Tag: sojourn music

playlist

Mmm let these melodies sink into your soul. They are like medicine to mine. Some of them are straight from the Good Book and others sound more like foreigners, but each is part of what keeps me singing and I thought I’d share with you.

Here is an album I’m really excited to get to know more. Songs for the Book of Luke is an album “by the church, for the church” and it accompanies the Gospel Coalition’s National Conference in Florida coming up in April.

This is a song I like to sing to chase fear away. Maybe it will help chase some of yours away, too.

Sometimes it gets dark, real dark… and you forget that the night is followed by morning. Well, I forget that God has promised dawn – a bright and beautiful dawn in the work of Christ and it is sealed in our hearts. This is for those times when I need to be reminded.

And this is for those days when you just feel like you need…. more time.

And these…. these are just for fun.

Posted on by Caroline 0

Occupy Life: This Day Happened

This is another in a series of posts called Occupy Life. Read here or here or here or the original post here for more.

The sun sets on another night and the rusty colors fading ripe in the night sky fill my heart with … wonder.

Today, I didn’t uncover any philosophical gems or scientifically disprove gravity. I didn’t speak to hundreds with a riveting account of the Gospel or sacrifice all of my North American excess.

This morning, I wrestled myself free from my many blanketed cocoon to meet the day with haphazard hair and a neutral temperament. Most days, cheeriness escapes before I can even take a breath (which makes for verrrry interesting encounters when I spend nights with my sister, who requires an hour at the least before conversation – not to mention my incoherent, cheery ramblings).

Today, I ambled around … folding laundry and showering and getting ready in a somewhat alien morning stupor. And then the day happened – every last waning moment of it, filled with ribbon tying, table decorating, record-keeping, and averting the small catastrophe that would have been the tablecloths.

That’s it.

Nothing spectacular – just walking with the rhythm of life and being available to respond to oh-so-practical needs in oh-so-unromantic ways.

And sometimes – precious MANY times – this is what is required of us. No, not ribbon tying – living. But, really, really living where life is the most mundane things, not the exception to those things. If I had held my breath, waiting for this Friday to spark with out-of-the-ordinary light, I would have made the Guinness Book of World Records (or be dead).

Humming some tunes while I finish my time at my temp job; climbing into “my own little world” while I sort and organize and live.

I’ve always got a song on my heart – a soundtrack for living alive. Today, that soundtrack is this song by Sojourn, “Lead Us Back.”

Today, this is the sound of life in the ordinary and extraordinary leading to the place where we must return to see its true glory.

Lead Us Back
Falling down upon our knees
Sharing now in common shame
We have sought security
Not the cross that bears Your name
Fences guard our hearts and homes
Comfort sings a siren tune
Weʼre a valley of dry bones
Lead us back to life in You
Lord we fall upon our knees
We have shunned the weak poor
Worshipped beauty courted kings
And the things their gold affords
Prayed for those weʼd like to know
Favor sings a siren tune
Weʼve become a talent show
Lead us back to life in You

Lord Youʼve caused the blind to see
We have blinded them again
With our manmade laws and creeds
Eager ready to condemn
Now we plead before Your throne
Power sings a siren tune
Weʼve been throwing heavy stones
Lead us back to life in You.

Weʼre a valley of dry bones
Lead us back to life in You.
Weʼve become a talent show
Lead us back to life in You
Weʼve been throwing heavy stones
Lead us back to life in You.

Related articles
Posted on by Caroline 6

on Christmas music

I just had a conversation recently about when is an appropriate time to start listening to Christmas music. I have an opinion and you’ll have a hard time convincing me otherwise (you can try, of course!).

Now.
That’s my opinion.

When I was talking about it with friends, I actually said, “Whenever my heart wants it.” Generally, this sounds like bad reasoning because it can lend itself unfortunately well to being swayed by emotion. But, in this case, I mean I will turn on “O Come Let Us Adore Him” whenever my heart wants a musical backdrop for the anticipation I feel for the coming of my Savior. I love imagining myself in the Before Christ place, where I am desperately hopeful (as beautifully as the Jews) for a Messiah.

Christmas music is not about chestnuts roasting or twinkling lights for me (although there is a time and a place for those tunes as well). Christmas music always ushers in that knotted up anticipation that refuses to stay locked up in my chest.

It is always a good time, in my opinion, to anticipate my Savior (whether imagining myself in the land of pre-Jesus or understanding myself now in the pre-second coming).

Enjoy (only if you want) some such music here and please let me know your thoughts!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
(regardless of your Christmas music timeline)

Posted on by Caroline 4