The inner turmoil of an unfulfilled artist is impossible to quantify. The art sets fire to its creator with both its presence and its absence. The spark burns brightly but it is the discipline and community which sustain the artist and the creator and protects against the cold and the explosions. Sparks can only be managed and channeled. The brighter and more powerful sparks require extraordinary communities and discipline to avoid disaster.

The establishment empire is too often viewed as the enemy in the scripts we read. The change agents’ motives are not so pure as they pretend. That is reality. Each of us has a role in the epics we find ourselves in.

​What stage are we playing?

If you think that making music is primarily about the right notes and right rhythms, you and I on different planets. Right notes and rhythms are maybe 25% of the experience. Maybe less. Sharing the soul of the performer, and the composer with form, style, choice and color across time and place is everything. Notes and rhythms are like bricks and boards. They are necessary to build a house, but useless to actually live in until they are assembled. #ChoirIsLife

Singing in a safe space is a way forward. We need to start somewhere in society. The local church and musicians are a critical step.
We as individual must step up and be the light. #JustSing

It is difficult if not impossible to find oxygen to breathe elegance, beauty, integrity, excellence and love in a room filled with the fires of hatred, discord, disgust, and demagoguery. As artists, we have a role to play. We must use emotions to influence but not inflame. Fire burns and consumes. It destroys its creator and becomes a living but dead thing. We must extinguish the flames, and then we can begin the process to build. We can make our world great. Will we?
Virtue flows from a focus on higher things. We must stand and be counted but we must stand on a foundation that is solid rather than molten. We as a society have elevated virtue signaling above virtue, and as a result, everything is burning. That is a real challenge that burns in my mind over and over. #Inspiredbyfriend ​

You choose whether you focus on what you can do... or what you can't do. Words have power. Are you so tired, so sore, or so sleepy... or are you focused on how you can be less tired, less sore... less sleepy. Be better. Don't seek affirmation for failing in others. Be inspired by achievements of others. Be more than you are. Choose what you tell yourself and others.

The choir and collective singing is in the heart of worship.  It is powerful, indicting,  and comforting, but not always comfortable.  Your congregation is essentially a choir.   The recent pandemic crisis has restricted almost all communal singing due to the numbers, aerosol science speculations, fear, and the reality that Covid is a serious and dangerous disease for many choral singers due to age, comorbidity and a whole series of issues and complications born out of congregating together. 

Is worship suffering? Yes it is. 
Are churches growing in the midst of this crisis?  Not in nickels and noses that I can see.  but maybe in other ways.  

My premise is that the absence of congregational and choral singing has reminded us all of how important worship is to our wellbeing.    It also exposes a critical gap in many churches engagement models.   Fellowship, Sunday School for kids and adults, Bible Study, and Service projects are the lifeblood of our churches.. Worship is a reflection of service.. in a service.  It is the lens, the metric, to evaluate our health.   When we are faithful and submit to serve and love others… Worship will showcase our hearts.  
We must sing together and share songs.  This is about more than physical singing.  It is about example. Singing is uncomfortable for many because it is an outward and public sharing of heart.  This exposes us, and makes us vulnerable.  We are so lucky that God covers us.  
Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you.