This Little Light of Mine

Do you remember all those wonderful lessons you learned in your vacation bible school days? All the fun crafts and memorizing your bible verses…the cookies…and for me it was all about the songs. When did we stop singing those songs? Jesus loves me this I know…and the one that came back to me this week…”All…

GTA Advent Journey: Day Nine, God’s Eyes

God thru the Arts- Advent Journey Day Nine: God’s Eyes The key to finding the deeper meaning of Christmas is to view the gift of God’s son as His gift of love to the world. To really see God reaching out to us in tenderness, can be powerful. In my earthbound heart it helps me to…

The Greatest Story Ever Told: 7 Tips for Christmas Services

Each year at the end of the Fall semester, I always enjoy having my college music students play Christmas carols. I find that you are never to old or to young to enjoy this music and the students really appreciate the break from all the pressures of their final exams.  A couple of years ago, however,…

Adventures in Music and Healing

 I had coffee with my dear friend Diane this past week. I enjoyed hearing about her discovery of playing the harp and I was interested to learn more of how it had gotten her through a particularly dark time. Below is the story of her adventure into buying a Concert Harp. May it give you courage and…

A Study in White

Purity-Innocence-Peace-Soft-Silence L’innocence, oil on canvas, 1893, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 100×52.5 cm, private collection. (image source Wikimedia Commons) Just a quick hello to say I have completed the first draft of my new book and am hoping to be able to publish The Joyful Sound: Reflections of the Life of Christ in Art and Music sometime late spring…

One Fine Day In the Shadow of His Wings

How do you imagine God’s Judgment? What kind of pictures do you draw about the last days? Do you imagine the mighty God of Revelation? or Have you stopped to consider He might just surprise us One Fine Day? I think often we allow God to be surprising for us in the scriptures, but then…

An Ode to Joy this Palm Sunday

Since writing a book about Christmas, I have become more and more aware of all the events of the Church calendar and how they can feed our soul. There is a certain wisdom and rhythm to living in the cycle of these annual events that can give richness and meaning to our lives as each of us,…

Young People Don’t Want the Easy Button

I have discovered a new approach recently and it is one that might surprise you. After 12 years of teaching music history, I decided one day to go into class and instead of my normal enthusiasm for the topic,  I told them that we were going to hear the story of Mozart today and frankly…it is…

The Secret to Long Life: “Music is a Dream”

Yesterday I took the day to get away with some dear friends and listen to wonderful flute players from our Mid-Atlantic region at the Washington D.C. Flute Fair in Reston Virginia.  I was reminded all throughout the day how important it is for all of us to constantly be refreshing ourselves through trying new things…

Hearing God’s Voice in the Community

As I write to you this week from the warmth of my mother’s home in Norman Oklahoma, I would like to share with you just a little update of how I have heard God’s voice leading me throughout the past 6 months as I visited various Christian faith traditions around my home in Frederick Maryland. I would like…