The Sound of His Voice

I have been telling people recently that I am grateful for this season and the songs that have been birthed out of it. I am feeling really creative. One of the guys that I have been excited to be in the room with is a guy named Michael Farren. He is the front man in a band that is signed to Word Records called Pocket Full of Rocks. He has a great passion for communicating the hope of the Gospel of Jesus and it's fun chasing songs with him. He is also a good hang.

We got together recently to write and started talking about the sound of the Lord's voice...the physical sound of it. He shared a video with me that illustrated something about sound that I had never seen. Check this out. You may want to adjust your volume down as it might get a little bit uncomfortable.



Now this is just conjecture but what if it was the actual sound of the Lord's voice was the thing creating the heaven's and the earth. God said let there be light and there was light. God said let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water and it was so. God said...God Said...God said...and all of creation came to be. If there is a pattern to be made by a simple frequency and sand, is it too much of a jump to wonder if the actual sound of the Lord's voice made water and made it flow into the ocean...if it caused flowers to bloom....if it so creatively formed an elephant? I wonder.

To take it a step further, is the voice of the Lord STILL holding things together? Maybe there is a frequency of His voice that we can't hear that is still audibly creating?

All of these musings birthed a song called "The Sound of Your Voice" and I'm very happy with it. Hopefully you will hear it when the next Pocket Full of Rocks CD comes out.

I am so glad I am not a scientist...although it's fun to wonder about, it almost makes my brain explode:)

Listen here Cupcake....

Yesterday, I went to lunch with Carl Cartee and Barry Weeks at Boscos in Cool Springs. It was chilly outside and we noticed on the way in that there was a Bocci court. I'm not even sure if it is called a "court" but there were two areas outlined to play. I looked at Carl and said, " We are totally going to play after lunch." He smiled really big and said, "You're On". We went in and ate and on the way out, Barry asked if we could stop by Starbucks on the way back. Carl and I said sure, all while walking towards the Bocci "court". It turned out that the court was muddy as in the kind of mud that will build up on your shoes until it feels like you are walking around with bricks on your feet. We were a little bit disappointed that we couldn't play. As we were walking towards Barry's car, I looked up and saw Gigi's cupcakes. I said a sentence that has never come out of my mouth. I said, "guys...what about a cupcake". Carl laughed out loud and said, "We are totally getting a cupcake". I have watched this recent cupcake craze from the outside looking in. I like a cupcake...as in...if there are cupcakes at a party, I might eat one. That being said, we walked in and the nice lady behind the counter gave us an audio tour of the cupcakes in the display case. For some reason, none of them looked appetizing because the icing was piled as high as the cake itself almost making them look top-heavy. I was about to bail when Barry offered to pay. I was still not going to get a cupcake but he insisted so I ordered one. To give a brief synopsis of our experience, I don't think I will go back. I would give the cake part of the cupcake a solid grade of a "B" and the icing would get a dismal "D". But don't take my word for it cupcake. For $3, make your own assessment.

Let me know what you think.

Start of a New Season

I signed a publishing deal with Essential Publishing yesterday and I am grateful to continue to be able to be using the gift God gave me to encourage people with music. I have grown so much as a writer at Brentwood Benson. I am so blessed that they took a chance on me seven years ago. I want to thank some of the people who have gone out of their way to help me in my journey. Marty Wheeler signed me to Brentwood Benson Music Publishing when I started. His belief in me was so foundational. Holly Zabka has some of the best instincts for songs and has been patient with me as I have grown. I am a better writer because of her. I could list over a hundred writers that have added tools to my songwriting "toolbox". Some of the ones that stick out are Tony Wood, Sue Smith, Brandon Heath, Joel Lindsey, Kyle Matthews, Jess Cates, Laurianne Cates, Ricky and Randy Jackson, Craig Monday, and Steve Dean. And for all the others over the past seven years that I've been in the room with chasing ideas, I am so thankful for you as well.

For all the songs behind and for all the ones to come, I am grateful.

Re-Decorating the Christmas tree

Sarah has a co-worker at work named Julie. She has travelled with us to New York City and Los Angeles for our trips for Belmont East and Belmont West. Several times on those trips we would have funny conversations at the end of the day that would involve a high point and low point.

Okay...so cleaning up after having your drywall repaired is not as easy as it might sound...especially at Christmas. I have never had to un-decorate a Christmas tree to take it out of the stand and drag it outside so we could shake the dust out of it...Low Point.

We were trying to clean because my brother and his family are staying with us over the holidays. They called us from the airport here in Nashville to tell us they were on their way. When I answered the phone I was hanging lights like Clark Griswald on my front porch. By the time they got to the house, everything was ready...yesssss...definitely the High Point.

So we have started the transition into the family part of holidays and it has been wonderful.

I hope this Christmas is so meaningful for all of you this year. Go out of your way to serve your family. There is so much life that comes out of it.

GREAT worship song...

Check this song out. It's a guy named Chris Quilala. It's called Your Love Never Fails.

Christmas Craziness

Merry Christmas to you all...

I can imagine talking to Santa Clause right now and him asking me what I would like for Christmas. I honestly don't know what I would tell him but if I was being self-indulgent, I might ask for a Wii for Christmas. And Santa's next question would be, "Have you been a good little blogger?" I would hang my head and with a pouting face say "No Santa, I have not". And then Santa would laugh like a bowlful of jelly in his red suit, his big black belt, his white beard, his nose like a cherry, and with a voice like the Soup Nazi would say, "No Wii for You!!!"

Sarah and I have had an eventful past few days and worthy of a blog...

Tuesday night Sarah and I met at the mall after work to eat dinner together. She wanted to do some Christmas shopping and I was headed over to Christ Community to see Jeremy Cowart do a presentation about his life as a photographer. Jeremy did a GREAT job. On my way home, it was raining like cats and dogs and I called Sarah who had been home for a few minutes. You never want to hear a person on the other end of the phone say "Honey, I don't want you to get stressed out but..."

The back half of the conjunction "but" made me drive a whole lot faster trying not to hydroplane on my way home. So, again it was raining hard and had been for two days. I think they said that some areas got 6 inches. I walked in the front door and Sarah was wiping the water off of the hardwood floors and trying to grab pots and pans to collect the water coming from the first floor ceiling. Because of the amount of water, we ended up placing the big containers that held our Christmas decorations to catch it. For the next hour we were walking around the house like Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew trying to figure out if it was the roof leaking or if it was the plumbing.

So the last few days have been spent watching a whole get cut in our ceiling by a plumber so he could get to the water line that fed one of the toilets upstairs. And as I am writing this morning, this is my view as I look up from my computer screen. The guy in the pictures is Francisco and he is fixing our drywall. Thank You Francisco!!!

It snowed last night here and also because of the white drywall dust, it's beginning to look a LOT like Christmas.

Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas.

Santa, is this post enough for a Wii?...and maybe Tiger Woods '09?
:)

Happy Thanksgiving

I love a good rollercoaster. There's something about the anticipation of clicking up the first incline that is such a rush. The feeling that you are going to scream like a little girl for the next minute because you will may lose your stomach(and maybe a funnel cake) at any moment.

This blessing and the curse of the creative brain is much like a rollercoaster. One moment, you can be so high and the next moment, it is almost like you just want to lay down and suck your thumb and cry. I was talking about one of my low moments with a friend recently and he had wise council. He said that whenever he has one of these low moments, he always tries to remember to be grateful. I am trying to live this out. There is so much to be grateful for. The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful wife, a loving family, and provided more than I need. I am so thankful.

It's making me realize that gratitude really is good for the soul.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

To: Ross

From: Chad

Okay...just typing that made me think of Christmas but that is not the subject of this entry. I just received an email from my friend Ross. He had this to say...

"Dude. I am sick of checking in at your blog and seeing the same thing...write something else...today please"

I have said this same kind of thing to a friend of mine named Randy Williams. When he started his blog, there was a few days in a row that he didn't post anything. I really enjoy the way that he writes. I saw him out somewhere and said...dude, what's the deal with your blog. He laughed and said "I can't think of anything funny to write about!"

So Ross...I know where your coming from. I've been there too. Just hold your horses. I haven't been inspired to blog. Plus, I've just been a little lazy.

Merry Christmas Ross.

This one's for you.

The Shack

I just got done reading The Shack. I start two nights ago but read the bulk of it through the better part of today. I have never wept so many times reading a book. I feel like I should communicate that I am a crier. There. I admit it. I own it. It only takes a moment in a movie, a story told with redemption, or a well written song that shines a light on a place inside of me I have never seen. I cry.

This book takes some liberties with painting the trinity with the father as a black woman and the Spirit as a super interesting Asian woman. Jesus kind of played himself in this story as a Middle Eastern Jewish Man. Don't let the liberties scare you. The story of redemption that gets played out in this book is simply beautiful and the truth and love behind the character of God resonated so deeply with me.

It is such a worthy read.

Write About Jesus

I got back this last Saturday night from a weekend retreat called Write About Jesus. Sue Smith, the woman I wrote "Everything to Me" with started this retreat about 8 years ago up in St Louis and I have been up there as a "Clinician"(teacher) 3 out of the past 8 years. It is a weekend for people who love songwriting to gather together and connect with each other and learn about the craft of songwriting and some of the life-stuff that goes along with being creative. There is a competition during the weekend and the 120 or so registrants enter it and there is one winner at the end of the weekend. I kind of feel like it's purpose is less about winning and more about asking each person to write the best song they know how and to come and learn how to make it better and themselves better in the process. The way that gets played out is that people submit the song and then everyone gets split up into groups of about ten. Then two of us teachers will listen and critique each song in front of the group so that everyone can learn from each other's critique.

I was talking to someone before this trip about not caring so much about the song they were handing me to critique but more so about how it would affect the next 30 songs that would come out of them. When I mentioned this to Sue she liked the idea of communicating about expectations. She came up with a title of a class for me to teach called Holy Tension: Your Ambition and God's Sovereignty. When she sent me that title, I thought, "what a great name" and then the next thought was, "oh crap...how do I teach that??!!".

Sue had the wisdom to pair me up with Dave Clark, a guy I have so much respect for. He has been writing songs professionally for over 30 years and is truly gifted at it. The lens that God has given him to look through is really inspiring.

When the class came along, the room we were having it in filled quickly and fit more people than I thought it would. When we started, I told the class that I was scared to death because of that title and was nervous about what to say but once we settled in, truth started coming out in a really organic way.

We talked about the good and bad sides of ambition and that God truly has a plan for each of us and for our songs. Looking back, the hour seemed Holy to me. Truth was communicated in love. The Lord guided what we said in an organic way that seemed to be encouraging even to me. Dave told stories about the faithfulness of God that brought tears to my eyes.

If you love God and are an aspiring writer, Write About Jesus is a great weekend to put on your calendar.

Great job Sue!