What you make matters. No matter what that thing is, your work is essential. Here’s why I think that: This Summer will mark my 20th year as a professional artist. While my first album was released in 1998, the process really started a year before that when my landlord told me that what I made … Read More
The line between what is sacred and what some may call “secular” or “profane” is a famously difficult line to navigate. Volumes have been written and argued over regarding where that line is, how to recognize it and how to communicate that line to others. My guest on episode 11 is songwriter and advocate, Audrey Assad. Her work … Read More
My guest on Episode 10 of the @ Sea Podcast is author David Dark. I call him an “author,” perhaps because that’s what he may be best known for. But David is also a professor at Bellmont University in Tennessee, a huge music nerd, a collector of insights and wisdom and a kind of translator … Read More
I took a truckload of notes at The Jubilee Conference. Instead of dump them all out, here are a few highlights and the thoughts these highlights stir in me: – “In chaos, tyranny thrives.” -Jon Tyson I realized that I am often drawn to gatherings like Jubilee (and Jubilee specially) not so much by a … Read More
Practice might not make perfect… but it certainly can shape a soul. A few years ago, author/journalist David Brooks wrote a short piece about the way baseball has “hacked the human brain.” Showing up early for a baseball game, he saw a 38-year-old major league player running drills at first base; the same drills 6-10 year old kids … Read More
My religious tradition uses the word “evil” or “darkness.” Steven Pressfield calls it “Resistance.” And while there are volumes written about it, the one thing I’ve come to know/believe about evil/darkness/Resistance is that it plays the long game. More than anything else, darkness or evil counts on you and I quitting at some point. So don’t. Getting … Read More
Songwriter and artist David Bazan is my guest on Episode 7 of the @ Sea Podcast. David has been making music professionally since 1995, most notably, As the frontman for Pedro The Lion, the mind behind Headphones and most pertinent to the purposes of this podcast, as a solo artist. Among the many things I … Read More
It’s about guns. It’s about militant Islam. It’s about mental health. I think I find it conveniently comforting to pin violence and tragedy on one issue or another because it means I am not implicated. If it’s about guns, I don’t own one and can blame gun-owners or politicians. If it’s about militant Islam, I’m … Read More
Is music in the “Christian marketplace” markedly dishonest? Specifically in the way its writers address the darker aspects of life? More so than music made in the broader, “General market” is? In his a Fuller-curated conversation between Bono and Eugene Peterson, Bono suggests as much. I’m not so sure. Let’s see what Drake has to say about the deeper … Read More
Originally posted at the Young Life Leader Blog, This is part of of a series written after my summer assignment as a speaker at Young Life Adventures. During that assignment, I was offered the gift of helping teenagers at the front end of their faith process work out language they found helpful. — There’s another part of that … Read More
