Many Changes

It's been awhile since I've posted! 10/5 was my last entry, and that was more than a month and a half ago. A good, long, packed month and a half.

When I last wrote, I didn't have a key to the Sovereign Grace studio, I worked mainly up in the CLC offices, I lived at Greg's townhouse, and I didn't know what I was going to do after the end of the year.

I now not only have a key to the studio, but I pretty much live down there, making only brief trips to my new quarters in Germantown. When the year is up I will work full-time for a month at Sovereign Grace finishing an album, and in February I'll move to Nashville! Yes indeed :)

So that's the short story. To fill in a bit...

After my last post, I got pretty involved doing video work for Bob, and had the opportunity to sit in on Josh Harris' recording sessions for the audiobook of his latest work: "Dug Down Deep." Lots of great truths and applications of Christianity that have been floating around various sermons and conferences and teachings, all condensed and organized into a well-written and encouragingly small book :)

I had a fantastic trip to Pittsburgh in mid October, and really enjoyed some quality time with folks there. I also had a great weekend in Philly, enjoying the quality friendships that I've been blessed with in my sporadic visits up there.

As October slipped into November, I became more involved with the high school choir, which I had originally just been accompanying on guitar. I actually found myself alone in a room full of high schoolers, teaching a sectional for an hour. Quite an eye-opening and exhausting experience. I've been leading sectionals regularly now, and we had our first performance at an all-school chapel last week. My boys sang well, all things considered! I also started teaching guitar lessons, and wrapped up a lot of my tech team and Ken Boer projects.

November saw a transition in the overall feel of my time in Maryland. I moved out of Greg's townhouse, which had been only 5 minutes from the church. My new place is 30 minutes away, and although I have a whole floor to myself and a nicer room, the extra distance makes me more inclined to stay busy at the church than to trek home and hang out there. It's fairly stark, too: the kitchen lacks a cutting board, a scrub brush, a garbage can, dishwasher detergent, and most of the time silverware!

Around that same time--early November--I had a few discussions with Bob Kauflin, which gave me a strong vision for wanting to learn how to record and produce albums. Ken Boer had assigned me to be "project coordinator" for an EP of a few Spanish worship songs that Covenant Life wanted to produce, and as I began to tackle that in earnest, the scope quickly escalated to a "as good as we can make it with some money invested" bona fide album. The realities of peoples' schedules left me as effectively the engineer and co-producer for the album, and as rehearsal dates loomed near, my days became packed with studio work.

Since November started, the picture in my head of my life is centered around the carpeted halls of the Sovereign Grace offices. My little "office" at the desk in the studio lobby, with 2 laptops humming away. Breakfasts, lunches, and most dinners sitting on a tall stool in the sweet break room. Warm Dr. Peppers from the broken pop cooler. Starbucks "Via" instant coffees (quite good!). And the control room and studio rooms becoming like my living room as I spent hours setting up mics, snaking cables around, patching preamps and A/D's, and setting gains. It's strange to think that this is the exact same spot that I entered with trembling and awe just back in August, when Dave Mac walked me in there and we talked about the possibility of an internship.

In a way November is flying past, but honestly, as I look back on it, it has crossed the threshold of busyness, where time passage goes from flying by due to systematic occupation to crawling along in slow motion because every day is packed with a million different, new things. I much, MUCH prefer it that way. That's the way I'd like to live my life. Mike Q nailed it when he said it was like "youth camp mode." Except its a more temporally diffuse goal, and my work happens in a STUDIO, with MUSICIANS, making MUSIC! :-)

Let me tell you about this Spanish album. Which reminds me, I need to send out an email about coming up with a legit name for it :) The idea started about 10 months ago, when a fellow from Iglesia Gracia Soberana began writing some cross-centered worship songs in Spanish. Gracia Soberana is a Spanish-speaking church plant that meets in the Covenant Life facilities on Sunday afternoons. The fellow was Mauricio Velarde, and the vision was to have a disc with some cross-centered worship songs, written natively in Spanish. Virtually all the current Spanish worship songs are either lacking theologically, or are gross translations of English songs, which have great theology but utterly no lyrical flow or artistry to them. The field is wide open for these songs, and as we reviewed what Mauricio had written, Bob decided to expand the scope, since the songs were solid, and we could easily have 10 of them to make a full-sized album. We assembled a crack team of CLC musicians, and together with Mauricio began rehearsls, trying to get a bunch of white guys to play some authentic Latin music :)

Last week was our first tracking session, and the project is in full swing now. It has been highly enjoyable working with these guys, who are seasoned from years of playing. The contrast between this and working in my home studio--scurrying between the computer desk and the microphone, constantly hampered by my own unsteady playing, unable to do much with mic placement--is remarkable. This is a privilege and a joy, and there are very few things I would rather be busy doing.

As I write this, I'm laying in the top bunk of our motor home, which is parked in Huntington Beach State Park, South Carolina. The whole fam plus Uncle Keith is on Thanksgiving vacation. Yes, whole fam! Ken flew in to DC on Friday (well, early Saturday morning... long sordid tale), we drove to Pittsburgh that night (morning), and all trucked down to South Carolina to meet UK on Saturday. The weather has been gloomy and gray so far, and I have been quite sick, but it's nowhere near as unhappy as that makes it sound. It's fun just to be together, and dry humor is never far away. Neither is a cold Dr.Pepper, nor a walk to the beach, nor a game of corn hole, nor Uncle Keith's wireless internet :) Nor Daisy!! Ahh, good times. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to try out one of UK's kayaks.

I know there's a lot I haven't covered here, but I think I updated the overall "feel" of things. A few other snippets:
- Leading worship at care group now, and everybody's singin' their hearts out
- Hanging out with Mauricio and his friends, amidst a din of Spanish conversation :)
- I'm learning a TON of Spanish! This is exactly what I've always wanted to do - be surrounded by it, and learn it conversationally.
- Oh goodness, me and Justin's trip to Cleveland for Steve Gole's wedding! Staying at Eric and Bethany's, playing on the worship team at church.. ah, it was a good weekend.
- Fee came and played a concert at CLC, and I got to help with setup and running sound. They put on a kicking show, and I have tons of respect for them for truly honoring and praising God through a rock concert... not an easy thing to do.
- Walking around singing Spanish worship songs all day every day. "Sal - vo, solo por Tu gracia!"
- Google Wave with the tech team. Super-helpful daily to-do lists. Super-fun, though dubiously productive, exchanges of humor and wit.
- Starbucks. Has anyone ever had a Flying Tiger at Starbucks? You should try it next time you go. Let me know what you think!
- Harvest party! Running sound for a bluegrass band, and getting an offer to play mandolin with them.
- Getting dropped into random things like running a camera on Sunday mornings. Good way to learn quick!
- I think I spent one other Monday at the zoo, and then another one at the National Museum of Natural History. Days full of wonderment, but also a great sadness as creature after creature, marvel after marvel was threatened or nearly extinct from mankind's heedless domination of the earth. This wasn't the way God intended it to go, and the planet truly is groaning and dying under the management of fallen humanity. Makes me deeply sad.
- Oh yes, goodness: my plans for 2010. Arg. They'll have to wait for another post. For now, my mind is running full speed, but so is my nose, so I need to go to bed and let my body continue to heal itself.

To God be the glory for the merciful, undeserved grace He has been pouring out! I do not know where this road will lead, and I don't need to right now. He has given me work to do that delights my heart and advances His kingdom, and He has provided a next step to take down the road of music production. Nothing could be more undeserved, but He is good and kind. My greatest desire (other than to see Him and be like Him) is to start every day on my knees before Him, and proceed in total dependance on God, seeking His help with every task, and His blessing on every decision. Without Him, all is naught. With Him, anything is joy!