Here's a new one...

ACU Songwriter's Workshop

We landed in Abilene about 11:30 p.m on Thursday. Kaelea went to get the rental car while I waited for the baggage. Sarah surprised us at the airport and provided an enthusiastic welcome to Texas. We crashed at Randy Harris' house just before midnight. Randy Harris is the perfect host for us. He's busier than us, and it doesn't hurt his feelings when we walk in like zombies at midnight and drop dead.

Friday we walked around the ACU campus, met up with Mark Love, met Greg Straughn for the first time, ate Cracker Barrel's Country Fried Steak for lunch, and took a long afternoon nap. Friday night we met up with Luke, Serena, and Tyson Coles, Steve Maxwell, Cheronn Foster, and Sara Crowe, and got a big table at Joe Allen's Steak House. My selection was a 3/4" ribeye steak. It was yummy.

Saturday morning, we arrived at ACU's performing arts center around 9:30 and our "national" enterPraise worship team (Texas, Oklahoma, and Oregon were all represented) practiced for awhile. We also got to hang with Zach Wilson (current high tenor for Acappella) who hails from Portland as well. Lunch was Taco Bueno (nothing personal, but I'll stick with the Bell), and then at 1:00 p.m. the Songwriter's Workshop started.

The group was small enough that we took the time for each person to introduce themselves. Mark Love took a few minutes to explain his vision for the workshop and then we worshiped for about 30 minutes. I had the honor of introducing Michael Card, and man, what a teacher! Michael taught out of the book of John for 2 hours straight without hardly taking a breath. It was obvious where the impetus for his amazing lyrics come from. He was such an ordinary and sincere human being, that it felt wrong to ask for his autograph or to have my picture taken with him. At the same time, a lot of what he said and how he said it was just powerful. It was inspiring to me both as a student of the Bible and as a musician. After the teaching time we took a small break and then reconvened to share music.

Greg Straughn (head of the music department at ACU) had put a packet of music together from the songwriters' submissions. I had just finished the chorus of a hymn called "Lifted Up" but it wasn't anywhere near done, so I submitted "Who is Here." Each songwriter taught or performed their own song, and then everyone (including Michael Card and his melody-writing partner Scott Fraser[sp?]) critiqued and commented on each song. When I taught "Who Is Here", Michael said he would change the word "counsel" to "comfort" but other than that he like it! Robin Smith suggested that I change "Holy Spirit is" to "Holy Spirit's", and I told him that eP had already made that edit. (Everyone can expect a new edition of "Who is Here" with those edits.)

We had dinner together in the front atrium of the Performing Arts Center. Scott sat at the same table as Kaelea and me and it was really cool to get some of his perspective on music, the music industry, and it's relationship with Christian music.

There were only about 40 songwriters at the workshop so all of the sessions were intimate. The feedback session was great. Next year's Lectures theme is Micah, and Michael Card was enthusiastic about joining us again. He played several songs and sang with us, and we finished the evening with vespers. It was an awesome workshop.

September 11, 2001

I was sitting sandwiched between my dad and my brother on a shuttle bus. We had just returned our rental car and we were headed into the Detroit airport when the radio told of the crash of the first plane.

Waiting in line at the ticket counter...
waiting in line at the gate...
retrieving our luggage from baggage claim...
Karl gets a car, dad gets a hotel room...
Ike just stands there, hardly fit to watch the luggage.

3 days in our room at the red roof in, stunned.
Glued to CNN. Call home; everybody is shook.
New security requirements, rumors of new security requirements...
When will the planes take off again?
Should we rent a car?
Let's wait one more day.

First flight out of Detroit...Last flight out of Pheonix. Finally home in the middle of the night...
home in a completely different world.

No. We will never forget.

I've Been Tagged

A book that changed my life besides the Bible:
7 Habits of Highly Effective People

A book I’ve read more than once:
Children in the Night

A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island:
SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea

A book that made me laugh:
The Indispensable Calvin & Hobbes

A book that I wish had been written:
Things You're Going to Know Then and Wish You Knew Now

A book that I wish had never been written:
[I abstain.]

A book I’ve been meaning to read:
Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

I’m currently reading:
(See reading list on the left.)

Consider yourself tagged if your name starts with:
Johnathan Thomas
Kristi White
Sam Middlebrook
Lindsey Hoffman
Michael Brummett
Amanda Peterson
Elvis Presley

That's My Daughter

Someday she will be known as the woman who single-handedly solved world hunger. For now she is practicing on less urgent logistical issues.

(photo by Kaelea Graul)

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

RATING: A fascinating and delightful III

This is the second of Malcolm Gladwell's books that I've read (The Tipping Point was the first), and I thoroughly enjoyed both. Gladwell has a unique ability to weave curious observation and eccentric narrative.

THIS was book that caused me to write this post which garnered more comments than anything else I've written this year (I think.)

Some friends asked me to add a "borrow v. buy" recommendation for each book review that I write. Because my profession involves a lot of knowledge work and because I like to loan people books I think they will enjoy, I tend to buy books I'm reading with two exceptions:
1. Someone I trust brings me a book and says, "This is worth reading; borrow mine."
2. I'm very skeptical about the value of the book but I have some other motivation for reading it (pretty rare.)

Every reader has a different philosophy on "borrow v. buy" based on how much of a book collector they are, so I guess I would add this component to my existing rating system: anything III or below, I recommend a "try before you buy" policy. III means I think you'll like it. But hey, what do I know? If I rate a book as a IV, then I consider it life-changing, landmark literature, and I expect you to buy it immediately, push it on all your friends like I do, and keep it forever (whether you like it or not.)

Any questions (related specifically to the "borrow v. buy" rating system)?