SUITE I
These first four songs represent the beginning of my faith journey.
I see them as excited and intrigued and a little naïve.
(Also, let me also say that none of the sketches that i did of these songs
were ever expected to be "good." I promise, I'm not trying to be an artist that way.
Hehe...unless you like them.)
[Alpha]
I wrote this song just weeks after I released “Lifting Up.” I knew that it would be a heck of a song to base a CD around. Three years later, it’s finally recorded. This song is about God’s “sparking” good beginnings in the world around us; I find it interesting how He sparked a new CD through this song.
And by the way, the notebook on which the lyrics were written is the original notebook that i use to write songs. The original song actually took up four pages, so i re-wrote it in the most succinct format possible. I also wrote "My Lord Will Save," "Bright and Morning Star," "Consider the Stars," "Do I Have to Wait?" "Holy Ground," "Next to Knowing You," "The Wings of the Dawn," and "Omega." It's quite full.
[Ready]
This song is written about the time in my life when I took a leap of faith and left my previous empty faith life in order to find out what it meant to really follow Christ. Friends stopped talking to me, rumors were spread, and loads of guilt were piled on me for making the decision to follow Christ and leave a building that had locked so many in.
I see myself breaking out of the doors of religion in this song and leaving it all behind, in order to know God’s love. “And there is no turning back to the life that I lived anymore (it’s not that I’m unable—maybe just unwilling).”
[Consider the Stars]
Psalm 8. “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, the son of man that You care for him?”
I love this song. To me it is the musical equivalent to stargazing on a warm, summer night. I also really enjoy the similarities and differences of the first and second verses (I think it’s a weird songwriter thing). It's also my favorite piece of art from the CD.
[Next to Knowing You]
Phillipians 3:7-9. “…whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.”
When I think of the words in this song, it reminds me that this mindset is what keeps me rooted in Christ’s love. The words convey a lifestyle that sounds wonderful in theory, but is so difficult in practice. How many of us really live this way? This is something that continues to challenge me even to this day.
If you keep listening for about 15 seconds after this song, you will here a bonus instrumental track as a segue between the first and second suite of songs.
Also, please note my mad harmonica skills in this song. Oh yeah.
SUITE II
This part in the CD pretty blatantly signifies the trials in my life.
The words of the songs are packed with pain,
and they were written in a time when all I could do was be honest with God,
and I honestly was not feeling any comfort and was honestly pretty angry about it. 
[Do I Have to Wait?]
Psalm 13. “How Long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?”
I wrote this song a few years ago, and although I don’t remember exactly what I was going through, I believe this was written during the beginning of my struggles with social anxiety disorder. I brought this song out again this summer through the worst of my anxiety, which ended up taking me into a depression for which I am being treated now. (For more information about my anxiety and depression, check out the news story on my homepage.)
This song paints a very accurate picture of my anxiety and depression. Words didn’t rhyme anymore, and the dissonance of the instrument parts shows my extreme frustration. The piano arrangement is supposed to signify me banging my head up against a wall (but don’t worry, I never actually banged my head up against a wall; thank God, my depression does not result in hurting myself).
[My Lord Will Save]
Acts 16: 25. Paul and Silas are beaten and broken and imprisoned, and yet they were “praying and singing hymns to God.”
And that’s why I sing: “I will praise Your name every minute that I’m trapped down here (like a prisoner who’s done no wrong.)”
[Holy Ground]
This song represents a renewal of the spirit. Through every difficult time I’ve experienced, I have come out of it with a new understanding about the love and beauty of God. “I have come to seek Your face. There’s healing in Your love’s embrace. I’m standing on holy ground.”
Notice the cameo of the piano melody from “Next to Knowing You” at the end of this song. I put it there to explain that, even after my horribly difficult time of trouble, I came back—in worship—to God and found again that “all that I own, all I control…I consider all of this as loss, next to knowing You.”
[I Dream of a World]
I wrote this song after hearing Martin Luther King’s “Mountaintop” speech—the powerful, prophetic, very last speech he gave before he was killed. In the spirit of his vision, I wrote this song. If you haven’t heard Dr. King’s whole speech, I strongly recommend that you watch it on YouTube or something.
[Bright and Morning Star]
This song is only eight lines long, yet I think it is still really powerful. It began as a personal confession to God about my sinfulness, but as it grew, it became a confession from me on behalf of our society, apologizing for the ways in which all of us have contributed to our brokenness. “We need You now. Make us clean somehow. Bright and Morning Star, rise above the dark and give us hope; give us peace; give us love.”
After I recorded it, I still felt like it was missing something. Then it started to rain. Luckily my mom was home that day, so her and I ran from window to window in my house with my recording equipment trying to find the best sample of rain. Now I believe that the rain kinda makes the song complete. I think God enjoys throwing His own personal touches in there.
[Sonrise *bonus track*]
Eph. 5:14. …it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
I must also talk about the hidden track that plays about 30 seconds after Bright and Morning Star. It’s called “Sonrise” and I originally didn’t want it in the CD, but after I started to understand what this album was becoming, I felt that I needed to add this. Plus, I love the song. What a great segue to the next suite of the CD. Oh, and that’s why I wrote “wake, o sleeper” on the CD itself.
In these songs I have a renewed enthusiasm to follow Christ,
and since I’ve gone through the worst, I really have something to praise God about.
[“I Listened for You” or “What a Beautiful Sound”]
1Kings 19:11-12. “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”
This song is not only an interpretation of the story from the Scriptures; I believe it is also a metaphor for today’s culture. The common metaphor used for this verse is to literally get rid of the noise and distractions (you know, unplug the television, turn off the cell phone) in order to listen to God. The message I intended for this song was that, in order to find God in our lives (while having times of quiet rest to listen to His voice is wonderful), we must also strip away all the big, frustrating, noisy religious burdens that keep us from focusing on Jesus. I don’t think God is in the restrictive walls of denominations, nor is He in the noise of rules; but in the silence in the hearts of those who follow Him alone.
Also, there are two titles because this song was originally called "The Sound of Silence." I was informed later that there was already a Simon & Garfunkel song by that title, so to avoid copyright infringement, I changed the title. Coming up with one title for an obviously two-part song is extremely difficult, so the dual-option current title works for me. That darn Simon & Garfunkel. I had never even heard that song. Haha.
[The Wings of the Dawn]
Psalm 199:105. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Psalm 139:9. “If I rise on the wings of the dawn, ...even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.” This song almost didn’t make it onto the CD, but I’m glad it’s on there now. I think this song could hold hands with “Ready,” because they’re both about taking a step away from what doesn’t matter and finding that all hope is found in Jesus.
I wrote it as a response to some people questioning the legitimacy of my spiritual journey. At the time, people from the church I had left were doubting the possibility of finding any fullness of life outside of the church building’s four walls, and therefore guessing that I was doomed. Also, I was being confronted by people outside the church who told me that they didn’t think I’d make a very good minister. So this was my response to them, knowing full well that God was holding on to me and lighting my path. 
[The Land of the Living]
Psalm 27. “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour me flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear, though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. …This is what I seek: …to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
There’s something about this song that gives me hope every time I sing it. It’s a wonderful thing to know that you can look at evil right in the eye and say, “Bring it on. Make your move. I will not fear.”
[Victory]
1Cor 9:24. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
Along with “The Wings of the Dawn,” this song almost didn’t make the cut. I wrote the song years back, and up until a week before the completion of recording, it was a very “country music-sounding” song. It had a folk beat to it and it was always fun when I played it live, but it just wasn’t coming out right for me. I had given up when I tried to play it with my friend/drummer Johnny. In five minutes, the song turned from “drivin’ down the road tryin’ to loosen my load,” to AWESOME. So I recorded it with the new drumbeat, and we have victory. I’m crazy about this song. Thanks, Johnny.
Oh, and the reason this artwork is so boring is because I intended to put it together to make it look like a transparency that a church without of proper projection system would use at their worship services. 
[Omega]
Matthew 28:20. “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The notebook here is not the notebook in which I wrote "Omega," but it is where i wrote "Ready," "I Listened...," "The Land of the Living," "I Dream of a World, and "Sonrise."
Right after I wrote “Alpha,” I knew that I needed to write an “Omega” song. I knew God was taking me somewhere with this, so I started writing. And I came up with nothing. Nothing at all. After a long time of trying to force an Omega song, I gave up and dropped the idea of an Alpha&Omega album. A little later I talked to my friend Tami Ebner, a wonderful woman who has been a spiritual mentor and a close friend of mine for years. I told her my dilemma and how I had given up on it, and she told me about her idea for Omega. She said that she always thinks about the verse in Matthew 28 when Jesus says to His friends, “…and truly I am with you always, until the very end of the age.” So she told me that whenever she thinks of Omega, she doesn’t think that God’s the End, but more the Always. There’s the song. A day later, it was written. What a gift. 