hope and the arts

Dara and I are fans of Carolyn Arends. I am especially moved by her song “What We Hope For”: What we hope for is not too much to ask for / What we pray for isn’t nearly big enough. / And what we dream of / Cannot compare with God’s love. / What he wants for us is so much more, more than what we hope for.

That’s one insightful woman.

Today one thing led to another on the internet—a Facebook message from a friend who shared a song and a video link which drew me to Andrew Peterson’s website which drew me to The Rabbit Room group blog which drew me to a post by Andrew which linked me to a Christianity Today article by Carolyn from June.

I’ve got these creative projects on the go and every once in awhile I wonder, does it matter? Never mind the question will it pay a living? Carolyn answers the question from several angles, including this one:

Paulnack asks, "Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? … And yet—from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art … Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. Art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are."

read the rest of the article

Hope. That’s one function of the arts, and hope is essential for health (“hope deferred makes the heart sick”) and faith (“being sure of what we hope for”).

Makes me think of the song “It Might Be Hope” by another singer/songwriter, Sara Groves: Hope has a way of turning its face to you just when you least expect it. / You walk in a room / You look out a window / And something there leaves you breathless. / You say to yourself / “It’s been awhile since I felt this, / and it feels like it might be hope.”

Here’s hoping …

digital downloads!

Digital downloads now available for sale. Prices are USD, but we set them at 85 cents for most songs to accommodate the exchange rate.



We're also pre-selling the physical CD for $20 (incl. shipping). The sooner we sell 56, the sooner we can ship the master for duplication and get the album with booklet in your hands!

pre-order live CD: Minus 40 Tour

Pre-order the Minus 40 CD ($20) and shipping is free!
Contact me if interested and I'll get you the goods.
Release date: mid-September, 2009.

A wonderful thing happened today, which opened the door for another wonderful thing.

Donovan (the rep from our printing company) called me this morning to say that the physical proofs had arrived and that he realized I had not received the right eco-audit label, that ours should read "Siretona Creative saved the following resources by..." So he sent me a new personalized one and told me to drop it in and upload that page this evening FREE OF CHARGE because it was Friesens' miscommunication. We only "saved" $6.00, but it opened a window for this ...

The one thing we've been waiting on is the CIP (library) data for this little book. Wouldn't you know, it arrived in my inbox TODAY?!?!? God is good. I know that sometimes the righteous suffer, but I also know that sometimes they are treated to the most exquisite working out of detail, more than they could never have asked or imagined.

This is the new page 2:




















And here, for a visual treat, is the first spread in the actual story:

it might be hope (sara groves)

You do your work the best that you can
You put one foot in front of the other
Life comes in waves and makes its demands
You hold on as well as you're able

You've been here for a long long time

But hope has a way of turning its face to you
Just when you least expect it
You walk in a room
You look out a window
And something there leaves you breathless
You say to yourself
It's been a while since I felt this
But it feels like it might be hope

It's hard to recall what blew out the flame
It's been dark since you can remember
You talk it all through to find it a name
As days go on by without number

You've been here for a long long time

Hope has a way of turning its face to you
Just when you least expect it
You walk in a room
You look out a window
And something there leaves you breathless
You say to yourself
It's been a while since I felt this
but it feels like it might be hope

underneath The Maple Leaf

Happy Canada Day! Celebrate is by listening to Rik Leaf and Tribe of One’s “The Maple Leaf” on the music page here: http://tribeofone.com/.

 

The Maple Leaf

Rik Leaf, 2008

 

As the harbor draws near the Pacific disappears

In the bight lights of Vancouver

From the bay we make our way along the highway

And start to climb from sea to sky

Before we leave we make a point of eating cherries from the tree

And drinking wine in the Okanagan

As we pass through Banff we have our first chance to see

A prairie sky set on fire far and wide

Underneath the maple leaf we are drawn together

Underneath the maple leaf we are one

We set sail and for days we cross the endless waves of wheat

That crash against the shore under our wheels

Outside the Sault the sun breaks through the fog

As we cut our rugged path along north Superior

We wind our way through narrow lanes in old Quebec

To look across the sea way from Le Château Frontenac

You can almost hear the sounds of 1759

Echoing across the Plains of Abraham

Then we walk the white sand along the beach at Martinique

Eating mussels and drinking Alexander Keith’s

We raise a toast at the edge of the Atlantic coast

To the new found land where it all began

So raise your voice from the west to the east

To the truth north strong and free

 

This song started aboard the Queen of Coquitlam as we were sailing into Horseshoe Bay and ended with us barefoot on Nova Scotia sand, raising bottles of Keith’s in an exuberant toast to our home and native land as the frigid Atlantic washed over our ankles.