You can change
key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.
Click here
for MusicXML.
(MusicXML is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check
the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML
files.)
According to the BB King classic, “Let the Good Times
Roll,” good times happen when you get together, spend some cash, and have some fun.
The coronavirus smeared King’s picture of a good time.
Sara turned ten on March 17, 2020. Just four days after
her birthday her family began sheltering in place. She could no longer get
together with friends, spend some cash, and have some fun. She missed
important milestones. School functions, including her spring concert, were
cancelled. School moved online with E-Learning assignments. Her daddy was worried how this would impact her life.
She assumed responsibility for doing her own
laundry. She learned how to make pancakes from scratch. How to identify animal
bones she found near her home. She used the Internet and Legos to entertain her
out-of-state nephew. She helped build a monarch butterfly nursery. She curled
up with her parents after dinner to watch Star Trek Discovery. How will she
remember 2020?
I had written a song for each of Sara’s
birthdays, but not her tenth. I was not sure what to write. Then her daddy made
a casual statement during dinner one evening. He said these are the best years
of his life! I incorporated that phrase in her tenth birthday song. From the album “Silly or Celebratory – Songs
for Sara Lily” this video is scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
Click here for
BB King’s “Let the Good Times Roll.”
Print lead sheet music is available for Ten Years (Daddy Daughter Dance).
Do you teach
or play the cello, keyboard, guitar, or bass? Ten Years (Daddy Daughter Dance) is on SmartMusic, the comprehensive music practice app!
Click here to practice the music. Click here for SmartMusic help.
You can change
key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.
Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check
the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML
files.)
According to Isaiah, ordinary citizens were what was wrong with
the nation. They were embracing pagan customs: they practiced divination
and bowed down to the work of their hands.[1]
Isaiah prayed:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens
and come down … The nations would tremble before you; then your enemies would
learn the reason for your fame! … But we are not godly; we are constant sinners
and have been all our lives. Therefore, your wrath is heavy on us.[2]
What is wrong with the church?
According to Jesus,[3]
ordinary church goers like me are what is wrong with the church.
I am what’s wrong with the
church when I practice loveless doctrine.
I am what’s wrong with the
church when I expect to be rescued from the unjust or cruel use of power.
I am what’s wrong with the persecuted
church when I excuse sexual immorality in the church or embrace pagan customs.
I am what’s wrong with the serving
church when I think social justice requires the endorsement of sexual
immorality or paganism.
I am what’s wrong with the
church when my faith is dead.
I am what’s wrong with the
church when I don’t walk through the door Jesus has opened for me.
I am what’s wrong with the
church when my worship is lukewarm.
What’s wrong with the church?
Me! I am! I am what’s wrong with the church.
Jesus asks the church – me! – to repent.
From the album
“Sing” this video is scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
Click here to
read how today’s social justice movement differs from the teachings of Jesus.
“Was Jesus
just a spiritual leader like Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, and Muhammad? Or is he
something more – something else entirely?” Ken Samples evaluates these
religious leaders in God among Sages and shows that Jesus is more than a
spiritual leader. He is God himself.
Print sheet music for wind quintet and piano is available for Rend the Heavens.
Do you play or
teach a wind instrument or piano? Rend the Heavens is on
SmartMusic, the comprehensive music practice app!
Click here to
practice the music. Click here for SmartMusic help.
You can change
key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.
Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check
the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXMLfiles.)
What if the seals of Revelation are end-time events that take a lifetime or more to
unfold?
What if Jesus opened the
first seal, a rider on a white horse, seventy years ago?
Formation of the State of Israel, the first seal. As a horse
carries a rider on its back, God graciously carried Jews to the land he
promised their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where, on May 14, 1948, they
established the first Jewish state in two thousand years. Israel has military
strength (a bow), has won sovereignty (given a victor’s crown), and has fought
several wars with neighboring Muslim nations, extending its borders (a conqueror
bent on conquest).
Terrorism, the second seal. A rider on a red horse takes
peace from the earth, making men slay each other. Violence and murder not only
headline the news but touch us personally. GlobalIncidentMap.com monitors terrorism,
gang activity, etc. in real time. The Global Terrorism Index ranks the nations
of the world according to terrorist activity.
Hunger, the third seal. A rider on a black horse weighs grain for bread against a
manual worker’s daily wage. The laborer will only be able to buy one loaf of wheat
bread with what he earned that day. Yet there will be enough wine for people to
party and become drunk. In developing countries one in eight people is at risk
for hunger, nearly one in ten in my community. According to WikiAnswers the
average daily wage in the world is $1.65. In many places that’s not enough to
buy a loaf of bread!
Hate crime, the fourth seal. Death comes riding on a pale
horse followed by a rider named Hell. The riders are given authority over one
fourth of the earth, either earth’s geography or its population, to kill those
they hate. Their crimes against humanity include mass killings, forced deportation,
genocidal rape, etc. The UN secretary-general noted that the frequent occurrence
of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s was not the by-product of war. Rather, civilians
were deliberately targeted in an attempt to expel or eliminate segments of the
population.
Christian Martyrs. When the fifth seal is opened, those who are
slain for being faithful to the Word of God and for proclaiming Jesus, cry out
to God for justice. The World Watch List ranks the top fifty countries where
Christians face the greatest persecution. A world map at Persecution.org shows the
thirty most recent persecution reports, including the deaths of Christians
killed for their faith.
What if …? Then the first five seals of Revelation read like my
lifetime!
And … Hate crime and violence against Christians will spread and intensify until
the sixth seal is opened. The apostle Peter encouraged Christians to stand firm
in the face of persecution. From the album “Apologia – Answers for Troubled Minds” this video is music
overlaid on slides.
You can change
key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.
Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music.
Check
the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™
files.)
Colossians 2
describes Jesus as the mystery of God! Mystery
would be an awesome theme and title for a song based on that chapter.
My notes on
Colossians 2 spill over into the next pages. I’ll write then rewrite and
rewrite lyrics.
The final
revision of lyrics sits at my work station where I play around with melody
lines in major and minor keys.
Now to create the song on my computer. Going for a
nocturne-like arrangement of Garritan® virtual instruments.
Finale®, my
music composition program, creates a WAV file of the score. I add it to my iTunes
playlist and listen on my iPod. The arrangement needs work.
So I edit the score.
Again. And again. And again.
Now to make a
video. I’ll need a public domain image as backdrop and interesting fonts for
music and lyrics.
From the album
“Sing” this Music Story video is a screen capture of Finale® playing Garritan®
instruments.
Kathy
Did Mystery capture the theme of Colossians
2? Click here to read the passage.
Print sheet music for viola and piano is available for Mystery.
You can change key and instrumentation with MusicXML - digital sheet music.
Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check
the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™
files.)
Easter changes
everything. Easter gives meaning to life, tells us who we are and why we are
here. Easter explains why others hurt us and what God has done about it. Easter
endows the present and future with inexplicable joy. But not everyone who knows
about Easter gets this.
Her life was
marked by pain. How could she trust God after what she had been through? God
hadn’t protected her. God hadn’t met her needs. Now pain defined who she was.
She would reach for anyone or anything that might ease the pain, pushing away whatever
got in the way. She made wrong assumptions about love – love in general and God’s
love specifically. She equated love with feelings and circumstances. If it
didn’t look or feel like love, it must not be love.
How could God
possibly show the depth of his love for her? What could he do to change her
identity, who she was at the core, so that she was no longer defined by her
pain, but by his love? Good Friday, Jesus’ death on the cross, is the answer to
that question. God loves us so deeply that he became a man and died for us. But
God didn’t stop there. Jesus rose from the dead and that’s why Easter changes
everything! If Jesus is alive then God’s demonstration of love is more than an
historical event. If Easter is true, God’s love trumps pain, does not waiver
with circumstances, is not dictated by feelings. His love is an ever-present
reality. He defines who we are, not pain, not circumstances, not feelings.
I wrote this Good
Friday song with her in mind. But she moved away before I had the chance to
share it with her. From the album “Main Street – Songs for Today” this video is
scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
Do you play the
flute, oboe, French horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, or keyboard? Forgiven
is on SmartMusic, the comprehensive music practice app!
Click here for digital sheet music. (MusicXML™ is
the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files
in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)
How does one
live with crippling circumstances when God does not change them?
Do you know
someone living with unrelenting pain? I do. At times does it seem like they are drowning? Or
their life is in flames? Have you begged God to ease their pain, to take it
away? I have. Did God answer your prayer? God did not answer mine.
The Apostle
Paul pled with God to change his circumstances and God said, "My grace is
sufficient for you." I wonder if Paul audibly heard God’s voice. Or was he
meditating on God's promises? Perhaps this promise that God made to Israel helped Paul
understand the adequacy of God’s presence: When you pass through deep waters, I
will be with you.
When God does
not answer my prayer for someone who is suffering, I find comfort in that
promise, knowing that God’s grace, that is, his presence, is sufficient even during
times of chronic, crippling, unrelenting pain.
In her book
"A Place of Healing, Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain and
God's Sovereignty" Joni Eareckson Tada describes her journey with pain. I
wrote Deep Waters after reading Joni’s book. The song is a music story interweaving
God’s promise and a journey with pain.
A few weeks
after writing the song I had emergency surgery, was in a hospital bed, alone,
in isolation, in pain, unable to sleep, and struggling to breathe. I was in
deep waters. And Deep Waters became my song.
From the album
“This & That – A Little Bit of Everything” this video is scrolling playback
of the song. Kathy
Print sheet
music for strings, flute, and timpani is available for Deep Waters.
You can change
key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.
Click here for MusicXML. (MusicXML is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions of importing MusicXML files.)
