours of voting left.  I looked at a few of the choirs who were in it this year.

In a word…

Amazing.

The gospel choirs that are participating which come from all over the nation are simply amazing.

And it could be easy as an outsider to make snarky remarks… throw juvenile statements about the faces they make when singing but you know what… the music and the joy and the praise they are displaying simply trumps all that.

So I thought I’d share a video of the winners of last year’s competition(which by the way was not easy. Had to sift through HTML code on their site and locate the embed files).  The videos of the choirs competing this year have been pulled down. I guess since voting is over.  But in a little more than a month, there will be performances all over the country of the choirs who advance to finalist rounds.

You can find out at their website if they’ll be at a city near you:  http://howsweetthesound.com/

Damn those Pentecostal girls can SANG!

venturing into the city for music

I meant to post this a couple of months ago when I actually caught this show that included Abra Moore, who is extremely talented and a pretty cool person to talk to. But I actually went to see the opener, one of my favorite singer/songwriters Peter Bradley Adams. He was in town at a really cool little pub called the Mucky Duck and so I ventured out of the burbs and into the big city to go see him.

What a treat. Not only did I get to see an extremely talented performer do what he does so well, but I also got a signed CD (click to see bigger view), I sat at the bar and had a beer with him and was able to get a little insight into his view of the music industry. If you ever the get the chance to see him, I highly recommend going. You can check out some of his songs on his website to get a feel for what he sounds like.

Here is Pete and his friend Claire Small performing a song they wrote together called, “i will come”. This was its debut…. it was a stroke of luck to be in the audience to hear them perform it for the first time and that I caught it on my little video cam.

as one dies another is born

When I was in high school i had quite a few friends, mostly because I was in the band, and that time in my life holds fond memories for me. I’m fortunate in that regard because I know a lot of people whose high school memories are ones of angst, dislike mixed with feelings of inferiority and inability to fit in.

But being a band geek, i had a tribe of accepting friends who never made me feel like the dork I really was…. perhaps “still am” is more accurate.

But there were four girls who were not in the band that I also ran around with and they accepted me into their little circle. One overweight, rather bubbly and quasi popular girl…Lisa T. One very overweight, very bubbly and not so popular girl… Dena. One very tall (six feet) lanky diamond in the rough drill team member… Lisa L. and another drill team member Phyliss, who had moderate success breaking into the popular crowd until she moved away our junior year.

a postscript to something more formal

p.s. – On a more personal note…You and I have an unusual anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks. The length of time that we’ve been apart will exceed the time we were together. I don’t know why that is such a milestone in my mind but it has affected me and made me sad the closer it comes.

So much can happen in five years. Complete and total transformation can happen in as little as five years. Definitely transformations have happened for me and L. … spiritually, emotionally and physically.

I feel quite in touch with The Divine, more so than ever in my life. I guess it’s been a couple of years now that L. and I can talk about memories of you and the kids without either one of us having our eyes well up or full blown crying. In fact, we sometimes laugh when remembering. I guess we have healed. And she is doing well and has grown up to be a rather brilliant and beautiful girl.

I wonder…

I wonder… if you ever think of me. I wonder if the kids think of me. And I wonder what you think of the relationship we had. For you, does our time together represent just a blink… a few seconds on the clock of an entire lifetime, a faint memory or was it meaningful. I often wonder what you think of what we had.

love always, me

~~~

a little live music this weekend

I went and saw a wonderful duet at a favorite watering hole of mine. This husband and wife team are absolutely amazing. I thought of Amuirin and the really cool musicians she introduces us to now and again.

Thought I would reciprocate.

So fellow bloggers, wonderful blog peeps and blog stumblers, I present…. andi and i performing “love never fails”.

just like heaven

My friend Amuirin posted a vid showing off the Sara Bareilles cover of a-Ha’s famous “Take On Me” from the mid 80′s.

I loved that song when it came out.

Reminded me of another song that came out a couple years later that I really like when it was released.

This is a really, really cool version of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” by YouTuber, Amanda Loree.

enjoy.

My Grace is Gone

I met my friend Grace just as I first started blogging last summer. I felt quite connected to her after reading her words and we agreed that a kindred nature lay between us.

Her words are inspiring, thought provoking and so, so personal.

She is evolving and has recently stated she is going on what she believes will be a rather long hiatus from blogging… perhaps permanantly. In fact she says in her last post, “The season for The Wild Pomegranate is over.”

I believe her. There is a release and resignation in the tenor of the words of her post.

I’m sure many of you more seasoned bloggers have had people on your list of blog friends who have announced they are done with blogging only to come back after a couple of weeks or months. Grace has done that, too, but I think this time she is really gone. I really think she is gone.

I will miss you Grace.

The day after the party (part 3 of 3)

If you’ve just stumbled on my spot here in Blogland, this is the third installment of some quasi new year’s hopes I have for myself. The other two posts are directly below this one.

So I recently brought music back into my life after a long 16, 17… i don’t know 18 year hiatus. I’ve been playing again (for about three years) but with a different instrument and i actually attempt to sing as well. There is probably a reason I was an instrument major and NOT voice major in school though. : )

But lately it seems that what happened 20 years ago