New Section

I continue to add elements to my site here. Check out my new section “Make Sight.”

Comfort

You never know who you might be a comfort to.

Similarly, you never know who might show up as a comfort to you.

"But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus..." (2 Corinthians 7:6)

Thriller Digital Painting

Fall officially begins September 22. But, you know…we’re almost there.

And what else says Fall than a good 80s Halloween reference.

Thriller (digital painting, 2024)

The Mission Has Always Been The Point

Augustine asked Ambrose where to begin reading the Bible after conversion.

Ambrose told him Isaiah. Why?

“Presumably because the Gospel and the calling of the gentiles are foretold more clearly in that book than in any other.” (Confessions IX, 5)

The mission has always been the point.

My Advice for Songwriting

A friend recently asked if I could teach songwriting. After writing songs for over 20 years, I had never considered sharing my version of the “secret sauce.” Here’s my attempt:

1. Try it. Seriously, this is step one. No fluff. Literally, just try! If you don’t do anything else on this list, do this one. I once heard Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine say that he assigns his new students their first homework after the first lesson: to create a song using only the two chords he teaches them. Why many of us don’t try: trying to make up a song requires thinking about something we don’t often get permission for. Push past this resistance. No matter your skill level.

2. Lyrics: Write what frustrates you. Write down ten things that bother you most about life, the world, gaps in your life. What heartaches have you had recently? What core memories from your life make you most sad? Most happy?

3. Lyrics: Write what hope you have. Write down ten hopes you have. Where did those hopes come from? What do you hope is the outcome of those frustrations?

4. Genre: Choose your weapon. What genre or art form expresses this best within your skill set (no matter how skillful you are)? The genre provides the natural limitations needed to force your creativity. Do the genre that feels most natural.

5. Build it! Pick two or three combinations of notes. Pick a song structure that makes the most sense for you (ex. intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus). Regurgitate and repeat what sounds the coolest to you (it’s ok if you don’t know why it sounds cool). If you don’t like what you’re hearing, throw it out.

6. Practice + Share it. Don’t bypass this step! Practice and share. Practice and share. Practice and share. Use a voice memo app to record yourself to remember it.

Congrads. You’ve just written a song.

“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “Iʼd like my crayons back, please.”

— Hugh Macleod

Transforming Your Trouble into Your Work

I love this quote from Steven Pressfield:

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work. (The War of Art, 24).

“Ouch”

"Ouch: A Timeless Prayer of Mankind." (Taylor, 2024)

What We Pass On

The other day, I was reading my kids Flower Talk (Levine and D’yans), a children’s book about the purpose of plant colors.

Did you know that as bees consume pollen, some gets stuck on their bodies? This pollen then drops onto other flowers as the bees fly by.

We are not so different though, are we?

Directly or indirectly, we pass onto others what we consume ourselves: bad habits and good ones, what we say as well as our manner of speech, the products we find useful, stories we love, and news we care about.

What we treasure, we feed others with.